On the one hand, Father pressured my every move – he closed in on me, cut me off and besieged my pieces. Although he was greatly stretching his forces, he continued his relentless attack. He was tenacious, unyielding. Nevertheless, all his moves seemed to be part of a larger plan; a plan I could not discern. I was at a loss. His intentions remained hidden, and yet he carried them out ingeniously; danger seemed to be all around me. The board changed repeatedly: black and white stones crisscrossed each other, forming strange, bizarre patterns; the battle for dominance was increasingly bitter and hard-fought, and I began to doubt and question my every move. Then the endgame arrived. Father played his advantage, but – perhaps because he was too anxious for victory, I don’t know – he managed to grab only one of my stones whilst I took several of his. Later, although he had exhausted his strategy, he hit out in all directions, striving to regain the initiative, fighting against his impending doom, but it was all for nothing. This is how our first game ended. Father lost by three pieces.

But he didn’t lose the rematch.

We played three more games. Father won them all, each one more easily than the last. Our final game ended before I had even played half of it. Afterwards, Father played Ah-bing. In total seven games. The result was the same: Ah-bing won the first match before losing the next six. I thought: just a few days ago, Father was completely ignorant of the game, he didn’t even know the squares from the circles, but in the blink of an eye he seemed to have mastered it – he had destroyed the two of us. We were both left speechless.

On the following day, Ah-bing invited over a fellow go enthusiast. They belonged to the same work unit. Ah-bing’s friend was a more accomplished go player. Generally, Ah-bing was able to take two of his stones, but nothing more. I remember that day clearly. The sky was crystal clear. There was a freshness in the air that had come with the newly fallen snow. It had been the first major snowfall of winter, and the hurried and sudden blast of cold had covered the landscape with a soft blanket of whiteness. I should say, it was an absolutely perfect day to play go. In the first match, Father started poorly and by his twentieth move he knew he would lose. I don’t know if you are familiar with go or not, but you need to understand one thing: to realize that you have already lost shortly after beginning is not something an ordinary player is capable of.