The Girl Who Played Go

[1] “Mother,” in respectful Japanese.

[2] Pu-Yi, the last Emperor of China. He abdicated when the Chinese Republic was created in 1912. In 1932, with Japanese help, he fled from Tian Jing, where he had been living under guard. In order to legalize their occupation of northern China since September 18, 1931, the Japanese then put him on the throne of Manchuria and proclaimed its independence in March 1932. †Xin Jing, the capital of independent Manchuria, which is now the town of Chang Chun.

[3] On December 12, 1936, Zhang Xueliang took Chiang Kai-shek hostage. He freed him on December 25 and accompanied him back to Nanking, where the Kuomintang-the popular democratic party in China -was based. As they stepped off the airplane, Chiang broke their agreement and imprisoned Zhang for some fifty years.

[4] On September 18, 1931, the Japanese army defeated Zhang Xueliang’s troops and took over Manchuria.

[5] From 1905 to 1910 Japan succeeded in driving Russian and Chinese forces out of Korea, then it colonized the peninsula, enforcing the use of the Japanese language and instigating a policy of cultural assimilation.

[6] As Manchuria is often called “the country outside the Great Wall,” the areas inside the Great Wall are also known as the “inner territories.” In 1932, when Manchuria became independent, the Japanese instituted a system of passports so that they had more control over movements between the zone that was under their influence and the rest of China.

[7] From the sixth century Buddhism and Chinese culture infiltrated the Yamato Imperial court of Japan. In 604 Prince Shotoku sent an official embassy to the court of Chang’an (now Xian) in China. In 645 the Yamato court decided to turn Japan into a copy of Tang China, and Japanese calligraphy adopted Chinese ideograms. The political problems within the Tang court, and the Tatar invasion, persuaded the Japanese to withdraw their embassy in 838. From then on Japanese culture has evolved independently from that on the Chinese mainland.

[8] Tokugawa’s family produced fifteen shoguns, who reigned over Japan from the beginning of the seventeenth century to the end of the nineteenth century.

[9] Hagakure by Jocho Yamamoto (1659-1719) is a code of conduct for samurais.

[10] In Japan apprentice geishas wear wide sleeves. Once their status as geishas is confirmed, they wear narrow sleeves.

[11] Manchurian hierarchy is classed in order according to different-colored banners that represent the various clans. Pure yellow is the color of the clan that counts the imperial family among its descendants.

[12] On May 15, 1932, nine officers managed to get into Prime Minister Inukai’s residence. They assassinated him before handing themselves over to the police.

[13] The Kamakura era: 1192-1333. While the Emperor continued to preside over a symbolic court in Kyoto, the shogun in Kamakura actually wielded power over the entire country.

[14] A form of suicide accessible only to samurais (and, therefore, only to men). It follows a precise ritual: death is achieved by disembowelment with a small saber.

[15] In the theater of Noh, Kyogens are comic performers who appear between two acts of the play.

[16] In the game of go the black stones begin the game, but they have to concede 5½ points to the whites in the count-up when the game is over.

[17] Chinese philosopher (360? BC-280? BC), the founder of Taoist thinking.

[18] A wide belt used by the Japanese to secure a kimono.

[19] Taken from Ise Monogatari about the Japanese province Ise in the eleventh century.

[20] From a poem by Issa, an eighteenth-century Japanese poet.

[21] Poem by Li Yu, China, tenth century.

[22] Poem by Li Po, China, eighth century.