Life In 19x19

As mentioned in another thread, Rui Naiwei's participation in the Asian Games as a member of the Chinese delegation has caused grumbling in South Korea. I cannot read Korean, so I could not get their perspective, but here is a translation of an article representative of what is being said on Tom and other popular Chinese-language sites.

When the Zhongguo Qiyuan announced the female delegation to the Asian Games, and Rui Naiwei made the list, they did not expect a controversy with South Korea. However, a South Korean newspaper reported that some Korean professionals grumbled that after ten years of playing with the Hankuk Kiwon, using the opportunities for matches and prize money, and being granted formal professional status, Rui Naiwei now wants to represent China and become the greatest obstacle to a South Korean gold medal. South Korean professionals find this difficult to accept. Now the Hankuk Kiwon is reportedly reevaluating the rights and obligations of foreign-born professional players.

Zhongguo Qiyuan president Liu Siming talked with a reporter about Korean dissatisfaction with the announcement. In his opinion, there should be no problem with Rui Naiwei's participation. He said that this is not the first time that Rui Naiwei has represented China in international play, such as the first World Mind Sports Games. He also made an analogy to football, noting that a famous Portuguese player, Christiano Ronaldo [nicknamed C罗 in Chinese], plays for a Spanish club but represented Portugal in the European Football Championship and the World Cup. Liu Siming noted that Spain never complained about this arrangement.

46-year old Rui Naiwei 9p is the world's strongest female Go player. Because of "breaking team rules" [euphemism for political pressure...], she left China in 1989 to play Go in Japan. In 1992 she married Jiang Zhujiu. In 1992 she studied with Go Seigen. Until 1996, though, the Nihon Kiin did not allow her to participate in official matches. In 1999 the couple received an invitation to come to South Korea to play Go as guest players, and then later become official professionals. With Rui Naiwei's participation, South Korea's women's Go quickly became the best in the world.

Rui Naiwei has never applied for Korean citizenship. She is proud of her nationality and has never felt the need to apply for citizenship.

Qualifying for Go competitions is unique from other sports. It is different from football, basketball, and other team sports that play in international competition. In Go, Players represent the professional organization that registered them, rather than than representing their country.

For example, in the first two instances of the Jeongganjang Cup the tournament format produced an individual champion, and Rui Naiwei participated as a result of her status with the Hankuk Kiwon. In the following term, the tournament became a team competition, and Rui Naiwei played on the Chinese team. Likewise, Taiwanese player Cho U [Zhang Xu] is regarded as the number one player in Japan, but he has not applied for Japanese citizenship. He does, though, represent the Nihon Kiin in international competition [see, e.g., the 10th Agon Cup].

In other competitions such as the Nongshim Cup and the Asian Games, players participate based upon their nationality. Foreign players cannot represent a country merely based upon their status with that country's professional organization.

The reaction comes from diffidence, not pettiness

Ten years ago, for the purpose of improving the level of women's Go in South Korea, the Hankuk Kiwon invited Rui Naiwei to South Korea. They gave her full professional status, voting rights, retirement pay, and other benefits. Now when Rui Naiwei represents her country in the Asian Games, the Hankuk Kiwon expresses annoyance.

In the first Jeongganjang Cup, Rui Naiwei represented the Hankuk Kiwon and ultimately won the tournament. In the third term, when the tournament adopted the team format, Rui Naiwei joined the Chinese team, to the detriment of South Korea. In fact, she won the crucial final game against Park Jieun, winning the tournament for China. At that time, there were no complaints from South Korea. In fact, there was some gloating that the final two participants were both members of the Hankuk Kiwon.

On the surface, it looks like South Korea is simply eager to get the gold medal in the Asian Games. In reality, the complaints bear a resemblance to the cancellation of lunch breaks in the Samsung Cup in that they reveal South Korea's lack of confidence. Over the last few years, as Gu Li showed his dominance on the world stage, the Hankuk Kiwon began to feel pressure. In response to the rise of Chinese Go, Korean countermeasures have begun to appear away from the Go board.
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Rui Naiwei: "Nationality and gold medals are not important. I only want to play Go. Playing Go is my calling."
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Rui Naiwei: "My position is very difficult. If I had not accepted the invitation to play in South Korea, I would likely not be where I am today. I ask for my fans' forgiveness, but I am Chinese, and I should represent China in this competition. With my participation, China is not guaranteed a gold medal. With my absence, South Korea is not guaranteed a gold medal. I worry about my Korean Go fans. If I defeat a Korean player, I do ask the Korean fans not to get angry."

