Sorry in advance for the novel, but I thought some of you might find it interesting.

I moved to Taiwan in the fall to teach English and learn Chinese, and pursue some other sinophile interests like calligraphy, drinking great tea, and, of course, go. Unfortunately, its been very tough to find people to play with, largely because my Chinese is not great and I've been trying to find someone who also speaks English. In general, it just seems like go is not that popular. Everyone here knows what it is, kind of, but it is always known as "that game that old men play in the park" and often, they are actually playing shan qi.

Last week I finally gave up in using the internet to find somebody to play with, and headed off for the taiwanese go association. The office is on the third floor of a rather dingy building (most buildings here are dingy), but on the inside, the room was great. A large room filled with beautiful tables and sets. Two friendly ladies came over and in our mixture of bad English and worse Chinese, they gave me the address to a go salon, as well as a copy of the latest go publication, which of course featured Joanne Missingham on the cover.

I headed out for the salon, wondering what kind of strength I would find there. I was anticipating people that had been playing for a while, but were these people that seriously studied, or just played for fun? In my experience, people that never study and only play as a past time often plateau as a ddk, but my experience isn't that experienced.

When I got there, it was about how I pictured it would be. Maybe ten old men playing, drinking tea, people watching other games, go mags and books everywhere, the smell of a place that until recently you were allowed to smoke in. I tried talking to the receptionist, who didn't speak a word of English, told her I wanted to play, wondered if anyone spoke English, and then if it was alright if I just watched. Being a very tall foreigner, of course, I was getting a lot of looks.

After a few minutes of watching a game, a big Taiwanese version version of Wilford Brimley stood up and asked me if I wanted to play (in English). I excitedly said yes as everyone stared. He invited me over, and then began to ask me if I was a k or a d. I said k and he didn't quite believe me. I said maybe around 12 k and he said I was being modest. He explained that everyone in the room was a d, and that most of them were around 5d. I wasn't quite sure if I should belive that, after all, that would mean that every person in the room was better than the best player I'd ever talked to in person, a 1dan in portland. I watched him and a friend finish their game, and then he invited me to play.

At this point I was made to pay, which is pretty funny, as there must be some law that makes it so that you can't charge for go, because the woman brought over a tea that I had to purchase for around $6 US, which is quite expensive here. Altho the tea was quite nice.

He gave me 4 stones and slaughtered me. He was nice about it, playing soft, and letting me putz about long after it was clear that I had lost. For the record, I played terribly, perhaps too eager, and also partly because I hadn't played a face to face game for maybe 4 months.

Of course, it is hard for someone of my level to judge his, but suffice to say that the men in that room were all much more talented than I had expected. After the game I asked if he was interested in teaching, and he very strongly said no, but that his friend that he had been playing might. His friend, who apparrently speaks ok English, agreed to a teaching game, perhaps more expensive than it should be, but I'm excited nonetheless. The game is actually in about an hour, so I should go, but I thought I would share that before I go.

On a related note, I am trying hard to retrain myself to call it weiqi, partially because im in a Chinese speaking country, and partly to avoid the horrible accidental puns like that of the previous sentence.

Enjoy.

Quite the adventure. Thanks for sharing. How did your lesson go?

The lessons have been great. My teacher is a 6 dan, and known as the strongest 6 dan in the place. He also speaks a little bit of english, but there is a language gap. The good part of that is that I am learning much of the jargon in chinese, and he, surprisingly to me, knows much of the Japanese jargon. This is possibly because his brother, as it turns out, is a 6p living in Japan. Last week I couldn't make it to my lesson, but apparrently he had brought me a book that his brother had written as a gift, even though I had only had two lessons with him. The Taiwanese are an exceptionally friendly, giving bunch.
I do have a practical question, however. I don't think he is very used to giving lessons, and I have never had them. In one lesson we replayed a game I had recently played, and in the other two, him and I played a game, and then he replayed it (from memory) and critiqued it. For both, we talked about terms and concepts, and did some problems, and he showed me josekis and sequences. Does anyone out there have any tips for useful exercises to do with a teacher? He is mild mannered enough to want to do whatever I want, but I dont really know what to do...

i have a friend Paul who took some lessons, and his teacher taught in the following manner. they would play a game, and the teacher would focus on one particular type of mistake throughout the game. such as the correct time to double hane.
he learned a lot from him, and that seems to me to be a good way to teach.

Brodie,

Brodie,

Thanks Ed, I appreciate that. My ADD and busy schedule have often deterred me from playing more live games, but starting back on kgs recently made me realize that i need to play more live games. I realized i avoid many mistakes by being able to carefully analyze the situation, and that i need to learn to avoid them more instinctually, as when i play live i make mistakes i normally wouldn't while playing on dgs. Of course, I think the benefit of playing turn-based games is that it almost seems like tsumego practice, helping you with reading and it makes you analyze whole-game situations (in case you have forgotten since the last time you played). But it sounds like more experienced players might disagree.
Part of taking lessons is that I just really enjoy the whole experience, the weiqi, the chinese, the tea, and all of that, so im not hellbent on making sure i am learning as much as possible from this teacher. But i have wondered, is the highest dan teacher always the best? I wonder if a 2 or 3 k might not actually be a better teacher for a 10 k, because they can more easily relate. Depends on the teacher, i suppose...

Hi Brodie,