The Go Player's Guide

The Go Player's Guide to Japan: Pilgrimage to In-noshima
December 16, 2002
by Chris Garlock

NOTE: In this special series, E-Journal editor Chris Garlock reports on his go experiences, adventures and observations during a recent trip to Japan. Comments and suggestions -- especially from readers who live or travel in Japan - are most welcome.

It's profoundly appropriate that to visit Shusaku's grave you've got to take trains, busses, hitch a ride in a car and then climb a sharply ascending path on foot. It's also fitting that the final resting place for the greatest go player in history is unremarkable, a plain stone marker among a hillside of plain stone markers.

Honinbo Shusaku (1829-1862) was born on In-noshima, a gorgeous little island lapped by the sparkling blue water of Japan's Inland Sea. In-noshima's steep green hills are dappled with fruit groves and the beauty and seclusion of the place explain why pirates made it their hideout. Shusaku's mother taught him go when he was four and by six he was already a prodigy. He went to Tokyo at the ripe old age of eight to study with Honinbo Jowa and made shodan when he was ten years old. At 17, he took four straight games from the great Gennan Inseki, an astounding accomplishment for a green 4-dan against a seasoned 8-dan. In 1848, still eight months shy of his 20th birthday, Shusaku was made heir to Honinbo Shuwa. Now entitled to participate in the annual castle games played in the presence of the shogun, Shusaku played and won 19 castle games, the only player to do so in the 250-year history of castle games. Shusaku is one of just two go players great enough to earn the accolade of "Go Saint (Honinbo Dosaku is the other).

That's history and there's lots more in both "The Go Player's Almanac" and John Power's indispensable "Invincible: The Games of Shusaku." But walk up that steep path to Shusaku's grave and kneel there on the hard pebbles after pouring the traditional ladle of water over the gravestone and you'll feel the restless spirit of the great master still moving among the stones. This is more than mere fancy, for it turns out that down the hill is Shusaku's birthplace, where his eldest brother's granddaughter still lives and maintains a memorial. On display is the goban on which Shusaku's mother taught him to play, scrolls recording the young prodigy's comet-like ascent to the pinnacle of the go world, a wall full of books, fans, wall hangings and artwork about Shusaku. On the wall hangs a reminder of the pirate days, a 10-foot long sword used by wives to defend themselves while their husbands were away. On the way out there are guest books to sign: I look back through the stack filled with beautiful signatures inscribed in kanji: aside from a few European go pilgrims, there are virtually no Western visitors to the birthplace of the great master.

Go is very much alive in Shusaku's hometown, 140 years after he died of cholera in 1862. Gisho Murakami, President of In-noshima's Igo Association, takes me on a grand go tour of the town, which in addition to Shusaku's birthplace and grave, also boasts a go club in the town community center with internet go access on a computer in the corner, handwritten tallies of tournaments against visiting clubs, regular classes for children and of course the usual chain-smoking oldsters perched over well-dimpled table boards dusty with cigarette ash.

After a sumptuous lunch at the posh hotel that now stands where a pirate castle once overlooked the bay, Murakami continues the tour, showing me the playing rooms on the hotel's second floor where major title tournaments have been played so often that the ceilings are equipped for the television cameras needed to broadcast the games. In-noshima has taken its commitment to go even farther: in 1997 the city officially declared go In-noshima's "Official Cultural Sport," the only community thus far to do so in all of Japan. And twice a year, In-noshima hosts a Shusaku Festival, featuring a pro-am tournament, simultaneous games and a final played out on stage before a full auditorium of hundreds of go fans. Small wonder that Shusaku's hometown has been dubbed "The City of Go." In a tourist twist we can only hope American cities will soon pick up on, In-noshima has pioneered "Igo catering" a scheme wherein visiting go players can ring up the local go association, which will arrange to send over a local player matched to the appropriate playing strength.

"What did you pray for?" they ask after we descend from Shusaku's grave. "For better understanding of the game," I answer. It was a long way to go to pour a cup of water over a piece of rock but I'd do it all over again in an instant.

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