Chinese checkers finishers. The rules are simple, so even young children can play. Despite its name, the game is not a variation of checkers, nor did it originate in China or any part of Asia (whereas the game 象棋 "xiangqi", or "Chinese chess", is from China). The game was invented in Germany in 1892 under the name "Stern-Halma" as a variation of the older American game Halma. The "Stern" (German for "star") refers to the board's star shape (in contrast to the square board used in Halma). The name "Chinese Checkers" originated in the United States as a marketing scheme by Bill
General Chinese example. The character text is no different in GC and standard Chinese, apart from 裏 "lǐ", which in any case has now been substituted with Chao's choice of 里 on the Mainland. Note that simplified characters like this would affect all of Chao's proposal, so that 對 below would become 对, etc. The only other difference is 他 "tā" for 'her', which may differ from contemporary written Chinese 她, but which follows Classical usage. General Chinese General Chinese ( "Tung-dzih") is a diaphonemic orthography invented by Yuen Ren Chao to represent the pronunciations of all major varieties of Chinese simultaneously.