Jo Bun'en

Kanji: 徐 文燕
Katakana: ジョ ブンエン
English transliteration of Japanese Kanji: Jo Bun’en
Pinyin transliteration of the same characters, reading them as Mandarin: Xú Wényàn

b. 2005-01-15
Female Nihon Ki-in professional 2-dan
Born in Tokyo (東京都, Metropolitan Tokyo Prefecture)

After her experiences in the Children's Meijin (finalist in 2016) and as an insei, Jo qualified as a professional in 2021. She had to take the qualification exam three times before passing. As of 2024-06-02, she’s played 40 games, 17 of them wins. The highest rated player she has defeated is Chang Rueijie, and the highest rated woman is Mukai Chiaki. She also beat Ishigure Ikuro 9p when he was 80.

Table of contents Family Name Go career Videos External links Fun facts Pictures

Family

Jo is the daughter of Kin En, another female Nihon Ki-in professional (4-dan), born when her mother was 40. Kin was born in Shanghai, China, was a student of Qiu Bairui and was once the Women's Amateur Honinbo?. Jo learned Go from her mother in elementary school, but from 4th grade, her teacher was Mitsunaga Junzo at her mother’s recommendation. In 2022, Jo was interviewed about her teacher, and she spoke very fondly of him.

Her father is a retired interpreter, also from Shanghai. Her parents spoke Shanghainese at home, so Jo understands some of that language, which is not mutually intelligible with Mandarin. Jo says she learned some Mandarin in Japan but understands little.

On 1 Jan 2025, Jo tweeted:

I’m now 20 years old. ✨ I’m grateful to my parents for raising me and everyone who has supported me. I look forward to working with you in the future.😊

Name

With her Chinese heritage, Jo has a name that is meaningful in Chinese, as well as in Japanese, albeit rare.

Her surname 徐 is pronounced Xú in Mandarin, and is a fairly common surname. It can also mean “slow” and “gentle”, but the surname itself doesn’t really have a meaning. The character is pronounced Jo in Japanese, and is not so common as a Japanese surname.

Her given name is combined of two characters 文 and 燕. 文 is pronounced Wén in Mandarin and either Bun or Fumi in Japanese. In both languages, it means culture, literature, or the written language.

燕 is transliterated as Yàn (and pronounced “yen” with a falling tone) in Chinese, and means the swallow bird, which symbolizes symbolize happiness, the arrival of spring, and good fortune. In Japanese, it is transliterated En, meaning the same thing. 燕 is also a homophone of her mother’s given name 艶, Yàn in Mandarin and En in Japanese, meaning beautiful or charming.

She sometimes writes her name in the phonetic Katakana script to make the right pronunciation clear (Katakana is also used for foreign-derived words, so the choice of that over Hiragana reflects her Chinese heritage):

• ジョ・ブンエン = Jo Bun En

Go career

In 2021, she won the 3rd Y's Academy Cup. Fairbairn had this to say on the event:

:The Y's Academy Cup is a strange event, held in the Diamond Go Salon, not too far from the Ki-in. It's a Swiss for 10 players, 5 pro and 5 amateur. But the pros have to give the amateurs 2 stones. Jo scored 5-0, beating fellow 1-dans Takeshita Ryoya, Tanaka Yuki, Suzukawa Natsumi and Mito Shuhei.

(In fact, it was a 7 round modified Swiss and she won with a clean score, 7–0)

In July, she played in the preliminaries of the 2nd Discovery Cup, beating Suzukawa and losing to Rafif Shidqi Fitrah.

Later, in December, she competed in the Japan-Taiwan Young Players Exchange, in which she “played two 3-dan males and beat one (Lin Yancheng).”

She has not yet managed to qualify for the Women's Honinbo. In December 2021, she was knocked out in the semifinal of her qualification group by Nakamura Sumire. This game, which took almost eight hours, was streamed on the Nihon Ki-in Youtube channel.

According to pajaro on L19, she was the recorder of at least a couple of games in the Meijin or Honinbo tournaments.

She won the only official game she has played against her mother on 2024-12-16, 44th Female Honinbo preliminary. It was the day after they had celebrated her mother’s 60th birthday.

Fujisawa Rina has been a good friend and mentor, and they travel together. She is also a good friend of Ueno Risa, going to a hamburger restaurant together about 100 times.

Videos

Jo was featured in two Chinese language articles on Sohu: 母亲是对手，日本又一对“棋二代, from April 2021, and 徐文燕：慢性子却有坚强的心, from May.

She answered questions at a Nihon Ki-in event, in a video published in March 2021 on the 囲碁将棋TV -朝日新聞社- Youtube channel.

Her mother Kin En also appeared in all those videos.

External links

• Japanese Wikipedia
• Her Twitter
• Ki-in
• Wikidata
• PWD
• Go4Go
• Go Ratings

Fun facts

According to John Fairbairn,

... she learnt to relax before big games by eating 60 strawberries, (which) even have their special day in Japan—15th January. 1–5 is ichi–go, and the Japanese for strawberry is ichigo. And by a fluke Jo’s birthday is 15th January. She did not say there is a connection—that’s my guess. After all, strawberries and strawberry picking (ichigogari) are widely popular with Japanese women.

Jo Bun'en is well above average height for women in her country, standing 172 cm (~5' 8")]. The average Japanese or Chinese woman is about 158 cm (~5' 2").

Her favorite drink is apple juice.

She likes to make desserts.

Pictures

Front, left to right: Jo Bun'en, Fujisawa Rina, Ueno Asami, and Ueno Risa (2023) (Image credit: Fujisawa Rina Twitter)

Jo Bun’en (left) travelling with her good friend Fujisawa Rina, (31 Dec 2023) (Image credit: Fujisawa Rina Twitter)

Jo Bun'en (left) with her mother Kin En, (head & shoulders shot, 2021-05-30) (Image credit: Fohu.com )

Jo Bun’en (left) celebrating her mother Kin En’s 60th birthday, (2024-12-15) (Image credit: Jo Bun’en Twitter )

Jo Bun’en on her 20th birthday, (2025-01-15) (Image credit: Jo Bun’en Twitter)

Jo Bun’en (left) with her mother Kin En, (2021-04-22) (Image credit: Fohu.com)