Wow, I can’t believe that December came so SOON!

What have I done? Well, let me think about that at the end of the year again. Haha

Instead, I want to talk about Baduk Studies.

You may know that there is a department of Baduk Studies in Myoungji University, Korea. What do you think they exist for?

In fact, I had very few ideas myself before having a chance to read some thesises from International Conference on Baduk the other day. Although my best friend, S majors that, she never explained concrete matters to me. Anyway, one acquaintance of dad participated in the conference held in Jeonju City about a month ago, and assumed that I would be interested in reading the written materials. So he voluntarily lent them to me through my father.

They were mostly about ‘Elo-type rating system for pro players’, ‘Confucius and Baduk’, ‘Baduk in Vietnam’, ‘Effective Baduk Exhibition’, and ‘Baduk Education’ etc. It was actually the first time for me to seriously read something from ‘Baduk Studies’, but quite interesting. Especially I liked the one about Confucius the most. The thesis argues the old interpretation that Confucius didn’t regard much of Baduk is ill-founded. And the presumption that Confucius himself knew how to play it and appreciated it in terms of a mean to control one’s mind is more plausible. The author cited many quotes and records of Confucius as he built the structure.
Doesn’t it sound interesting? Come on, Confucius is probably the best known philosopher of Asian countries! Indeed, this kind of research shows us what the department of Baduk Studies asks its students to do.

The truth is I firmly refused to major Baduk Studies in spite of some people’s strong recommendations. I had a few reasons of the refusal then, but the biggest one was that I didn’t want to deal with Baduk in a university. I have been living with the game since I was 6, and wanted to study something else now. Besides, I thought Baduk Studies couldn’t be far from the actual game of Baduk. I don’t mean that I would major Baduk Studies though. ‘Cause I sort of decided to study International Business. Yet, it is certain that the old statement that I didn’t regard much of Baduk Studies is now ill-founded. J