Wu Qingyuan Cup/Name Discussion

bugcat: I'd like to (and did) make a page for this international women's tournament that takes place in China.

My feeling is that "Wu Qingyuan Cup" should be the page and "Go Seigen Cup" the alias, but I wanted to poll opinion. Would it be better for "Go Seigen Cup" to be the page and "Wu Qingyuan Cup" the alias?

kmr - In western go world almost everybody knows who is Go Seigen, and not many ppl know chinese version of his name. I rather suggest doing other way. After all, its Sensei Library, and not |put here chinese name for SL|.

bugcat: It's a Chinese tournament, though. Anyway, dismissing the removal tag and deletion request.

kmr - I know, but it does not matter much in my opinion. If we follow suit everywhere, then SL would be at least very hardly to read. Imagine that we change all names of tournaments into chinese, all go terms etc. Common sense suggest that anywhere where we can use english name, we should do that. Though making alias is ofc good.

tapir: Imo you can make the case for either version and looking at pages about the event both are in use. You gave alias and explanation, what else could anyone expect? If this were a page name change request, I would roll my eyes and ignore it, in both directions.

bugcat: "anywhere where we can use english name, we should do that." Go Seigen is not an English name any more than Wu Qingyuan. The latter is used not infrequently in 21st century publications. For instance, it appears in the British Go Journal.

kmr - yes, i know Go Seigen is not english but japanese name, i used "shortcut", mental acronym or whatever correct term in english it is. However i still think we should use Go Seigen everywhere where we can and not Wu Qingyuan. There are 2 most important arguments - first is that its much much more known in western go world than other. And 2nd - this was his legal name through most of his life. And btw (now totally joking) - Go Seigen is 50% english name (after all, Go Seigen was so good that they named game after him).

bugcat: I'd argue that Go Seigen's legal name was "吳清源" and not any particular reading, romanisation or expression in kana. Give or take simplifications / variants, eg. 吴 / 吳 / 虞. I'm neither a historian or lawyer, but I haven't heard it asserted that Japanese legal names required a reading to be specified.

Our page also says that his "naturalised Japanese name" was Kure Izumi.

kmr - 吳清源 was his legal name when? When he was born or when he played professionaly in Japan? What is Cho U current legal name? If you want, go ahead. Change Wu Quinguan to 吳清源 everywhere, atari to chinese term, etc. I am a bit of sick of this discussion. Its SL, and SL is english. We use english romanisation everywhere we can.

johnf Go Seigen's "legal" name (the one he was born with) was Wu Quan. Seigen was a stylistic "professional" name bestowed by a Chinese warlord. Go NEVER took the name Kure Izumi. He took the naturalised name Go Izumi (which was a reading of his Chinese birth name, and the reading had to be provided in furigana, for passports, etc). It was read Kure by many Japanese, which was handy in the sense that naturalisation was done to deflect anti-Chinese sentiment against him, but he said he wanted a foot in both camps. The use of Kure irritated him and he soon reverted to Go Seigen, though during the war he did take a purely Japanese name. We should also be aware that there is a concerted and growing campaign in China to assert Chinese primacy in many areas of go (e.g. Huang Longshi is now said to be superior to Dosaku whereas previously they were equals). Whether SL editors toe the Party line is a matter for them, but I think they should declare their allegiances and not hide behind anonymity. Go Seigen lived almost 90% of his life in Japan. His children have his surname Go (similarly Cho Kosumi, born in Japan, is how the daughter of Cho U is referred to). He gave his blessing to the Go Seigen Cup in Barcelona. It's a matter of preference rather than logic or legality, but there are certainly lots of reasons to choose Go Seigen in English contexts (though preferably without putting the stress on -gen -and certainly not using the American Seigen Go!). The GoGoD database, which is not only the biggest western database but is also accompanied by a names+biographies dictionary of around 4,500 entries, uses "Go Seigen Cup". In recent years there has been a stuttering trend for Chinese/Taiwanese born people in Japan to insist on a Japanified reading of the Chinese pronunciation of their names, and some Japanese went along with it. But good intentions gang aft agley, and if anything the trend seems to have gone in reverse. Since I believe people should state their qualifications for contributions on SL, I will add that I know Japanese, Chinese and Korea, have worked as an advisor on oriental names for the British police, have read go history for over 50 years, and have met many of the people mentioned, e.g. Go Seigen (Dosaku was a little before my time). I believe the Chinese campaign to restore some balance to Japan's dominant reputation in go history has merit, and even contribute to it in my Museum of Go Theory series. But I am not a Party member. And I am not anonymous.

bugcat: I propose that we follow the lead of the AGA E-Journal and make the title Wu Qingyuan (Go Seigen) Cup, whilst retaining WuQingyuanCup as the article name and GoSeigenCup as an alias. I believe that the Chinese organisers would want the tournament to be called the Wu Qingyuan Cup, and I haven't seen an official romanisation contradicting that assumption.