Introduction to Go Fans

Fans are used by professional go players in all the Asian countries, though perhaps with greater import in Japan then elsewhere. There, whenever a player wins a major title he will typically brush a favourite motto onto fans for issuing to guests at the award ceremony. Or a party may be held for a player who has achieved a significant milestone, and he may produce fans to hand out as thank-you presents to the hosts.

The mottoes very often are quotations from the Chinese classics or phrases that have become, via the religions of Zen or Daoism, part of the repertoire of martial artists. Typical of the latter are phrases such as "no mind" which exhort the player to achieve a state of total concentration rather in the way that a western sportsman tries to achieve "focus".

A selection of these fans is shown on the following two pages, with some additional unillustrated mottoes. If you have a go fan that you would like to be included here (especially if you want to know what it says), just send us a scan in jpeg format.