When asked whether she would return to China to play Go, she tactfully stated that returning to China would convenient in terms of language, food, and customs, but that she is a professional with the Hankuk Kiwon, and that it is better for her to play Go in South Korea. She may make the occaisonal trip to China, but her professional home is in South Korea.

Nice translation.

Thanks!

I really apprciate the time you put in to post these tranlations.

My pleasure, thanks for the feedback.

Has Cho ever represented Korea in big international tournaments? I can understand one should follow his/er nationality, but i also feel Go's different.

Or maybe just Go is different (from other sports) for me.

In the first Jeongganjang Cup, Rui Naiwei represented the Hankuk Kiwon and ultimately won the tournament.

That is not quite right, and in correcting it I think I can illustrate some of unexpected strands running through the saga.

The first point is that, until go encountered events like the Asian Games, go "world championships" (the real meaning is international championship) have been run by sponsors, with a product to sell.

Now in the case of this event, the sponsor was Cheongkwanjang - they prefer that spelling and it seems polite to respect their wishes given the amount of money they put into go (in any case in K2000 it is still wrong - it should be Jeonggwanjang). After all, since this company is not selling an exclusive product (ginseng), marketing the name is vital to them. They wished to increase exports, hence their tournament. The fact that the event was one of the first to be televised was part of the strategy, and no doubt that influenced the decision to have an eye-catching women's tournament. If we add to the cynicism, the facts that female go players are cheaper to sponsor and the product is described as a natural Viagra can be added to the mix, too.

The sponsors always decide the rules. In this case, for Term 1, they gave seeded places to Rui Naiwei and Yun Yeong-seon, so the question of taking up a country place for Rui did not really arise. From the sponsor's point of view, hoping to boost exports, having a final between two Chinese, one who also had a foot in the Korean camp, was probably ideal, although they were alarmed when all the Japanese women crashed out early so that the round held in Tokyo had the makings of a PR disaster. However, the Japanese seemed taken by the name (and again, no doubt, an eye for the ladies) so that passed off OK.

In Term 2, Cheongkwanjang hoped to capitalise on the Chinese angle and the event was held largely in China, partly because the Chinese offer a good deal with five-star hotels for foreign sponsors, but also because it was expected to be a walkover for Rui Naiwei. The final was in Shanghai, where she is a local girl. Another potential PR disaster loomed because she didn't even make it past the semi-final, but in that case it was a PR disaster for the Chinese rather than the company (they'd got their exposure). To make up for their disappointment over Rui, the Chinese therefore organised a side event in which she played an exhibition match of three games, each against a top young male pro from China (she beat Li Zhe and Chen Yaoye and lost to Gu Lingyi). The beauty of it all from the point of view of the sponsor was that these hors concours games were labelled Cheongkwanjang Exhibition Games (possibly the company allowed its arm to be twisted for a little extra cash). I think it is fair to say the company was stressing, or benefiting from, Rui's Chineseness here.

In 2004, the sponsors announced that the format would change to a team event. Even this not driven by an interest in which nation was best. Part of the influence was the success of the Nongshim Cup for men. The drawn-out nature of this event extends the advertising exposure, and the three-stage format allows a big campaign in each of the three countries invited (Taiwan has never had an invitation). There was also concern that that the event was being dominated too much by Korean-based players and there was an odd fear that this could be labelled a "civil war" among the Korean women, which would become negative advertising.

In Term 3, the first team event, two of the three stages were held in China. There was a discussion of whether Rui should represent China or Korea and the decision was made in favour of China (I'm not aware of any dispute over that, but from the sponsor's point of view, the only one that really matters, the choice of China made a lot of sense - two stages there in one of their main export markets, plus consistency with their behaviour in Term 2). Rui duly led the Chinese team to victory.

In Term 4 Pak Chi-eun beat Rui, but the big talking point was of that event was off-stage. Concurrently, at the end of 2005, the Hanguk Kiweon-backed server Cyberoro and China's sina.com had signed a contract with the Hanguk Kiweon giving them both a monopoly on rights to transmit and publish games from Hanguk Kiweon tournaments.

