Matarilevich:
> you can play 1.e4,e5 2.Qh5
well, of course, because you have white, you can lose the advantage of being white, I guess if you are black, it is more difficult to play 1. Cf3 h6 2. Cc3 a6, because the development is also very important in chess.

About giving a pawn or two to gain tempos :
In some situation, you can give a pawn to gain initiative, like in kings gambit.

In chinese chess, a pawn has less value than in real chess, and there is no "pawn structure", as in chess. What's more, a pawn has very little value in the opening.

For most of us occidental chess players, we tend to play xiangqi in the same way we would play chess, which is probably a handicap sometimes. Asian players, which are far superiors, mostly do not care of losing pawns or elefants or even cannon, because they see the development as a major challenge and do not concentrate too much on material.

Maybe we are just like "bunnies" for many chinese players, because we did not learn the game as kids and no one did teach us the strategy correctly.

Maybe when we win against chinese, we have to win tactically, by calculating further, even we suffer domination on the board.

I am not convinced I would lose against a chinese GM with 2 knights handicap. Nor would I lose against Kasparov with 2 knights handicap. I do not know...