A 14-year-old Chinese boy qualified Wednesday to train to become a professional player of shogi, becoming the first foreign national living abroad to do so.
Zhang Xin, a resident of Shanghai, passed a series of tests and a written exam and interview in Tokyo between Monday and Wednesday during the screening process of a Japan Shogi Association group that nurtures professional players.
While there have been cases of foreigners qualifying to join the group in the past, they were all residents of Japan, the group said.