BK is the best playsite for correspondence Xiangqi I know of. You can take your time to look into a position and make your move when you are satisfied with your analysis.

- Do you write down your analysis and comments on paper?
- Or do you key your analysis into a text document?
You will get a mess in short time playing several games in parallel.
- Is your analysis work lost when the game is over?
- In case you don't mind about noting down your thoughts, have you ever forgotten your answer to your opponents move that you had prepared in advance?
- How do you actually record your games?

There is a solution for recording, analyzing, annotating and storing Xiangqi games:
The free XQ database software "Chinese Chess Bridge" or short "CCBridge". (see also discussion board entry 22. December 2011).
Where to get, how to install and use CCBridge is presented in a recently updated and extended English manual. Follow the link
CCBridge Manual

>>>>> Try it and have your own view. <<<<<

Happy new year!

P-G: Part of the menu is translated already. Refer to the 'How to...' section of the manual for actions you want to do. Main things are covered there.
Maybe there will be more topics in the future, but not very soon. Sorry.
Have fun with what is there!

Dear Xiangqi friends!

There is a very popular, extremely powerful free Xiangqi database software "CCBridge" almost unknown to Nonasians, as it is Chinese and no English version exists. Nevertheless I like to recommend CCBridge because of its mighty functions: You can input, save and view games (including variations!), create libraries, find games according to search criteria (opening, player, result, position, endgame formation, etc ...), use already existing libraries to improve your strength.

Really great software - Must have!!!

You can download CCBridge at http://www.ccbridge.net/ .
To overcome an obstacle -the language barrier- a manual in English was just written. It makes it easy to work with CCBridge. You get the manual at the download section of "Xiangqi in English" via http://www.xqinenglish.com/ >> OTHERS >> DOWNLOAD (Nr 5).

CCBridge makes it possible to store all games of eg. National Championships or other events in only one file and share them by uploading it to your website, where interested parties can download it. No need to create pages with 10s of boards to view games anymore!
You can create opening and endgame manuals like Hans-Joachim Siewert did in the literature section of the European Xiangqi Federation http://www.chinaschach.de/ (Thanks a lot!) and view them directly on your screen without reading papers or PDFs.

So: Install CCBridge, test it and enjoy!

Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year!
Kind regards, Georg

MengTzu:
NO to all 4.
It is easy to learn a few chinese characters and you will be familiar with them after 1-2 games.
I have more fun playing with original pieces. I regard special boards and pieces as an additional barrier.
There are better ways to make Xiangi more popular in non-asian countries than to invent a new design.

Hello to every chess enthusiast,
I like to recommend to everybody who is interested in Chinese Chess (Xiangqi) a really good new website called "Xiangqi in English" (http://www.xqinenglish.com/). There you can find for the first time material on Xiangqi in English, which was only available in Chinese so far. Because there is a great lack of English Xiangqi resources, I regard "Xiangqi in English" as the coming up No1 recource for western Xiangqi.
The scope of "Xiangqi in English" covers basics, openings, midgames, endgames and ancient manuals. Your strenght in Xiangqi will profit from general guidelines as well as from variants and comments given in analysis. The material increases day by day, due to the great efforts of Jim, who runs the website.
You can visit "Xiangqi in English" also on Facebook, where Jim publishes three Xiangqi-puzzles every day. You can try to solve them, no matter if you are a beginner or an advanced player.
But have a look yourself and check things out. If you like it, tell your friends.
Kind regards, Georg