>>Yes.
Zhang's reply was succinct. Then:
>>Well, well. Looks like you actually figured it out.
Scott continued:
>>There are fish in the pond, right? And there's a shop near the signboard selling fish food, right?
Rather than answer these questions, Zhang explained the solution to his "mystery coin" puzzle.
>>The point is, on the sign it says in Japanese, "Fish food is 100 yen."
>> I thought so.
Scott seemed satisfied with this explanation, but at first I couldn't see what it meant. Fish food is 100 yen so he throws a hundred-yen coin into the pond—that didn't make any sense. After I thought it over for a minute, though, I got it.
>>Oh, okay. This person doesn't realize that 100 yen is the price of the fish food, he thinks the hundred-yen coin itself is the food.
>>That's it. In Japanese "Fish food is 100 yen" can mean that too, right?
>>I guess that's right.
The explanation definitely worked, but to me it wasn't the slightest bit interesting. It wasn't about thinking, it was more like making a big deal out of a trivial quirk of the language. I had to protest.
>>But even if he's a foreigner, these days there isn't anyone who's never seen fish before.
>>Oh?
It was Scott who replied.
>>What about in desert countries? Even in the USA, you hardly see any fish in places that are far from the oceans and don't have any rivers. Only the canned stuff.
Zhang replied.
>>Canned fish—they probably really do feed on coins.
>>Hah, good one! You have a quick wit.
Apparently he couldn't come up with the Japanese for wit. I checked the dictionary—"wit": kichi, or chiryoku.
Despite the compliment, Zhang was gruff as ever.
>>No wit involved. I saw a sign like that when I was in Japan and thought it was weird.
>>Turning that into the "mystery coin" puzzle takes a sharp mind, I'd say. I bet you'd be an interesting chess opponent. Care to play?
>>I wouldn't mind.
Scott and Zhang started playing, and I watched while chatting with Zhang.
>>Where did you live in Japan?
>>Yokohama.
>>Oh, yeah. Chinatown and all that.
>>That's where I lived.
>>And now you live in China?
>>Right. Shanghai.
>>You're studying screenwriting—are you a college student?
>>Pretty much. I will be this fall.
>>Sorry to ask, but you're a guy, right?
>>Apparently.
It may have been because he was playing chess at the same time, but it was an oddly brusque exchange. Even so, he didn't ignore my questions, and as the game wound down I gradually learned a few things about him.
Zhang, who lived in Shanghai, planned to go the United States in the fall to study screenwriting. In addition to his real name, he also had an English name—Eric. His parents were in the trading business, and he had lived in Japan as a child, which is why he knew Japanese. He could still track down information in Japanese on the Internet and that kind of thing. He'd been reading up on the American movie Transformers, remembered the Japanese toys that the movie was based on, and tried to find them on Yahoo! Japan. That's when he noticed the game site and decided to drop in on one of the chess rooms—and that's how the three of us had met.
Scott broke in.
>>But Transformers is based on an American cartoon series. I've seen it.
>>No, the Japanese toys came first. I remember playing with my older brother's hand-me-downs when I was a kid—that's why I was searching for them.
Apparently, these toys had been exported to the USA, became a big hit there, and spawned a cartoon series. Lately they were making movies based on those old cartoons, so they were in the news again, which piqued the interest of Zhang in Shanghai, who went looking for the toys on the Internet.
>>In Japan they were called Diaclones. The Transformers cartoon series also came to Japan, sort of a reverse-import from the USA.
>>Shota-san, are you familiar with it?
The Diaclones and the cartoon series based on them seemed to belong to the distant past. People my age didn't know anything about them, and I couldn't remember ever having seen them. I told them this quite candidly, and Zhang chimed in immediately.
>>Japanese people don't know much about Japan.
What a jerk. Intent on responding in kind, I brought up something I'd heard from one of the older students in my club at school.
>>I hear Japanese ramen is a big hit now in China. China—the home of Chinese cuisine.
The varieties of ramen developed in Japan were apparently more popular in China than authentic Chinese ramen It was a point on which, as a Japanese guy, I could be a little condescending. Zhang replied immediately.
>>You must mean Taiwan. It's not that popular in Shanghai.
His unflappable demeanor was irritating. At that point, however, Scott was kind enough to checkmate him, vaulting his knight over Zhang's entrenched defense in an amazing attack. Even as a spectator I found that route to victory very satisfying.
I was about to say "That'll show him!" but just then Scott offered a formal thank you. It was a gesture meant for Zhang, his opponent, but he probably also wanted to get between Zhang and me. Zhang returned the gesture, and then Scott began to discuss the game they had just finished.
>>Eric-san, you like defense but you get into trouble because you don't move your king from his place in the center. You'd do better to defend your king by castling early on.
>>I'm not used to castling.
>>Oh, are you pretty good at xiangqi?
For once Zhang answered candidly.
>>I'm amazed you could tell. That's two in a row you've gotten right.
I didn't know the word xiangqi, but I found out how it was written in kanji and how to pronounce it. It's a game similar to shogi, but it was developed in China. Apparently, Zhang's xiangqi-playing habits affected his chess game.
>>What do you know, they play shogi in China too.
I didn't mean anything by this, but Zhang was offended.
>>Japan invented shogi by copying China.
We were about to start going at it again, but Scott intervened once more.
>>The game was first invented by people in ancient India. It became chess in Europe, xiangqi in China, and shogi in Japan.
Scott knew a lot about things like that, as you might expect of someone who was so good at chess. Conscious of his role as the mediator in the running quarrel between Zhang and me, he laid down a challenge.
>>If someone from the land of shogi and someone from the land of xiangqi met on the chessboard, who would win?
Edited by Japan Echo Inc.