This is a series of translated snapshots intended to shed fresh light on some familiar facets of professional go, in the same way that old black-and-white photos of modern scenes can open windows in the mind.
Selection here is also meant as a personal recommendation and implict review of the books from which the excerpts are taken, although I cannot guarantee they are readily available. - JF
LARGER THAN LIFE - FUJISAWA HIDEYUKI
Possibly no go player has enjoyed the combination of fame and notoriety as much as Fujisawa Hideyuki - and "enjoy" is the right word. Known to most people, though somewhat to his chagrin, by the Sinified reading of his name, Shuko, this is a man who has lived not just one life to the full but two or three. On the one hand a notorious gambler and drinker, he is yet an astute dealer in real estate and a famed calligrapher.
Though by his own contention he knows only 6 per cent of what there is to know about go, he claims to be its most assiduous student. While professing himself to be the supreme artist on the go board (and many would agree), he is so notorious for his spectacular blunders that one professional has even advised that it is unwise to study his games.
Yet he has won most of the major titles, making a speciality of winning the first term of each new event. His legendary "celebrations" after each possibly contributed to the cancer that he has twice defeated, but in typical fashion he considered that his drinking saved his life: if he hadn't gone to be treated for that, the tumour would not have been discovered in time. It's a point of view!
He has in many ways been in Japan the famous "nail that sticks up". He was indifferent to the abuse he suffered for helping Chinese players reach their current level, and he has recently locked horns with the Nihon Ki-in over what he regards as the scandalous cost of their diplomas. The extract below is from his autobiography, which I recommend not just for its style and colour, but for his willingness to speak out.
But just briefly to return to the problem of his name. This is what he says on page 33 of the book.
"Soon after I decided to change my name [the two characters in question].... Henceforth I intended to be known as Hideyuki, but people generally take it as Shuko. It is the same as when people call Kawabata not Yasunari, his real name, but Kosei, and I'm not too bothered about it."
However, he took a stronger line in another book and said that while he accepted Shuko for existing operations such as Shuko's Training Camps, he really would prefer himself to be called Hideyuki.
MY FATHER WAS A YOKOHAMA SPECULATOR
I was born on 19 June 1925 in Nishi-Tobecho, Yokohama City. My father, Jugoro, was 69 and my mother, Kinuko, was 23. I was given the name Tamotsu.
There were four children: my eldest sister Toyoko, me, my brother Akira, and a younger sister, Ayako. This was enough to damage my mother's womb. Because my father produced two more children even after he had passed eighty, we can imagine what he was like when he was young. Apart from us four children there were more than a dozen from different mothers. All in all there were supposed to be 19 of us, but actually maybe there were more.
One of our relatives was the late Fujisawa Hosai (originally Kuranosuke, 9-dan). My eldest step-sister had married a man adopted into the family to be a son-in-law, and had given birth to Kuranosuke. Hosai was six years older than me but was in the curious relationship of being my nephew.
My father was born in Ansei 3 (1856) in the present Fuji City, Shizuoka Prefecture. From his young days, he zealously practised the martial arts, and in Kito-style jujutsu he was said to be regarded as the best of the Four Heavenly Kings school. The school expected he would become a teacher there, and they wanted him as their son-in-law, marrying the owner's daughter. He didn't like that idea and so he fled from his hometown. Although I did not hear from my father direct about his life then, it seems he was not the type who would settle down to being a live-in son-in-law in another family.
When he was running a clogs business in Kofu, he had a stroke of luck. The area was assailed by a large typhoon, and the whole of Koshu Province suffered great damage. My father put off returning to his old trade, and, while kicking round the area, bought up some uprooted paulownia trees. They rose in value and he made a large profit on them.
Ploughing this back into further investment, he began a silk-making factory in Shizuoka. At its height, he employed more than 100 workers. Meanwhile, he moved his house to Yokohama and turned his hand also to speculating in raw silk. I heard that the money he earned had to be stuffed into four 5-gallon vats to be carried around, but even if you take that with a grain of salt, it seems fair to say he was a figure of some importance at the time.
Although my father owned and ran a silk factory, I feel that rather than calling him a manager, it would be more appropriate to class him as the speculator-type of businessman. As evidence of that, he loved putting his martial arts reputation on the line. Whenever he met a new opponent, he would strip to the waist and declare with fervour, "You're no match for me". Even in my own recollections of him, my father had a body that was sheer robust health.
Moreover, he had the skill that comes with a Kito-style diploma. Known as "Jugoro of [Yoko]Hama", it seems he was acknowledged as a man of superior technique. There is a story I heard from a friend of my father's when I was a child. The friend, entangled in business negotiations and having been threatened by the yakuza, was rescued by my father, for he immediately took the case upon himself and said, "I'll negotiate for you". But it didn't even come to a negotiation. As soon as the other guy saw my father's face, he ran like a rabbit.
I have a photograph taken at the end of the Meiji period when my father was 50. Solemn looking in a crested haori jacket, he was growing a luxuriant moustache, but there is no animation in his expression. Whatever the occasion, my father always looked quite sombre. "The truth is, this was a time when I had lost as much as 100,000 yen through raw silk speculation".
