Dressed in varying shades of purple, she looks like most other teenage Chinese girls. She wears a light purple down jacket, a lavender scarf and a dainty violet hairclip sweeps her short bob across her bare forehead - an indication of high intelligence, according to the art of Chinese face reading. It's an apt trait for Hou Yifan, the youngest-ever Women's World Chess Champion and a child prodigy of the sport in China since the age of 12.
But Hou, who turns 18 on Monday, isn't keen on being dubbed a "prodigy." She doesn't like the fact people see her as a genius of the chessboard and speculate on her intelligence quotient (IQ). "I have never tested my IQ. It would never be higher than others anyway," she dismissed modestly, adding that "everyone has something they are good at."
Her achievements on the chessboard have peaked during her latest two victories. The first marked a successful defense of her Women's World Chess Champion title in November last year, while earlier this month she comprehensively defeated 35-year-old Hungarian Judit Polgár, who had been previously undefeated for more than 20 years.
Unlike other public figures whose ups and downs are played out in the media spotlight, Hou and her parents prefer to keep a low profile away from the game that she has taken by storm.
Picking up the pieces
Hou was born in 1994 in Xinghua county, Jiangsu Province, near the north banks of the Yangtze River. Her father, Hou Xuejian, works at a local procuratorate, and mother, Wang Qian, works at a hospital.
Like many Chinese parents, Hou and Wang encouraged their daughter to take up hobbies at an early age. She learnt to play traditional Chinese instrument the erhu and studied calligraphy to foster her creativity. Her talent for chess first emerged at the age of five. "I found she was fascinated by the process of moving checkers on the hexagonal draughts board," said Hou Xuejian, 44, referring to the Chinese variant of the game.
Hou's parents decided to send her to the local Children's Palace - a public facility where children enjoy extra-curricular activities - to learn chess. However, the young girl had a choice to make: Chinese or Western chess?
"I picked up [Western] chess. Why? Because I liked the exquisite looks of the pieces - the knight and the queen looked more beautiful than pieces from other chess," she recalled with a giggle.
And so began the ordinary girl's extraordinary career in chess. She turned professional with a club in Shandong Province at the age of seven. Two years later, she moved to Beijing where she was recruited for the National Chess Team by former head coach Ye Jiangchuan, who made great efforts to cultivate her talents at the chessboard.
Leaving home for Beijing
Hou's parents joined their daughter in moving to Beijing, giving up their jobs in Jiangsu to provide companionship as their daughter pursued her dream at the National Chess Center (NCC), a government-run training academy. The family rents a modest 50-square-meter apartment in east Beijing's Dongcheng district, nearby the NCC. The monthly rent of 3,000 yuan ($476) is substantially higher than the cost of living in their native Jiangsu, but it's a sacrifice Hou's parents are willing to make. "It is not cheap," the senior Hou said. "But it saves her time traveling in between home and the training academy."
She spends more than six hours daily training at the academy's old building. Though the intensive professional training is boring, Hou Xuejian said his daughter "rarely complains" and has "overcome all difficulties as a result of her persistence, advancing smoothly and steadily."
"I don't remember the last time I cried," Hou Yifan said, obviously reluctant to share her emotions. "Other children have colorful and vivid lives at school, whereas I gain my enjoyment from taking part in various tournaments. I rarely get nervous about anything. I am a slow-paced person, which is probably a merit I learned from my parents when I was a baby," added Hou, who doesn't have any special superstitions or rituals attached to playing chess.
Her father attributes her calmness to her wide reading, a contention the young bookworm agrees with. "I've read classic motivational works such as How to Win Friends and Influence People and A Message to Garcia, along with other books on psychological matters," she said.
Always two moves ahead
In her spare time, Hou is like other teenage girls. She likes swimming, surfing the Internet, listening to music, reading books and studying English. Her meteoric rise in the world of chess has made learning English even more important, and helped her give interviews to many foreign reporters curious about the Chinese star.
Hou's academic aspirations involve enrolling at university in China, most likely at Peking University, where she hopes to study literature.
Because of her professional commitments as a chess Grandmaster, Hou is exempt from taking the gaokao (high school leaving examination) to enroll at university.
Instead, she said she only needs to "meet special enrolment requirements of a particular university."
Like other Chinese athletes, Hou's outstanding achievements in chess have opened many doors of opportunity. She has signed with a sports agency and has an agent negotiating her publicity commitments, including visiting schools in her hometown and encouraging children to learn chess.
"Proper ways of exploring her commercial value would help other Chinese chess players find a new model of development," said mentor Ye Jiangchuan. "She has evolved into a mature, sensible chess player."
While Hou might be the queen of Chinese chess at home, she yearns for a simpler lifestyle not necessarily hinging on fame in the game.
In her eyes, chess has virtues and strategies that can serve one well away from the board.
"You have to be sensible and thoroughly consider every aspect, including the timing and thoughts of your opponents. It's constant, not just for a single move," she explained matter-of-factly.
"You have to anticipate the next several moves your opponent will make before you move your piece. That way, there's no possibility for regret."
