June, July, JAPAN!: Go

I have to admit that the events of this post took place more than a week ago, but I’m only getting around to blogging about it now. As my last week in Japan starts, I’m getting pretty busy with classes, packing, and, you know, enjoying my last week in Japan. So you can probably expect lots of belated blog posts after I get back to the U.S. next Saturday.

So one of the extracurricular classes that we got to take was a class on the game of Go. This is the Japanese name for the game—it was started about 4000 years ago in China, and reached Japan and Korea soon after. The basic tools of the game are ban (a square-ruled board) and black and white ishi (stones):

9x9 for us beginners, 13x13 for intermediates, and 19x19 for the pros

We didn’t get to play right away though. First we got the rules of the game explained to us in Japanese. (He was contrasting the language used to describe Go on the board with the language used to describe Chess, hence the bit of English up there. Where we use the verb “to play” to describe the act of chess, the Japanese use the verb that means “to strike” to describe Go. It’s because of the way that you definitively and confidently place your stone on the board once you’ve decided on where to put it). (It makes a really nice, satisfying tap. You put one down and feel like you’ve accomplished something). (Even if you still have no idea what you’re doing….)

Then there was the explanation of more advanced strategies, and some students got the chance to go up to the board and make the wrong move (which they thought was right since the sensei was leading them into it). Then the Go sensei would explain the more strategic move.

It appeared that after a day of classes the strategy explanations may have been too in depth for Samik and Sandra, who developed their own use for the ban and ishi.