The Go Player's Guide

The Go Player's Guide to Japan: "I love go so much"
November 25, 2002
by Chris Garlock

After the Pair Go Tournament ended last Monday, I left Tokyo in search of go adventures. Over the course of five days last week, I traveled to go-related sites in Osaka, Kyoto and Miyazaki. I saw Sansa's mulberry go board, knelt before Shusaku's grave in Innoshima and played rengo at the Iwami No Kami shrine in Kaibara. In Miyazaki I watched nondescript chunks of wood become beautifully-finished gobans worth thousands of dollars and ordinary-looking clamshells transformed into polished go stones.

Everywhere I went, I met go players who unhesitatingly welcomed me into their go clubs, their temples and even their homes. Though I was a complete stranger who could only speak a few halting words in their language, they patiently answered my questions and embraced my quest as though it were their own, as indeed, it is, for we are all following the path of go.

In a special series over the next few weeks, I'll report on my go experiences, adventures and observations. Although I covered a lot of ground, my visit was brief and there's much I did not see; I welcome your comments and suggestions, especially from readers who live or travel in Japan. As in so many other things -- monks with the latest cellphones, for example -- go in Japan is a study in contrasts. While Hikaru no Go has generated new popularity for go among Japanese youngsters, I saw virtually no kids at clubs outside the major go centers in Tokyo and Osaka. These "go kaisho" -- often no larger than a living room with a dozen or so men chain-smoking and drinking endless cups of green tea over well-worn boards -- are ubiquitous throughout the country and, in many ways are arguably the soul of the game, the countless places where go is part of the day-to-day fabric of each community's life. "It's an old man's game," my young interpreter in Innoshima said, evidencing both the old Japanese respect for elders and a newer generation's distance from tradition.

Everywhere I found intense pride but also concern about the game's future, as many I spoke with noted that Korea and China not only produce stronger players now, but are far ahead of Japan in training the next generation of go players. Go's natural resources have been depleted, as well: there's little kaya left and hardly any of the Miyazaki clamshells that yield the highest-grade stones.

Yet at the Kansai Ki-in in Osaka I met an 11-year-old who just became the second-youngest pro ever. Harumi Takechi, my host in Osaka and a regular on the Pair Go circuit, could not attend the International Pair Go Tournament in Tokyo because she was playing in a women's tournament in Miyazaki with hundreds of players from around the country. And Innoshima, birthplace of Shusaku, recently declared go the city's official cultural sport, earning it the unofficial title of "The City of Go".

Perhaps the most striking thing that I found was a deep, almost religious passion for the game of go. At a farewell party in Kyoto on Saturday, my host and new friend Susumu Hyodo shocked me during a game analysis by declaring one of my moves "rubbish" and tossing the offending stone dismissively on the board. Such a direct and unvarnished criticism was highly unusual during my visit: the most anyone would say when I asked for advice was Hmm, maybe you could play here instead. But Hyodo-san, like many of the players I met during my travels, cares deeply about go and an ugly move is as distasteful to him as a bad piece of sashimi. As we traveled from place to play in a sometimes endless succession of buses, trains and automobiles, Hyodo-san would give me go homework and then, while I dozed, he'd painstakingly check it over and then review it with me while the train rattled along to wherever go adventure we were bound that day. I might have thought him a bit unusual except that during the farewell party Saturday, the topic of intense discussion and debate among the dozen go players was how to get more kids playing and the best method of teaching beginners.

"The reason I arranged many visits for you during your visit to Japan is very simple," Hyodo-san told me. "I love go so much. So, I love a person who loves go. I believe you love go. That's all. See you again here or there."

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