Even I can make an approximate guess how much 100,000 yen then was worth. My father did not talk much about it, but, at a guess, I think perhaps he anticipated a situation where he would be a broken man and wanted at least to leave a photograph of what he once was. By great fortune, in fact, he was able to recover, and there are signs that from that time he worked hard at his business, progressing slowly but surely. My father was not the sort of man who would fit into any modern mould, but he was a father I loved and respected.
He was a great go fan. Because he was the type who would immerse himself once he had begun something, his skill at go exceeded that of the elegant man about town.
In the "Collected Games of Shuei" there is the entry "Promotion party for Fujisawa Jugoro 1-dan at the Binko-kan, Yokohama City" for one day in October 1901, along with a game between Honinbo Shuei and Furuya Okisaburo. The supreme Honinbo had bestirred himself to go so far for the sake of a party to celebrate my father's promotion to 1-dan!
No doubt he would have spent a large sum on the gifts and the banquet, but it would have spread the word in Yokohama go circles that my father was not a man to be overlooked. In those days there was virtually no distinction between professionals and amateurs, and so a 1-dan was a player of some substance. Nowadays he would perhaps be as strong as the current prefectural champions.
Apparently my father was also friends with Honinbo Shusai, who succeeded Shuei. It was said that he once went travelling as a threesome with him and the shogi Meijin, Sekine Kinjiro. My father was also pretty strong at shogi. It may not prove he was of dan level strength, but he did have a 5-dan diploma. When I was a child, I once saw a visiting card inscribed "5-dan at shogi, 3-dan at go". We kept the go and shogi diplomas as treasured possessions, but unfortunately they were burnt to ashes during a wartime fire.
My mother was born into a farming family which ran a silkworm business on the outskirts of Kisarazu in Chiba Prefecture. My father called into this place when he was buying cocoons, my mother caught his eye, and he proposed marriage. There was a gap of 46 years between them. He was charmed by her, despite her unprepossessing circumstances, and I must also take off my hat to my mother's courage in accepting his ardent advances. Even after they married, my mother must have expected an anxious time, but she never once blurted out a complaint in front of us.
When I was born, my father had quit both the silk manufacturing business and silk speculation. Since he had several houses for rent, he was able to spend his time as he pleased and be comfortable, but he was too red-blooded a man to spend his life in retirement. He was a passionate go gambler, and once he left the house he might not return for days. My hard-pressed mother came up with an idea and would send him out with me, a baby, tied to his back. Indeed, he could not stay anywhere overnight with a baby encumbering him, but he would still play go with me on piggyback. Meanwhile, he would learn the tricks that sent me to sleep.
According to Mitani Suihei, the former Mainichi Shinbun go reporter who was a friend of my father, it was his job to comfort me when I woke up and started howling.
In any event, it seems as if I was brought up to the sound of go stones instead of lullabies. My earliest recollections are also of hanging round my father as he played go. I was five when I learnt to play go, but I have no recollection of my father teaching me. It would seem that I learnt spontaneously beside him as I watched him play.
He had a thing early on about wanting to turn one of his own children into a go professional. He used to send my elder step-sister Umeko to the Meijin Shusai's place to study go. Umeko continued until she was about 20, but she grew tired of go and got married to a priest in charge of a large Buddhist temple.
Afterwards she became absorbed in scholarly studies, donned a scarlet robe and lectured on something or other inside the temple. There were over 20 years between us, and so we never lived under the same roof. I only learnt about her piecemeal by hearsay, but from what I have heard my sister was a distinguished person.
There was an interval of more than 20 years, but the next repository of his aspirations was me. Although I had never been called anything like a "prodigy" or a "child genius", my father rested his hopes on me.
About one year after I learnt to play, in February 1932, I was allowed to play a teaching game on nine stones with Segoe Kensaku (later Honorary 9-dan). The game was also published in "Igo Club". It is a game that I recall as my first printed game. Let me quote from what Master Segoe wrote:
"Invited by Narita Yoshifumi of Yokohama, I set off with young Go. Once there, an old acquaintance Fujisawa Jugoro turned up with his six-year-old son, and so I played a game with him to assess his grade. This is that game. We could not play to a finish because of lack of time, but it is unusual that he could play on to this extent for about 30 minutes. In fact, his father Jugoro is 3-dan, and young Tamotsu apparently has an elder sister, Umeko, reputed to be 1-dan."
I realised that I was receiving a wee bit of praise. And when I look at that game of 108 moves now, the go content was fairly passable for a six-year-old.
It was a time when all I wanted to do was have fun. Although I had learnt go, I had no thoughts, even in my dreams, of becoming a go professional. In fact, I could not be expected even to know what a go professional was. So, even though I had played a teaching game with Master Segoe, my impressions were rather on the level of having played a game of go with an old man who was incredibly strong, and I have no special memory of it.
However, my father had wanted Segoe to forecast the future potential of his son. He said nothing to me, though perhaps I was somehow made aware that he had hopes for me.
Incidentally, "young Go" in Segoe's text refers to Go Seigen. He had joined the Japanese go world through the efforts of Segoe, and in the following year, 1933, was to launch the New Fuseki revolution with Kitani Minoru.
Gouchi Shuukou, Watashi no Rirekisho (Player Shuko, My Autobiography)
Fujisawa Hideyuki, Nihon Keizai Shinbun-sha, Tokyo, 1993
ISBN 4-532-16103-7
Click here to see the game referred to above (but note there are no games in the autobiography).
But just briefly to return to the problem of his name. This is what he says on page 33 of the book.