The other major servers in China responded by ignoring the Cheongkwanjang Cup from Game 3 on. That led to huge traffic from unhappy users on China's go chat networks, and this prompted the Cheongkwanjang office in Hong Kong to report grave concern back to Head Office in Seoul. Head Office was not happy and took the matter up with the Hanguk Kiweon. The Kiweon had not consulted sponsors in advance, and was put under more pressure once Nongshim also discovered what was going on. Despite much hand-wringing from the Kiweon, it claimed it was now bound by contractual obligations. However, it undertook to make "urgent investigations" - a face-saving get-out.

(Rui did not play in the event in Terms 5, 7 and 8.)

So very little of the Cheongkwanjang Cup had to do with nationalism. Other international events have had similar overtones of being driven by sponsors seeking export markets. Japan's NEC and Ricoh are a couple of examples where the focus has heavily been on China, though for the most part they have split their sponsorship between domestic events in Japan and China (the NEC Supergo was the big exception). Fujitsu has been even less blatant. Their international Fujitsu Cup is not too big on the hard sell, but Fujitsu does also sponsor some amateur events within Japan and China as more of a sales pitch. The Ing Cup has had an entirely different motive, but still not purely nationalistic - Ing Chang-ki's desire to spread his rules and create political dialogue with China.

The present heavy emphasis on nationalism, reflecting an Olympic-style approach, is something new. As outlined above, I'm not sure it's sensible to quote the past in this debate. Tabula rasa seems a better strategy to me (and in my case I'd extend that to getting rid of the Olympics altogether).

"breaking team rules" [euphemism for political pressure...],

On this separate point, of course politics and go are in bed together in China, and were very cuddly a decade ago. But I've heard about this incident from the inside and I think it was rather more a case of a clash of personalities and a bit of sexism. Rui is a pretty feisty individual - has to be - but the automatic cynicism in me as a journalist makes me wonder if she is not also rather good at exploiting the fact she is female and the top female player in the world to control her own PR. The myth that she wasn't allowed to play in Japan is one example. This incident may also have some mythical elements. Truth is in there somewhere but we somehow never get to hear the other side properly.

Thanks for providing interesting background, John.

While the perspective from that article may provide a pro-nationalistic spin on history, I have to wonder about why Rui Naiwei went to Japan in 1989. She would not have been the only high-profile person forced to leave the country, quit their job, etc. under pressure. June 1989 is still a taboo topic in China, and the official statements I have read about seem distant from the truth, so it is hard to gather facts about fallout from the incident. I have read many books about modern Chinese history, and I worked in China for a couple years, so perhaps I am rather cynical about Chinese politics (no more so than the BBC, though ), but I expect that political pressure played a strong role in her departure from China. Of course, it is hard to dispute unnamed inside sources.

Regarding the spelling of the tournament, I used "Jeongganjang Cup" because that is the spelling from the Go News website and its earlier version (the natural places people will look to examine games and results from early terms of the tournament). If you search for "Jeongganjang" you will find that this is a common spelling among Go websites. The notable exception is Sensei's Library, where it is difficult in general to find Korean names unless you already know their "approved" spelling (good luck finding Choi Cheolhan). There is no need to suggest that I was being impolite!

There is no need to suggest that I was being impolite!

Peter, I wasn't in the slightest suggesting YOU were being impolite. You remark that SL stands out as being different regarding the spelling. That is because I have made the very same point before on SL. That was long ago and my name may have been wikified out by now, but I can assure you it's an old and general point of mine.

The incorrect Jeongganjang spelling may be prevalent but it's still wrong. There are quite a few examples like that that seem to spread from the "kin" site. Another common one is Zhang Xiang for Zhang Xuan (Chang Hao's wife).

I also didn't want to imply there was NO politics in Rui's exile, just that there was more to the mix. I think the political element became stronger AFTER she moved, as a way of trying to keep control of the PR side.

As a point of possible interest, I worked for a long time as a political journalist and often came across "China hands" and other experts on the Far East. They were very knowledgeable (though I was surprised by how many did not speak the languages of their country of interest), and I learned much from them. But I eventually came to the conclusion that politicians, diplomats, journalists, research analysts and others that I worked with have a vested interest in hyping the political aspects of international relations, and that actually exacerbates the tensions. Looking at relations between ordinary people in the various countries (and that includes go players) I see a much more pleasant landscape.

