Yasunari Kawabata: The Master of Go

Go came to Japan from China. Real Go, however, developed in Japan. The art of Go in China, now and three hundred years ago, does not bear comparison with that in Japan. Go was elevated and deepened by the Japanese... It is clear that in Go the Japanese spirit has transcended the merely imported and derivative.

Perhaps no other nation has developed games as intellectual as Go and Oriental chess. Perhaps nowhere else in the world would a match be allotted eighty hours extended over three months. Had Go, like the No drama and the tea ceremony, sunk deeper and deeper into the recesses of a strange Japanese tradition?

... That this extraordinary man was born in China and lived in Japan seemed symbolic of a preternatural bounty. His genius had taken life after his remove to Japan. There had been numerous examples over the centuries of persons distinguished in one art or another in a neighbouring country and honoured in Japan. Wu is an outstanding modern example. It was Japan that nurtured, protected, and ministered to a genius that would have lain dormant in China.

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The Master was fond of eels