Jungsuk in our Time

BGJ 123 Summer 2001

Reviewer: Matthew Macfadyen

ISBN 89-7990-123-2

Go books appear at such a rate nowadays that the habits of the 1970’s, when most of the keener players read all the books as a matter of course, are hard to maintain. But a recent browse through Gerry’s stock produced some interesting ones.

Jungsuk in our Time is written by Seo Bong-soo & Jung Dong-sik and published by Hankook Kiwon

We are often told that Korea is the place where Go has taken the most complete hold, and it is good to see some original material from there.

This is a basic joseki book which brings a lot of the standard joseki material within 10 years of up to date, but it also serves as the beginnings of an attempt to wean the western Go public away from the Japanese words we have been used to and on to their Korean equivalents.

This effort is unlikely to be very successful, I found the above paragraph hard to write without using ‘joseki’ rather than the Korean ‘Jungsuk’.

Perhaps the best which can be hoped for here is that we will be made aware of technical terms which do not need to be transliterated at all, and develop an effective English Go vocabulary. In the meantime there is no harm in learning a few words of Korean; Dansoo is atari, Pae is Ko, Maek is tesuji.