Iwamoto on a slow boat to China
Posted: Wed Dec 08, 2010 12:31 pm
Lots of people like this kind of tale, and this one is likely to be true as Iwamoto Kaoru told it. So I thought I'd share it.
It was just after the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923. Iwamoto had recently become an independent pro, that is 4-dan. He was luckily out of Tokyo at the time, lodging at a villa in Ikaho owned by his patron Kagami Kenkichi. Armed only with a pile of biscuits and snacks, He made a great effort to get back to Tokyo - a couple of days and nights by train, the last one a goods train by courtesy of an obliging station master. The last 10 kilometres were on foot, through various checkpoints set up by the army. Enormous devastation met him when he reached the high point of Ueno, but by chance the area where his teacher's brother-in-law lived had not been too badly affected and he was able to stay there for a week.
He soon saw that there was now no prospect of earning a living at go in Tokyo, and he needed a change of underwear anyway, so he went back to Ikaho to pick up his luggage. There, Kagami gave him 100 yen (about 500 rice curries) and advised him to tour the country to teach go. Iwamoto decided to do this and went to Nagano to team up with Sakaguchi Tsunetaro 1-dan. They went to Niigata, then Osaka, then various places such as Himeji and Okayama. They collected 50 rice curries here, 100 there, with local friends organising go meets. To a degree it was sympathy money, of course, and so before long the two friends had acquired a nice little nest egg.
By chance, a letter then came from a Japanese player in Taipei to Iwamoto's teacher, who was convalescing in Nagoya after a nervous breakdown. The letter said that Iwamoto would be very welcome in Taipei.
So, with more than enough money in the kitty, the two friends decided to cross the sea. They embarked on a steamer at Moji. They noticed that many people were playing go in the passengers' saloon and went to watch.
One man, who turned out to be a famous political activist, Ito Chiyu, asked Iwamoto whether he played go. When Iwamoto said yes, Ito offered a game and took the white stones. The game was close said, Iwamoto, but he won by 2 or 3 points. Ito then took the black stones, but the result was the same - Iwamoto won by 2 or 3 points. At this point Ito said, "Let's try two stones". He put his two stones down but remarkably the game had the same result.
Ito, obviously giving up at this point, asked Iwamoto where he was going. Hearing that the destination was Taiwan, he said, "Well, if you ever go up to Tokyo and practise a lot, you could perhaps become a pretty reasonable player".
It was just after the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923. Iwamoto had recently become an independent pro, that is 4-dan. He was luckily out of Tokyo at the time, lodging at a villa in Ikaho owned by his patron Kagami Kenkichi. Armed only with a pile of biscuits and snacks, He made a great effort to get back to Tokyo - a couple of days and nights by train, the last one a goods train by courtesy of an obliging station master. The last 10 kilometres were on foot, through various checkpoints set up by the army. Enormous devastation met him when he reached the high point of Ueno, but by chance the area where his teacher's brother-in-law lived had not been too badly affected and he was able to stay there for a week.
He soon saw that there was now no prospect of earning a living at go in Tokyo, and he needed a change of underwear anyway, so he went back to Ikaho to pick up his luggage. There, Kagami gave him 100 yen (about 500 rice curries) and advised him to tour the country to teach go. Iwamoto decided to do this and went to Nagano to team up with Sakaguchi Tsunetaro 1-dan. They went to Niigata, then Osaka, then various places such as Himeji and Okayama. They collected 50 rice curries here, 100 there, with local friends organising go meets. To a degree it was sympathy money, of course, and so before long the two friends had acquired a nice little nest egg.
By chance, a letter then came from a Japanese player in Taipei to Iwamoto's teacher, who was convalescing in Nagoya after a nervous breakdown. The letter said that Iwamoto would be very welcome in Taipei.
So, with more than enough money in the kitty, the two friends decided to cross the sea. They embarked on a steamer at Moji. They noticed that many people were playing go in the passengers' saloon and went to watch.
One man, who turned out to be a famous political activist, Ito Chiyu, asked Iwamoto whether he played go. When Iwamoto said yes, Ito offered a game and took the white stones. The game was close said, Iwamoto, but he won by 2 or 3 points. Ito then took the black stones, but the result was the same - Iwamoto won by 2 or 3 points. At this point Ito said, "Let's try two stones". He put his two stones down but remarkably the game had the same result.
Ito, obviously giving up at this point, asked Iwamoto where he was going. Hearing that the destination was Taiwan, he said, "Well, if you ever go up to Tokyo and practise a lot, you could perhaps become a pretty reasonable player".
In hirako no go they do it (especially in volume 9)