On Korean names, the current situation is that there is no standard. Names have been exempted from the K2000 romanisation. The only way to know how an individual romanises his name is to ask him or to look at his business card or passport. It is possible that he has never bothered to choose a romanisation. Nowadays almost everyone has chosen one, but it's a major problem with people of even the quite recent past who never had the need. Choosing between No, Lho, Lo, Noh, Rho, Ro (all the same name - Chinese Luo) is a bit of a pig when you want to index something. Politics can also come into it. Yi/Lee/I (or even Leigh) is well known as a problem in South Korea, but if you are dealing with North Koreans you have to factor in Ni and Ri.

I try to solve the problems by using McCune-Reischauer which allows transfer of the name straight back to hangeul, hence Ch'oe Ch'eol-han. Hangeul is not always reliable either, however. Different years of Korean Yearbooks vary between Ryu and Yu for the same player, for example. But it's much closer than any of the idiosyncratic romanisations. Ch'oe Ch'eol-han (the hyphen is officially recommended and is useful for us as a way of distinguishing Koreans from Chinese) has appeared as Choi Cheolhan and Choi Chulhan to my knowledge, but in general the name Ch'oe crops up in various romanisations: Choe, Chey, Choi, Choy, Chweh and Tsui (Chweh would fit the actual pronunciation best but is rare).

In the absence of knowing someone personally, a trend in Korea at present is for people to use the commonest non-K2000 romanisations for surnames (e.g. Kim instead of Gim) but to use K2000 for the personal name. Thus the idiosyncratic Cho Hunhyun (where the two U sounds are quite different) would be Cho Hun-hyeon. However, when he was on TV doing the soccer World Cup draw some years ago, which was an official government-backed event, his surname was spelled Jo (Jho also occurs). I have occasionally been tempted to switch to following this trend, but so far remain unpersuaded.

Incidentally, the GoGoD CD gives all the variants I have ever seen for all Korean go names, but much of that data has been included on the SL site so I'm a little surprised you didn't find Ch'oe there (though for obvious reasons I have bever actually tried ).

Actually, Japanese names are by far the hardest of the lot to read. However, once you know the reading, the romanisation gives few problems.

John, thanks again for your insights. Korean names give me the most trouble because, as you noted, there are so many correct ways to romanize them (and even more ways to do so incorrectly).

Choi Cheolhan came to mind because when I tried talking about him with some Koreans at the local club I butchered the pronunciation (it sounds much more like Chweh, as you noted).

Are the Koreans arguing that Rui Naiwei should participate as a Korean?

What are the entry requirements for this tournament? Must players be nationals of the country they are representing? I assume so as that is common in most "games". If that is the ase then she would only be eligible to represent China and South Korea could be to restricting her freedom if they tried to prevent her. If, on the other hand, there is no citizenship requirement, merely residency, they perhaps have a case and could claim that she should be representing Korea. Before we can pass judgment I think we need an answer to that question.

DrStraw wrote:What are the entry requirements for this tournament? Must players be nationals of the country they are representing? I assume so as that is common in most "games". If that is the ase then she would only be eligible to represent China and South Korea could be to restricting her freedom if they tried to prevent her. If, on the other hand, there is no citizenship requirement, merely residency, they perhaps have a case and could claim that she should be representing Korea. Before we can pass judgment I think we need an answer to that question.

Asian Games is by nationality. Koreans did not want Rui to represent Korea, they wished her not participating in the game to avoid playing against Korean.

Psychee wrote:Asian Games is by nationality. Koreans did not want Rui to represent Korea, they wished her not participating in the game to avoid playing against Korean.

Then I don't see how they can complain. If that is how they feel then they should never have invited her to play there in the first place.

The story looks to be working toward a happy ending: the Hanguk Kiwon has just invited Rui to help train their 4-member women's team that will play in the Asian Games! The training will be done in bango format, with Rui playing each member in 7-game or 10-game series. To make sure Rui goes all out, they will pay her according to how well she does in each series.

Rui said she was greatly surprised by the generous offer. In her typical modesty, she proclaimed to be the pupil in these training sessions.

It seems like Hanguk Kiwon has initiated a motion to modify the treatment of foreign professionals (the timing makes it seem like it's in response to the Asian Games) - the changes proposed include revocation of voting rights in the Kiwon, elimination of rights for salary and pension, and no rank considerations for representing Korea in international tournaments (not sure if I'm understanding that one correctly).

Several players would be affected, but most aren't living in Korea permanently anyways (so Rui and Jiang are pretty much the only ones being significantly affected).

I am using Chinese sources, so not sure if the above is completely accurate. If it is, it feels to me that Hanguk Kiwon is being a bit petty.