Yes, there was a great great amount of money to earn with Igo, like a popular sport of today.
Ehh, money… always the same story.
Igo was financially supported by the Governement, as the other traditional Arts. I don’t know if the Governement of that period was spending all its money in military activities, then if it was only glad to stop to support Igo, but i know that Nihon Kiin was created thanks to important business men, and that at least the Press world was aware of how much was interesting to sponsorize Igo games between famous and beloved players.
In the Igo families it was well known that they were also looking for Chinese talented players to make things more and more interesting.
For us it has been a shock when we knew that the name of Honimbo family will become a annual title for Nihon Kiin players, our world was sinking.
But perhaps all the first part of the last century was dominated by an insane research for power and richness, the pressure of those new technologies all together, so much money to earn…
“The war was just the inneninga of those times”, i heard my father say.
Yes, unfortunately there was a lot of money to earn with Igo, sooooooooo sad…
Well, for us it was sad, but perhaps professional Igo needed a changement to improve, and the interest of businness for Igo did the job.
Where businness money is involved, time too is involved of course; i mean, becomes a cost. When industrialisation started, this connection became dramatic, i guess. The effort to save time changed the planet, we could say 🙂
Igo too has been affected by time.
Games became shorter and shorter, because their cost.
Ooteai desappeared because time cost.
Commercial money is different from governamental money.
A tournament match in TV has to finish fast, if you want to have a huge audience and then make the sponsors pay. And a fighting game, ending with an exciting kill, is perfect for spectacular purposes.
Then, style changed. And new, deep researches were done.
The price to pay is that Igo has to be more and more like a sport.
I say that is a price to pay, because in this trend the spiritual side falls more and more in the dark.
Business… money… costs… time… gains… sport… why not, everything helps Igo evolution. Igo can stand also this, a century or two are anyway a short time.
Igo time, of course…
Tan Gen – the New Moon of December 2006
climbing falls 