My Italian Diary

I've known Karl since I first came to this school to teach. He founded a go club in the school and comes once a week to teach. He's a top marketing executive in an insurance company, and, even though his position meets that he can be flexible about his working hours, it can't have been easy maintaining this commitment. He also privately bears all the expenses for the go equipment and other costs. There are other people cooperating, but it's basically an individual effort. It's a similar story all over Europe.


My Italian Diary: Shigeno Yuki 2-dan The new year is already two years old. The biggest topic here is the debut of the new currency, the Euro. Ten European countries have been unified by a joint currency, which is a really bold and innovative idea. Of course, it's not just currency that is being unified. Starting with easily organized fields like laws and traffic regulations, everything will be progressively unified into a framework transcending individual countries. The customs posts that created barriers like an iron curtain at international borders disappeared two years ago. Now there are just lonely-looking signposts by the roadside to indicate the existence of borders. Also, if you have a Euro nationality, you can travel anywhere in Europe with just an ordinary ID. Passports are not needed. The idea is that Germans and the French and the Spanish and Italians have all become one, forgetting past wars and invasions and bloodshed. People make plausible statements like, 'Now that the 21st century is here, we have welcomed a new age.' At first, I was rather dubious, thinking that it was all just for the sake of the economy, for money, but now I've changed my ideas and I think it might be a good thing. For one thing, you don't have to change money within Europe; you can move about freely with just the one currency, which is a boon for travelers. What could be more convenient? The initial switchover in our daily lives was a lot of trouble, but that was only temporary. Now I just feel nostalgic for Italian currency, with its rows of zeros. People adapt quickly! By the way, one Euro is worth 1,936 lire or about 115 yen. If we're all going to get together in the end, the earlier the start the better. In that case, the simplest, quickest and most convenient way to start is with the currency. When it's a question of language or culture or religion, things don't work out so easily and new fighting may even break out. For that reason, starting with the currency seems the most reasonable approach.

My first trip for go instruction after the currency unification was to two cities, Erding and Ingolstadt, which are near Munich. Together with local go fans, I taught go and introduced Japanese culture at a gymnasium and at the weekend attended a tournament during the day and visited local go clubs for teaching at night.

A gymnasium is a school with a unified system for pupils from, in Japanese terms, fifth grade in elementary school to first year of university, that is, age 19. There are other kinds of schools, but if you want to go to university, you have to graduate from a gymnasium. For the last four years, I've been teaching go to the ten-year-olds at this gymnasium. The headmaster is very understanding. This year I spend three days with a local go player named Karl teaching eight classes. Whatever the country, go classes for children are tremendous fun. Children are keenly interested in games and different cultures. They really throw themselves into the experience.

I've known Karl since I first came to this school to teach. He founded a go club in the school and comes once a week to teach. He's a top marketing executive in an insurance company, and, even though his position meets that he can be flexible about his working hours, it can't have been easy maintaining this commitment. He also privately bears all the expenses for the go equipment and other costs. There are other people cooperating, but it's basically an individual effort. It's a similar story all over Europe.

On this trip, everyone wanted to exchange money for the Italian Euro coins. Unlike the notes, the coins have a common design on one side, while the reverse has different designs for each country and each denomination. That makes them popular. As you would expect of Italy, our coins are artistic, with profiles of Dante and da Vinci. I think they're really stylish. In the case of Germany, the 1 and 2 Euro coins have the same design of the eagle that used to feature on the German mark coins. I wonder if I'm the only person who has to take care not to confuse them. Was keeping the old design for the sake of economy or to honour tradition or to avoid confusion? This gives one a glimpse into national differences. The start of the Euro has made my work a lot easier; what I'm praying for now is for the yen to go up again.




Euro