Life In 19x19

The traditional name "Taichi" and the false name"tengen"

Chinese article

https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/424919502


This article will be translated successively at below.

pgwq wrote:The traditional name "Taichi" and the false name"tengen"

Mh… “traditional” vs. “false” makes me prick my ears

Committed to the restoration Chinese traditional Weiqi

Mh… I guess it is for similar reasons why I call smartphones “electro thingies” and GIF animations “wiggle images”

But yeah, let’s also revive the old tradition of eating the hearts of our enemies. And honestly, I would indeed prefer living in a cave—assuming that I will have between-net there, and lightning-in-a-metal-wire of course, and my counting machine.

Forgive my sarcasm—I must admit that I hardly understand any of the auto-translated text there, and it seems that it represents a revisionist, if not nationalist, view rather than a deeper interest in Weiqi.
I’ll be glad to apologise if I am mistaken—I know that I tend to knee-jerk reactions when someone pushes some of my oversensitive buttons.

The center star point? That will always be tengen. Just like "star point" will always be hoshi. And sushi will never be "fish on rice."

The Center of The Universe, however, is a different story. It's in Wallace, Idaho, and it's true; I've been there. I have proof:

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/cen ... e-universe

Bonobo wrote:

pgwq wrote:The traditional name "Taichi" and the false name"tengen"

Mh… “traditional” vs. “false” makes me prick my ears

Committed to the restoration Chinese traditional Weiqi

Mh… I guess it is for similar reasons why I call smartphones “electro thingies” and GIF animations “wiggle images”

But yeah, let’s also revive the old tradition of eating the hearts of our enemies. And honestly, I would indeed prefer living in a cave—assuming that I will have between-net there, and lightning-in-a-metal-wire of course, and my counting machine.

Forgive my sarcasm—I must admit that I hardly understand any of the auto-translated text there, and it seems that it represents a revisionist, if not nationalist, view rather than a deeper interest in Weiqi.
I’ll be glad to apologise if I am mistaken—I know that I tend to knee-jerk reactions when someone pushes some of my oversensitive buttons.

Very normal stress response.

pgwq wrote:Very normal stress response.

Hahaha, I appreciate your humour
(which, admittedly, released some Adrenalin and Cortisol into my system )

And what will come next—should we accuse Japan and Korea, and then the whole “West”, of culturally appropriating Weiqi?

Honestly, I do like both terms, be it “Heart of Weiqi” or “Origin of heaven”.

Tengen doesn't really have to represent anything in ancient Chinese. Similarly taichi usually means shadowboxing in English, right?, and everyone ignores that the second syllable is pronounced more like ginger than tea or cheese. Sometimes it is a good thing when loanwords lose their connection to the original.

Language changes and evolves over time. What's the problem?

Conclusion

The meaning of the word "tengen" is relatively broad, and it is inappropriate for the Japanese to use it for the naming of the board heart. The ancient Chinese named "the center point of the board" as "the board heart", "taichi(taiji)" or "heavenly heart", which is undoubtedly more accurate; weiqi players in the Qing Dynasty generally called it "taiji". In today's weiqi textbooks, the "center of the board" (board heart) is generally called "tengen"; Hangzhou QiYuan（Hangzhou Chess Academy） Building is also called "tengen(Tianyuan)" building, and there are many local weiqi academies named after "Tianyuan" in china now.

So, is there a need to change the name? The author believes that since it has been named, there is no need to change it.

However, we should broaden our knowledge and develop our thinking, and we should not copy what others say. We should understand the source and origin of "tengen". The term "tengen" was widely used in other fields in ancient China, but it is not a proprietary traditional WeiQi term, so it cannot directly represent the traditional Chinese WeiQi culture.

However, we should broaden our knowledge and develop our thinking, and we should not copy what others say. We should understand the source and origin of "tengen". The term "tengen" was widely used in other fields in ancient China, but it is not a proprietary traditional WeiQi term, so it cannot directly represent the traditional Chinese WeiQi culture.

It depends what you mean by "we". If you mean Chinese people, what you say may be fine, although more accurately you should in that case say tianyuan is the "false" term.

Almost all go players outside China use Japanese, and the related Korean, rules. Almost all (Korea excepted) use Japanese terminology.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with Japanese using the term tengen. It was not, and never has been, tianyuan in Japanese.

The Japanese term was invented in Japan by a Japanese person for a game using Japanese rules, and was read in the Japanese way (Sino-Japanese if you prefer, but that was still Japanese).

The inventor, furthermore, was a distinguished go player: Originally Yasui Santetsu (1639 ~ 1715), son of Yasui I. He became better known as a scholar and astronomer under the name Shibukawa Sukezaemon Shunkai, or more simply Shibukawa Shunkai, although recent research suggests it was meant to be read Shibukawa Harumi.

The go part of thje story is that, in 1657, under the guardianship of Yasui Sanchi, he began to receive an official stipend and, after being appointed as the family heir in 1659, he began to play in Castle Games. According to Honinbo Dosaku he was 7-dan. He was also a distinguished Confucian scholar and the foremost expert of his time on astronomy, at which he became expert by studying the latest Chinese books based on imported European principles, and by making his own astronomical observations. A revised version of the calendar (the first by a Japanese) is due to him, at imperial request, and because of his involvement with this from 1683 he ceased playing Castle Games as Yasui Santetsu II. His new Jokyo era calendar was issued in 1684 and was used for 70 years. His reward was to be appointed by the shogunate to the Astronomical Institute (Tenmonkata) and it was in that capacity he changed his name to Shibukawa (the original name of the Yasui family) in 1702 and retired in lunar 1711-XII. He published many books on astronomy. His astronomy inspired a famous Castle Game against Dosaku in 1670 (GoGoD 1670-11-29a) when he played first move on the centre point (he lost by 9 points). It is from this that it is widely accepted (though not proven) that tengen as a go term may have become popular.

