It was about a month ago. I was walking around a small grocery market near dormitory to see if there is something good for snacking while studying. When I study or work I am inclined to eat something. Although eating snacks certainly seems to amuse my brain - unfortunately I cannot do this while playing matches though – presumably entertain my fats as well. What a tragedy. Therefore, at the moment, I was looking for something that has low calories but fine taste in order to be ready for a big assignment. Then, all of a sudden, my phone rang. Well, I don’t want to admit this, but my phone hardly rings. So I happily opened the phone. Surprisingly, the call was from abroad.

“Hello?” (In Korean, of course)
“Hajin? It’s me.”

     It was a young guy. Nice voice. Who is he though? His voice sounded very familiar, but I couldn’t recognize.

“Who?”
“It’s me, B” (He told me his name, but I wouldn’t write that here for the privacy issue)
“B? REALLY? HEYYYYYY! HOW HAVE YOU BEEN??”

     B and I studied baduk together in Daejeon when we were young under the same teacher. However, we needed to move to Seoul for more serious trainings, and we ended up going to a different baduk academy. About a few years later, B went to Japan. Now, he is a Japanese professional player, and also studying in a university there. Although we saw each other afterward when he came to Korea, especially for international matches, I think it was first time that he called me from Japan.

“I am well. How are you? I am going to Korea, anyway. You are still in Daejeon, right? Can you come to Seoul on 1st of June?”
“1st of June? Yes, I guess so.”

     It was about the beginning of May. So of course I didn’t have any plan yet.

“Japanese players will have a friendship baseball game with Korean pro players on that day. And there will be a party after that. You should come. ‘M’ and ‘N’ will also be there.” (M and N are Japanese players that I met at the us go congress last year)
“Of course, I will go! See you then!”

     Guess what? He called me twice more after that to confirm I was still coming.

     Luckily, 1st of June was Tuesday, when I can finish my class at 4’o clock. (it’s early compared to other days) So, as soon as I became free, I ran to the train station. 20 minutes to the station, 30 minutes to buy ticket and wait, 1 hour to Seoul, and another 30 minutes to the restaurant. (I am wondering if it took the Japanese players more than that to come to Korea from Japan by flight) Anyway, I eventually arrived at the restaurant, where lots of pro players were seemingly having a great time with pork barbeque and beer. It was kind of funny to see them, because most of them had very red-faced due to the baseball game, soccer game plus beer.  And there, I could see B, who was busy translating between Japanese and Korean players.

     B said that 22 Japanese players(Kansai Kiin) came to Korea for this event. Thanks to Tygem, who sponsored this meeting, they had a baseball game, a small soccer league, supper, and also friendship baduk matches on the following day. (When I heard that, though, I knew that baduk match wasn’t the main plan since the party didn’t seem to end in a few hours) Anyway, it was such a big pleasure to see B again. Besides, it was also good to see many Japanese young pro players in a casual place. They were easy-going, friendly but very polite at the same time. We talked about historical baduk figures, Korean and Japanese singers and TV series and so on. However, one big problem was that I couldn’t speak Japanese, while they didn’t speak neither Korean nor English.  Although I could still communicate with them (with the help of some players who spoke both Japanese and Korean), there was a certain limit in conversation. It reminded me of the time when I went to Europe for the first time. At the time I didn’t speak English and had to rely on someone’s translation all the time. I got so frustrated and it gave me a strong motivation to start English. So this time, I felt so stupid that I couldn’t speak Japanese. Yet, it will be an overplay if I start Japanese immediately. Let me put it on the to-do list instead.

http://www.tygem.com/news/news/viewpage.asp?pagec=&seq=11853&gubun=&find=&findword=

http://www.baduk.or.kr/news/homenews_view.asp?gul_no=513999&gdiv=11

These are the articles about the event. You may see some photos here. Want to read the articles? Study Korean J (Or put it on the to-do list LOL)