history of a man

Already three months since I arrived at Tokyo, and i could keep on writing for hours and hours about all the things I’ve seen and lived in this strange country that is Japan. I have a strange feeling when I think about these last months, in a way the time has passed so fast that I can hardly believe that it’s already December and Christmas is almost here, but in other way I’ve become so used to the daily life here, that sometimes I feel as I’d been living here for a much longer time.

The Vulcanus group in the Kyoto workshop

It’s been a really busy time, and specially the last month was really intense, with lots of things to do, travelling, studying, and also parties. I would do special mention of the Kyoto workshop and the weekend we spend in Nara after it, about what I want to write soon, and also the official proficiency test, that we had last Sunday.

De broma en clase de japonés

About Japanese, to be true I expected that by this time I would be able to speak it better, but not as it was with the German when i went to Vienna, it’s being hard for me to get into the language. Despite the intensive classes we have had, my conversational level is still really limited, and my reading ability even worst. But I’ll be still here for many months, so I hope I will improve with the time.

La Tokyo Tower

By the way, maybe you would have notice the change in the look of the blog, with new heading picture included. I took it from the Tokyo Tower, and in it you can see the Rainbow Bridge in the left side, and a little bit of the Tokyo’s skyline at night. This tower, situated in Minato-ku, was built in 1958 inspired in the Eiffel Tower of Paris (although 9 meters taller), and is one of the symbols of the city.

The new “image” of the blog

To finish, I want to thank it to all the people that follows my adventures here in Japan. I want to be more active with the blog from now on, since I am now more relaxed after the Japanese test. I have many things to write about :p

View from the Tokyo Tower

The haiku is a kind of short poem, without rhyme, usually organized in 3 lines. This poetic form has it’s origin in Japan hundreds of years ago, although the term “haiko” was not used until the XIX century.

This short poems use to capture a moment, situation or event, usually trivial, which inspires the autor, providing it with a special transcendence or spirituality. Already in the XVII century japanese poets said “haikai is just what it’s happening in this place, at this moment”.

You can find more information about haiku here.

Yesterday I met a friend for teaching him how to play Go (囲碁 or 碁 in Japanese). It is a two-player strategic board game, originating in China thousands of years ago, and very popular in East ASia.

The is played in a 18x18 cell board, but unlike more “occidental” games like chess or draughts, the “stones” (game pieces) are placed in the intersections of the board lines, so there’s 19x19 posible points.

My Go board

The rules are very simple, and the basics of the game can be learnt in less than 15-30 minutes. The strategic complexity and game posibilities are, however, great, and it is said that you’ll never play two times the same game.

The game consists of placing your stones in the board, seeking to surround the biggest amount of territory possible. Once placed in the board, the stones stay at the same point and could not be moved for the rest of the game, unless they are captured.

Beginning of a game

The opponent stones can be captured by surrounding all the points around them. The stones so captured are removed from the board, and kept appart for the final point count. It is also possible to capture groups of stones, surrounding them with your own.

How to capture stones

One basic concept of Go are the “eyes”. One eye is a free point inside one of your groups. It is said that a group is “alive” if it has at least two eyes, making it impossible to be captured because the opponent could never completely surround it.

White group has two “eyes”, it can not be captured

The game ends when both players agree that there’s no more free territory to battle for. Then they count the free points controlled by each player. Each captured stone worths one point, that is substracted from the opponent points. The player with more points, wins the game.

White controls most of the board

That’s all, this post was just a short introduction to this wonderful game, unfortunately almost unknown in the West. For more information about it you could visit the following links:

Wikipedia: Go.
The Interactive Way to Go.
How To Play Go.