Category: Traditional

Go or Igo is a very popular board game in Asia. The basic rule is “try to surround all your rival’s pieces”.

I took these two pictures in Beijing.

It seems easy, but it’s not! It’s much more difficult than chess. No computer program can beat the best go player in the world, it seems that even “normal” players can win against the best go software. The number of combinations in a go game is huge! The number of possible combinations at the beginning of the game is greater than the number of atoms in the whole universe.

I had the opportunity to learn the basic go tricks in Spain, and here in Japan I continued with my hobby. After many games, I’m starting to really see how deep is this game, and how much do players have to think to make your next movement. It is the oldest board game in the world that is still being played using the original rules; furthermore, it’s nowadays the second most played board game in the world after Xiangqi.

Go comes from China, but is also played professionally in Korea and Japan. If fact, Japanese were the best during almost all the twentieth century. In Japan there is a long tradition starting in the Edo period when the Tokugawa shogun created a government title called Godokoro. This position was covered by the best go player in the country. Dosaku was one of the most important Godokoros ever, his games are still used nowadays to study go, you can check some of this games at this site.

At the beginning I didn’t really like the game, but after you learn some tricks it starts to become addictive. If you want to start learning the basic stuff I recommend you this interactive site and wiki only about go.

There are many people playing go in Japan, there is even a manga-anime called Hikaru no go, there is a go TV channel and Saturday mornings there is a TV show on NHK second channel where professional players explain step by step interesting games. It seems that Go is very good for your mental health (health sells a lot lately), it helps kids to develop their mind and you have to use all your power. When you play chess you only use your right hemisphere. If you want to have both of your hemisphere in fit, play go! … I’m not playing go lately 😉

“Geta” is a type of Japanese traditional footwear. Geta are made from wood and they are usually composed by a base called “dai” and two teeth “ha”. There is also one model that has only one high tooth, I guess is difficult to walk with those. A very fundamental characteristic from “geta” is the sound that the wood makes when you hit the floor while walking. Once you listen it one time, next time you listen the sound you will know that someone is wearing “geta” near you. Nowadays geta are still used, mainly on summer and combined with traditional Japanese wear like “yukatas” or “kimonos”.

Different types of “geta”.

Jiraiya from Naruto is always wearing “geta” !

Katanas are a type of Japanese sword, but nowadays the term is internationally used to talk about all Japanese swords in general. They are considered as the best swords ever created, they have a curved shape and they are many different types and sizes.

Strictly talking a katana has around 70 cm, the longest ones are called tachi and were used by cavalry. The short versions are called wakizashi and kodachi, which are equivalent to our daggers. Samurais where equiped with a katana for the face to face fights and a short wakizashi to kill by surprise without being seen.

This is a katana forged 900 years ago by Sanjo Munechika, and is one of the oldest katanas in the National Museum (Ueno Station at Tokyo

It can be appreciated how dedicated, simple and well done were the Japanese tools on those times while at Europe we had huge and rough swords.

Nowadays katanas are created by some artists, people from the Mukansa clan seem to be the best. Two of the Musakansa family members are Living National Treasures selected by the Japanese Government.

If you wanna by a katana, you can find average katanas at some hidden shops at Asakusa (Tokyo). I took one video inside of one of those shops.

Next, some videos were the sharpness of the katana edge can be appreciated.

At this last video there is a little explanation about how katanas are made.