The three games I played against Zhang resulted in one victory, one defeat, and one tie. Mathematically this left us dead even, but the final game ended in a tie only because Zhang faltered just as I was facing certain defeat. He didn't have me in check, but I couldn't make a move, so the game ended in what they call a stalemate. I was lucky to escape without losing.
>>Looks as though we're about evenly matched.
Relieved, I thought I'd get in one last parting shot and make an exit. After three games in a row I was pretty sleepy, and I wasn't sure how I'd do if we played another one. It was time to call it a night. Back came Zhang's reply:
>>What do you mean, evenly matched? In that last game you had the first move and
you still lost, almost.
>>A tie's a tie. Goodnight.
I was about to log off when Scott spoke up. Since the three of us had finally gotten together, he wanted to set a time for another gathering.
>>Wait a minute. I'd like to talk with you both again. We can find out who the better player is next time.Zhang replied.
>>Okay with me, but Shota's probably too scared.
There was no possibility of backing down after that. We tried to figure out a day and time that would work for all of us and ended up deciding to meet at the same time the following week: ten o'clock on Wednesday night in Japan, nine in the morning in New York, nine in the evening in Shanghai.
We started meeting every Wednesday to play chess and talk, and the weekly gathering became an established custom. Occasionally something came up and one of us was absent, in which case the other two played chess together. The following week all three of us would be back, each taking our turn playing one of the others. It got to where I really looked forward to our weekly gatherings, so much that if I couldn't get home in time after being out with classmates or working, I'd log on from an Internet café or one of those coffee shops where people sit around reading comic books.
I think both Scott and Zhang must have felt the same way. All three of us tried to be there every week, and when one of us couldn't make it the other two were disappointed. Scott expressed his disappointment gently, saying "We'll miss you," and Zhang usually came out with some nasty remark, like "Fine, next week the two of us can get down to some serious chess." Somewhere, though, amid the sarcasm, the message got through that we were pretty good friends. The three of us came from different countries, and our chess abilities varied widely, but whenever we got together we had an amazingly good time.
When it came to chess, Scott was unquestionably the best player, and I hate to admit it, but Zhang was a little better than me. Even so, maybe because of our different styles of play—I was more attack-oriented and he was more defense-oriented— when I could get the momentum on my side I won a fair number of games. I was very pleased when I did win, and it made me all the more eager to play again.
In our conversations Scott would ask questions about manga and anime, and when I told him about this or that one Zhang would add a critique of the storyline. Zhang asked Scott about Hollywood movies and life in the USA. He also got some tutoring in English, which he said he was studying, and that was educational for me, too. I enjoyed learning about chess from Scott and learning about Chinese food and famous restaurants in Chinatown from Zhang.
Something that one of us was interested in would provide the starting point for a conversation, and because of the differences among our three cultures, the talk would take some unusual turns and the conversation would really take off. Scott might be explaining chess tactics, for instance, and suddenly the topic would shift and we'd start talking about a story about a ninja warrior in a walled city. This is how it went:
>>If you're going to swap pieces, you should first think about how it will improve
the position of the pieces that will remain.
>>In those situations if you were playing shogi it'd be easy, because when you take
the other guy's piece it becomes one of your own pieces.
>>Piece-dropping is an interesting rule in shogi. Suddenly an enemy appears on the
board, like a ninja.
>>Going over to the enemy if you get killed—I'd say it's a Japanese cultural symbol
of betrayal.
>>Scott, did Chinese culture have an effect on the rules of xiangqi?
>>Do you mean influence? If so, the fact that there's a big river in the middle of the
board and that the king is in a palace probably reflects some influence.
>>They're called hejie and jiugong.
>>Like the map of China! Very interesting.
Scott seemed to be imagining two walled cities facing each other across the Yellow River or the Zhang Jiang. Then I said that when a piece is dropped in shogi it's like a ninja suddenly materializing inside a walled city.
>>Very good. Like something in a Hollywood movie.
>>No, something like that would be in a Hong Kong movie.
>>Either one. Zhang, when you get famous why don't you write the screenplay?
>>I'd really like to see Eric's movie.
>>I'm planning to write stories that are more intellectual, though.
>>If that's the case then aren't you taking the wrong approach, going to study in the
USA?
This may have been insensitive to Scott, but I had the strong impression that American movies consisted of gaudy action films and enormously costly special-effects extravaganzas. There seemed to be hardly any intellectual content at all. Zhang replied immediately.
>>No, stupid, the USA has the most well developed methodologies for screenwriting and cinematography. That's what I'm going there to learn.
Scott stuck up for Zhang.
>>Shota, Eric is going to study film at a university in California. It's an excellent school, so he's not making a mistake.
Somehow, as happened in chess, I seemed to have carelessly taken the wrong line of attack. Zhang's counterattack also conformed to the usual pattern.
>>I don't need advice on which approach to take from some easy-living Japanese college boy.
At times like this, because he knew how things were in Japan, he was impossible to deal with. When he brought up the lackadaisical attitude of Japanese college students, I didn't know what to say. Encouraged by my silence, he intensified his attack.
>>While we're at it, I've been meaning to ask you, what are you planning to do when you finish school?
>>Well, I guess I'll become a regular salaryman.
This makeshift reply was just what I'd always been told by my father. I always hated it when he said I should get a job at the biggest company I could find, but when push came to shove it was the only answer I could come up with. Pathetic, I had to admit.
>>Salaryman is a term invented in Japan, you know. In our countries people say businessman.
I was grateful when Scott's comment steered the conversation off in another direction. We started talking about language differences as seen from our varying perspectives—how the characters for tegami mean "letter" in Japanese but the same two characters mean "toilet paper" in Chinese, and how confusing it was that in English, "China" is both the name of a country and a word for ceramic ware.
I felt at ease again, but Zhang's question was stuck in the back of my mind. What
kind of life would I lead when I got out of school?
Edited by Japan Echo Inc.