MinjaeKim wrote:Professor Hahn mentioned you in his writing
[i]Robert Jasiek who is a bit weirdo studying only the go rules is also a Berliner. When I was in Berlin a few days ago, he walked towards me. I supposedly thought that he's coming to greet me so I smiled, but his first word to me was "I don't like your system". I asked, "Why don't you?", and he replied, "It is contrary to the fundamentals of baduk." I said, "What do you know about the fundamentals of baduk? Have you ever participated in my tournament?". He says, "Do you think I'd participate in such tournament?", and went away. He didn't even say a single "Hello!" to me.
If this is "typical" for anything, then for its misrepresentation of my person.
I met Sangdae Hahn at a few occasions. For the first time, in Incheon at the 1. International Conference on Baduk, where we were treated like VIPs including almost a week of sightseeing in Seoul. Concerning only the Berlin-related occasions, it was as follows:
1) A group of Koreans incl. Hahn travelled through Europe by bus. Before Prague, they noticed that they missed contact information for go players, called me (a Berliner) because they could easily find my phone number and asked me to give them contact information of go players in Prague. I do not recall if Hahn, his wife or another person called me. Anyway, I looked in the internet for half an hour. When they called me again, I gave them some suitable contact information.
2) IIRC, a few days later that group came to Berlin. I went to a go club to meet a few of them. Then suddenly Hahn explained that they wanted to have a meeting elsewhere in the city to talk about likely sponsor prize money for the then planned German KPMC preliminary. Ok, why not, I thought. So a few Berliners incl. me went to that meeting and we had related discussions. (The tournament started a few years later.)
3) Was it the same travel group? They asked for a few Berliners to accompany the Korean sightseeing travel tour through Berlin and Potsdam. I participated for a full day. Well, I tried. I like to be punctual. In Korea, I had seen that there punctual meant 25 minutes late. So I thought: If I am 5 minutes early, this is good enough even if I miss a local city transport connection. And sure enough, for the first time in years, my local bus was missing and I had to take the next one 20 minutes later. So I arrived ca. a quarter of an hour late, the bus with the Koreans had already gone, I called them, the bus came back and I entered to explain them their preferred sights.
4) A few years(?) later, another Korean travel group with Hahn in Berlin asked for sightseeing help again, but I had no time at that date.
5) Probably again a few years later, Hahn visited a tournament in Berlin (was it the KPMC preliminary?) and there the incident translated by you occurred. I do not recall the exact contents of my short talk with Hahn, but in my memory the Hahn system was mentioned by one of us, he asked "Do you like it?" and I replied "No!". Presumably I also gave a short explanation for my opinion. - I do not recall who might or might not have said "Hello". Maybe neither of us. It can be like this at go tournaments when everybody sees everybody else but does not run to everybody saying "Hello" but at some time a talk can occur nevertheless.
The reported description "studying only the go rules" is, of course, false, Hahn knows it better, and so I do not think that he would have described me so (except maybe as a joke). It reads more like an anecdote having lost connection to its source and being exaggerated into a one-sided report by a go "journalist".
Ask minue622 what he would say about my occurrence in Korean or Chinese newspapers. According to him, I would be more popular in Seoul for my ICOB speech than I am among Western players. Chinese newspapers appear to have reported my fair and neutral contribution to the International Go Rules Forum. Well, this would partly explain why I am sometimes known as a rules expert even in Asia:)
. He did misspell your name as "Yasiek", but here it goes.