Furthermore, he was the subject of a 2010 book by Ubukata To, Tenchi Meisatsu (Insights into the Universe), partly about his life as ago player though mainly as a calendar maker). This won the Yoshikawa Eiji Literature Prize for New Writers and the Booksellers Prize (Honya Taisho). It has been made into a film. No doubt connected with this, he was an early inductee into the Nihon Ki-in Hall of Fame in 2012.

In short, Shibukawa and tengen are an important part of Japanese history in general. If you wish to make the point (a valid one) that people outside China should know the history of go in China better, you have to accept also that people within China ought to know the history of Japan better. This extends beyond go. Shibukawa was a Confucian scholar. But Confucianism in Japan was not the same as in China. In China, Confucianism is predicated on the Emperor having the Mandate of Heaven (in practice, the will of the people). In Japan, as defined by the Taiho Code of 701, which was a code drawn up explicitly to introduce Confucian ethics into Japan, the Emperor ruled by birthright (as with our new King Charles III). Are we to say Japanese ethics are false?

None of this should be turned into a nationalist "my dad is bigger than your dad" game.

All the above, also explains why nearly all of us in the west say "go" and not weiqi, while happily conceding go probably originated in China. For us, go is not a "false" name.

But what is a false name is taichi. It (太极) should of course by taiji. The commonest rendering of that in English seems to be Great Ultimate, though Supreme Pole has some adherents.

John Fairbairn wrote:
. . .

But what is a false name is taichi. It (太极) should of course by taiji. The commonest rendering of that in English seems to be Great Ultimate, though Supreme Pole has some adherents.

Ah, but when I look at the Characters I just see Muhammad Ali . . .

John Fairbairn wrote:

None of this should be turned into a nationalist "my dad is bigger than your dad" game.

First,
You stigmatize me as a so-called nationalist, I don't want to fall into the so-called nationalist debate（If ONLY IF I say: Anglo Saxons are big trouble makers. It will certainly cause great trouble in this forum. So, please don't put the hat of nationalism on my head.）

Second,
However, since you say so, I want to point out the fact that more than 90% of Japanese Go culture actually comes from ancient Chinese culture, so why do Japanese need to modify 10% of these cultures? Please read The Chrysanthemum and the Sword (1946) carefully to get the answer.

The hat （so-called nationalist）you gave me seems to have gone beyond the scope of Weiqi discussion. I hope that we will not talk politics in this site, but discuss these issues from a cultural perspective.

PS:
1. tengen (JP pronunciation) and tianyuan(CN pronunciation) are different pronunciation of Chinese characters "天元".
2. Taichi（Wade-Giles system） and Taiji（PinYin）are in different sound recording methods for Chinese characters "太极".

You stigmatize me as a so-called nationalist, I don't want to fall into the so-called nationalist debate（If ONLY IF I say: Anglo Saxons are big trouble makers....

I did not (and my English is better than yours). I addressed my remark to all possible discussants, precisely to head off the sort of remarks that can develop on this forum. Nationalism was hinted at in an earlier post in this thread.

But I am quite happy to agree with you if you do say Anglo-Saxons are big trouble makers

John Fairbairn wrote:

You stigmatize me as a so-called nationalist, I don't want to fall into the so-called nationalist debate（If ONLY IF I say: Anglo Saxons are big trouble makers....

I did not (and my English is better than yours). I addressed my remark to all possible discussants, precisely to head off the sort of remarks that can develop on this forum. Nationalism was hinted at in an earlier post in this thread.

But I am quite happy to agree with you if you do say Anglo-Saxons are big trouble makers

The national culture is the world culture. My goal is to restore the traditional Chinese Weiqi culture so as to distinguish it from the go culture transformed in Japan.This is the only way for the revival of Chinese Weiqi culture.

As for your choice, it is of course freedom.

The national culture is the world culture. My goal is to restore the traditional Chinese Weiqi culture so as to distinguish it from the go culture transformed in Japan.This is the only way for the revival of Chinese Weiqi culture.

I more or less agree, and I certainly sympathise if you feel China's contributions have been overlooked. I think you will find it hard to find many people in the West who have dome as much as me to highlight Chinese history. My efforts have won recognition within China. General Lin Jianchao has called me a "Friend of China."

I am very happy to be thought of that way. But I also write extensively about go in Japan and Korea. I therefore think of myself also as a Friend of Japan and a Friend of Korea.

John Fairbairn wrote:

The national culture is the world culture. My goal is to restore the traditional Chinese Weiqi culture so as to distinguish it from the go culture transformed in Japan.This is the only way for the revival of Chinese Weiqi culture.

I more or less agree, and I certainly sympathise if you feel China's contributions have been overlooked. I think you will find it hard to find many people in the West who have dome as much as me to highlight Chinese history. My efforts have won recognition within China. General Lin Jianchao has called me a "Friend of China."

I am very happy to be thought of that way. But I also write extensively about go in Japan and Korea. I therefore think of myself also as a Friend of Japan and a Friend of Korea.

Thank you for your efforts and contributions to the spread of weiqi/go culture.