The reference in the report on the Ing Cup to the visits by Go Seigen to China prompted me to dig out some of my notes on this topic. I have three Lever Arch files full of notes on Go! This particular portion was prompted by an article in Igo Club in 1997, though I have worked in several other elements.
Go writer Oshima Masao discovered a photograph in a copy of Jijing Xiaguan Yixian he bought. It showed Go and Kitani observing a game. It had no caption but was marked Shinkyo Shashin Tsushinsha. He asked Go Seigen about it.
Go said it was taken in 1934. He, Kitani, Yasunaga and Taoka went to China on a go mission. The others in the photograph are the court physician of Pu Yi (the so-called Last Emperor of China) and the first prime minister of Manchukuo, Zheng Xiaoxu (1860-1938). Deng was intensely loyal to the Manchus and served in the first restoration of the Qing dynasty when Puyi became puppet lord of Manchukuo. In 1891 he had served in Qing consulates in Tokyo, Kobe and Osaka. He resigned in 1935 after repeatedly disagreeing with the Japanese.
Pu Yi was living in the ruins of the Cigarette Monopoly Corporation and that was probably the venue for the game. Go played Kitani for one hour each day over three days and won by 12 points. It was a tenran-go (honoured by the presence of the Emperor). It is no longer extant but Pu Yi took notes and keenly wrote a memo. He was normally surrounded by Japanese and he seemed happy to be able to speak Chinese with Go for a change. Perhaps because he won, Pu Yi gave a tea party in the garden afterwards for him.
Manchukuo was founded on 1 March 1932. In 1934 the Nihon Kiin, the Nichinichi Shinbun and the Osaka Mainichi Shinbun sponsored a Japan-China goodwill mission. Kitani, Go, Yasunaga and Taoka were sent in May for two months. They went via Shanghai, Suzhou, Wuxi, Tsingtao and Xinjing (Changchun). Yasunaga was then chief editor of Kido. Taoka reported on the trip in Kido issues 6 to 8.
They left Yokohama on 17 May, were in Shizuoka on 18 May, Nagoya 19 May, Osaka 20 May,
Hiroshima 22 May, Fukuoka 24 May. Because it was difficult to move around in Japanese dress, they wore suits and ties. It was the first time in suits and ties for Kitani and Go and they didn't know how to knot their ties. Taoka did it for them. They looked like businessmen, said Go. Kitani suited a suit and looked like the director of a company.
From Yokohama they went to Nagasaki, attending various farewell go gatherings on the way. In Nagasaki they boarded the Shanghai-maru straight to Shanghai. They arrived on the evening of the next day, 26th May, having sailed up the estuary of the Yangzi. Go described this in his autobiography Ibun Kaiyu (Making friends through culture). They spent two weeks in Shanghai where they played the top Chinese players, Gu Shuiru, Liu Changhua and Lei Baohua. The top Chinese were rather stronger than most Japanese accounts make out. Several had studied in Japan and the best were about 4-dan when the top active Japanese were 6 or 7-dan.
At the time New Fuseki was all the rage in Japan and Go and Kitani were the top proponents, and the Chinese players were flummoxed by it, though some went on to try it for themselves.
During their stay in Shanghai they were summoned by the fabulously wealthy Zhang Danru who supported go to the extent of paying players in Shanghai a monthly stipend. He was a great collector of Japanese games and was instrumental in importing Japanese ideas into China.
The party of four went on to Suzhou and took part in a locally sponsored go meeting on a pleasure boat on Lake Taihu (between Zhejiang and Jiangsu), a lake big enough to have the danger of pirates. The joke was that Go would bring a high ransom. The reports in Kido stopped at Lake Taihu, though the party went from Shanghai to Tsingtao and Dalien and arrived in Xinjing (Changchun) in late June or early in July.
Go Seigen has written extensively about his trip and has some more interesting stories about his encounters with Pu Yi (e.g. in Zuihitsu, published in 1942 by Terakoya Shobo). There is also a game with a relative of Pu Yi in his collected games.
He also had other significant trips to China, ranging from his famous spirit possession which told him to"return to Tianjin" in October 1935, when he ran away from Japan without telling anyone where he had gone, to wartime visits to Japanese troops when he braved American submarine attacks and anti-Japanese Chinese who saw him as a traitor and demonstrated against him. In more recent times he has had much happier visits, of course, and it is safe to say that he is now revered.
