Across China: Couples favored, feared in making world's best GO pieces

It is generally acknowledged at the Yunnan Weiqi (GO) Factory in southwest China's Yunnan Province, where China's best Go pieces, known as yunzi, are made that married couples do the best work.

Yunzi makers sit in front of a clay oven, where minerals are melted, and use special spoons to scoop up the minerals and drop them onto an iron slab where they are pressed. Making a piece requires intense attention, precision, and good wrist action.

Yang Jianheng and Li Zongmei are a young couple recently hired by the factory to make the yunzi. Yang drives the spoon and his wife does the pressing -- squeezing any tiny bubbles from compressed minerals.

Timing is vital. "I watch closely and decide when and how hard to press. It should still be warm enough to drive out the bubbles. If I am too late, it can be too hard," said Li, the wife.

Nie Yanping, production director of the factory, said the couples have a better rapport than ordinary work colleagues and such harmony can only be achieved after years of being together.

"The couples understand each other well. They know each other's pace and ways and can readily respond to one another," Nie said.

The factory has 30 people in the production department, and there are seven couples. Some couples, however, do not work together.

"If the husband is the yunzi maker, the wife cannot examine and grade the pieces," said Nie, citing quality control concerns.

Go, a board game for two players, originated in China thousands of years ago. The ancient process of making Yunzi was lost towards the end of the Ming Dynasty. In 1974, the formula was reinvented but the process remains secret.

In 2009, yunzi and the production process were listed as intangible cultural heritage in Yunnan.

Each yunzi requires 12 procedures before it hits the shelf. Gu Lei, 19, is the youngest apprentice in the factory. After a year's training, he can only make two sets of half-finished yunzi a day.

"It all comes down to the inner peace," said Liu Tingju, the most-experienced yunzi master in the factory.

"You can only make a piece when your heart is at peace and you have no distracting thoughts. If I'm in a bad mood, my hands get stiff and the yunzi I make will have bubbles and be slight misshapen. Sometimes, the success rate is only 10 to 20 percent," said Liu.

Yunnan Weiqi now takes up 30 percent of the Chinese Go market, and exports to the United States, Canada and other countries. Endit