Professional

There are no professional go organizations in Europe, so, naturally enough, there are no professional go players. So, apart from a vague impression that pros must be really strong, most people have almost no idea what they are really like. What's more, people find it hard to credit that go can be a profession and that you can earn an income from it. People often interrogate me about what my 'real profession' is. I can't blame them: it's not their fault they don't know. Compared to earlier, go itself is steadily spreading and the number of fans is increasing, yet even so Europe is still almost an unexplored frontier for go. When I came here, six years ago, no one knew who I was, so first I had to publicize myself. You can imagine how tough this was, considering how little people knew about go professionals. I would teach for free, paying my own transportation expenses and staying in the homes of local go fans. Can you really call this activity spreading go? At the time I had no choice: I had to go all out to find out what local conditions were and to get to know people. I chose to look on this as a preparatory period before the next step.

Nowadays, fortunately, I get plenty of invitations; sometimes, I even have to refuse some because they clash (I have quite mixed feelings about this). Just the other day I got an invitation to come and teach at a certain children's tournament. First of all, I make sure I get all the details: what they'll do for me, what I'm expected to do. If I don't fill in all the dame first before I give my reply, problems can arise later. 'Of course, we'll pay for your transportation expenses and all expenses during your stay.' Even if there's no tuition fee, children's activities take top priority. They seem to be taking care of the basics, so I can accept the invitation without anxiety, but . . . As negotiations continued with the other party, I realized that 'transportation expenses' was open to various interpretations. The tournament was being held at a place more than 1,000 kilometres distant, so I'd naturally assumed I'd go by plane, but I'd made a misreading: they were thinking of a round trip by shuttle bus. Full of apprehension, I enquired about the time and my worse fears were realized: 20 hours from Milan. You can imagine my astonishment: it was just like when an opponent plays a crushing tesuji against you in a game. The other party could read in my face what I was thinking, so they delivered the finishing blow. 'We can pay only $150 for transportation, but we really want you to come. The children are expecting you.' That was it: I had no choice but to go. But rather than being jammed into a bus, a train should be more comfortable. Now I was really getting into the spirit of things: I got out all my European route maps and timetables and studied them. Since coming to Europe I've become a train fanatic. It's a lot of fun to discover the quickest and safest route somewhere while keeping within the budget. It's just as satisfying as solving the toughest puzzle. When I established that a trip by night train would get me to my destination in the same time, 20 hours, I felt a real sense of accomplishment. My face was covered with a delighted smile. Turning around, I realized that my husband was glaring at me with a really fierce expression on his face. 'You are crazy!' he exploded. For a woman to spend 40 hours traveling alone in a strange country, changing trains in the snow, just to attend a weekend tournament -- it's unbelievable. Have a bit of common sense! Of course, I know he's quite right, but there's more than logic involved -- there's something I can't explain. Anyway, from experience I know that we've never been able to agree on matters like this. You need flexibility in life, things are not so cut and dried . . . I was grateful for my husband's concern, and my solution was to go by plane. Rushing into something while ignoring considerations of health and safety is a bad habit of mine, but I can't stop myself. I can only hope that the go environment will gradually improve so that we can get by without family quarrels. (Monthly Go World, April 2002. Translated by John Power)