daal wrote:paK0 wrote:Just because they are professional go players doesn't mean they can't have a personal life. Also they get to do the thing they love as a job, I'd say they are pretty lucky.
What are they missing out on, a crappy retail part-time job?
While it is taking things too far to compare them with slaves, there are issues to be considered when children start a career at 15. Although trout has also pointed out that they are still in school, being a professional go player does surely and severely limit the amount of time spent on other things. Do you really think a crappy retail part-time job is the only other option for these kids? Yet how will they explore the possibilities that for example a higher education might offer if they are spending 12 hours a day on go? (made up figure - but their regimen has to be pretty rigorous for their career to be viable in such a competitive field).
Yeah, I don't doubt that go takes up a lot of their time. On the other hand they already got a career, so they won't have to worry about that anymore and from what I hear the asian job market for higher jobs is quite competetive. If they need more time, they can always just drop out of school, as it probably won't contribute to their income much. Yes, maybe the higher education is somewhat locked off from them (unless they are extremely smart and can just breeze through school) but in return they get a higher education in go. You could also argue that for the average student studying is preventing them from playing go 12 hours a day.
When you strife for excellence(or whatever you wanna call it) in a field there is bound to be some collateral damage in other fields that you could spend time on instead.
But saying something definite is almost impossible, we don't know the kids training and school schedule, so its hard to say how much free time they have compared to "normal" kids. And if they had more spare time, maybe they would spend it playing go anyway, because they just like it that much. We would really need to ask them personally if they enjoy their life right now to say something about their personal happiness.
