Here is some information about the most recent China trip. In the Gallery that can be accessed from the sidebar on the right you can find more pictures.

The 2006 Go to China trip took place from June 20 to August 20 2006. It was different from the previous ones in many respect, but a lot of fun, and perhaps the best trip arranged to date. Unfortunately, I had classes for part of the summer so that I had no way to participate during the first 3 weeks of the trip this time.

Two years ago, when we arranged the first trip, we spread the information mostly through tournaments and personal contacts in Sweden. This year, however, only around 1/4 of the participants were from Sweden, and we had participants from England, France, Germany, USA, Australia… (with apologies to anyone I might have forgotten). In terms of organization, many things are also different. The first year we had relatively limited contact in Beijing, which meant that events and activities were relatively restricted. Now our network has slowly grown bigger, which makes it easier to arrange housing, activities, and make the go teaching better.

Most days started with go lessons, at 10 in the morning, and with a break for lunch, participants played go until afternoon, some until 2 or 3, and others until it was time for dinner. In the evening, there were no special events scheduled, but often opportunities to play go, other board or card games, computer games, pool, or go for a massage. Later in the evening visits to night clubs and bars, especially in the famous Sanlitun bar districts were frequently seen.

During weekends and rest days there were sometimes scheduled sightseeing activities, but often participants also took the chance to explore some of the sights by themselve. Tiananmen square, The forbidden city and The temple of heaven were all within walking distance for some, and The pearl and silk markets were also appreciated for shopping. In addition, Beijing has a large number of beautiful parks as well as shopping plazas and good restaurants spread all over the city.

Special visits were also organized to go clubs and professional pro games, the highlight being the first visit to a pro game where we got to see top Kong Jie 7p and Lee Sedol 9p, and meet Kong Jie for a dinner chat(as I have written about previously in the blog) and the time Chang Hao 9p visited the apartments to review one of his games, the one from the Ing Cup final with Choi Choelhan, 9d from Korea. A video was recorded of the event, and we can hopefully post it later on our website. Chang Hao is a very friendly player, I learned this when I got to play with him last year, and this year he appeared with a smile, and toward the end signed the fans of the participants of this years trip. When Klas from Sweden came up to sign his fan he wrote: “Too strong!” together with his name on it. So watch out when you meet Klas in the future in a tournament.

Our teacher Wang Yang 5p also contributed a lot to the teaching in the apartments, and to the good atmosphere there and participated in the go teaching around 1/3 of the time in total. One of the less successful events was the trip to a go club for a friendship game where I had to act translator for a speech titled: “Weiqi(Go) is the Bible of China”, which was about as contrived as the title already makes it sound. And I don’t even think the person who gave the speech was a Christian.

In addition, a short Chinese course was organized near the start of the trip. Toward the end of the trip there was a greater tendency of participants playing other board games rather than go (such as Bang!, Set and Carcassonne) and for excursions in the city even on scheduled playing days.

The living conditions this year was also very good, in high standard apartments very near the center of the city (walking to the Forbidden city at the very center took around 45 minutes for a fast walker). We had two Chinese girls, Mao Mao and Lu Yan help with organization, and hired personnel to cook lunch and help with cleaning of the apartments. In the apartments we also setup a small “shop” in the apartments with snacks and drinks. The apartments people lived in were relatively crowded, but living this close also makes it easier for people to get to know each other, and makes the group dynamics better.

And, the most important of a trip like this is of course the group. This time, although there were almost 40 participants, there was a lot of fun together with the group, and no major conflicts, which must be seen as a big success. Just to mention a few:

-Vladimir, the strongest player, a Czech 6d contributed with an always positive attitude and a strong like for exploring Beijing and China. He also offered us some better chances in friendship games with Chinese players, although I think it is fair to say that he lost most games anyway.In 3 stone games Wang Yang beat him by 5-1.

-Wang Yang, our teacher, turned out to be the strongest player of go, Warcraft, and basketball in the group, but was not as good at pool.

-Geoff from Australia, 81, is by far the oldest partipant to date, and was always near to a smile, and liked joking around with the younger participants, many of which he already knew from KGS.

-John, from Canada was always positive and happy to join in in any activity that was arranged within the group. Competed with Geoff as the biggest joker of the trip(and their battles on the go board were probably pretty close to).

-Daniel J, Mattias S and Ludek were all very active in go playing and on time for the morning lessons most of the time until they found girlfriends and decided to spend the time in another way. Maybe more on their stories later

-Vickie from England/Hong Kong was the only girl, perhaps the most enthusiastic go player in the group, and one of the players (together with Solomon, from USA/Korea) who improved the most during the trip.

-Fredrik, from Sweden, 14, is one of the youngest participants to date (Lasse from Denmark was also only 14 when he participated with his parents 2 years ago) was one of the strongest players in the group, was tall enough to look like 18, but probably spent more time challenging Wang Yang to Warcraft than playing go.

-Jesper struggled a little as the weakest player in the group, but still managed to improve a lot, and had a lot of fun together with some previous friends and contacts that were also living or working in Beijing.

-Kevin had been married to a Chinese for at least 10 years, but came to China with only the slightest knowledge of Chinese.

-Eric, Sam and Stefan managed to miss one of the biggest attractions of Beijing, The forbidden city, and instead entered a small park, a few 100 meters west, thinking it was the forbidden city. This park has now been dubbed “The almost forbidden city”. They were already out a big late, and when they realised their mistake The forbidden city was about to close for the day.

-Travis was perhaps the most unlucky participant, and broke his foot while running down The great wall during the first weeks. However, toward the end of the trip he recovered and found a girlfriend on a week trip to Dalien together with Vincent. He was also reported to have payed 500 for a jade bracelet on the silk marked, where 50 might well have been reasonable(but it is always hard to say what’s real and what’s not, and what’s a good price and what’s not).

There are almost 20 more that I have not mentioned here, and I felt that everyone had a place in the group and found friends within it.

Now I only hope that next year’s trip will be even more fun, and that we for the first time can get more than 50 participants.