Martin: Untitled Memories
Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2011 4:10 am
While Martin isn't quite the most popular character in Lamentable Nights, given his general caustic attitude towards people, he is knowledgeable with the town.
At least, from a simple person's perspective, he is a person you could truly call a local.
== Birth ==
He was born in a middle-class family, to Dent Chang, a senior clerk at a printing company, and Seline Ngan, a textile factory worker who later became a full-time housewife. The romance between Dent and Seline could be fairly described as a marriage since childhood, them having known each other for close to twenty years before tying the knot some thirty-five years ago, when they were both twenty-somethings.
== The Eight Character Conundrum ==
As Chinese in a non-Chinese environment, being the insecure people they were, they went to the nearest Chinatown to have Martin's Eight Characters foretold by a fortune-teller, reputed to be one of the best in the nation. Martin remembers his father telling him that that fortune-teller, upon seeing the couple and the baby Martin, suddenly went into a spike of panic and chased them out of his consultation office; every Chinatown that the couple went to afterwards, the local fortune-tellers did almost the same thing without hesitation.
This happened during a time that the country's economy was in the doldrums and no city was spared in its effects, including Pebbleton, so it came as a surprise that fortune-tellers, hard as it is already that work would come their way, would chase them off.
Still, Chang Sr. would not let a little Eight Character problem get in the way, so they raised their child the traditional strict-father way without mentioning this incident until years later.
== The Beginning ==
When Martin began elementary school, two things happened. The regional subway network was established, allowing people access to the city center in half the time needed as they would have using the overland bus route. It was also that day that a meteor shower was first recorded in Pebbleton, precluded by Martin sitting all evening at the window sill. When the meteor rain came as expected, Martin quickly wished that he would one day do his Dad proud and excel at something.
But little Martin had no idea on what to excel on. Having very little interest in music, and the fact that Martin's father had been stuck with the same salary amidst an inflation crisis - the last of the significant economic problems in Pebbleton as far as Martin remembered - meant that piano, guitar or any musical instrument was out of the question. His father, being protective of Martin, had also forbidden him from playing sports, worried that any childhood injury might severely impact Martin's future.
So Martin was left with mind sports to play, and there was very little on offer. In the end, Martin decided he'd pick the simplest sport to play, and do his best at it. He found English Chess (now International Chess) too difficult, as was the complex rules of Chinese Chess and Shogi. In the end, at age eight, his Uncle Philip, a rich but earthly man, visited Martin during Chinese New Year, asking Martin what he wanted as he did not want to give anything to Martin that isn't useful to a child, money being one of many "useless" things.
"A simple to play board game that people can see me being good at!"
Having played Go in his youth, Philip Chang decided that it was the next best thing Martin could be schooled at, him not thinking much of what the significance of the act was. So, one month later, Dent was given a rather thick delivery package that contained a traditional Goban (Go board), lots and lots of black-and-white pieces in a brilliant shimmer of ivory, and five large books related to the game, in order of difficulty from pure beginner to semi-pro.
Dent, having played Go with Philip as a past-time, was fairly confident that children being children, Martin would probably lose interest after a few months. However, what came to Dent was a series of shocks that would precipitate the beginning of Martin's interest.
On the first day, Dent beat Martin with relative ease, having taken out three large territories that Martin had forgotten to protect with eye-building. On the second day, Dent still beat Martin, but only after taking out a single large group that was crucial to victory. From then on, however, Dent, having taken Martin lightly, was beaten in a close loss of just two stones.
One week after the goban arrived at the Chang residence, then further south of the town center, Martin was beating Dent by increasingly larger margins as Dent struggled to keep up with Martin. Knowing how deep Go actually is and astounded by his son's pace of improvement, Dent excitedly phones Philip, who by this time was busy at work again and could not spare time for Martin. Philip sent his home-schooled son, Jared, to the Chang residence during the summer break.
== Martin's determination seizes attention ==
The children agreed to play five games, once per day, as per Philip's request to keep records of the children's game. On the first day, Jared soundly beat a very surprised Martin by a large margin, and it was then that Philip revealed that Jared had, in fact, been home-schooled only because he had wanted Jared to eventually play in Japan as a full-time professional, and thus focusing his childhood on Go. This was a shock to Dent, wondering why Philip had sent such a strong child to play poor little Martin, but Martin's words later stunned the father with such shock.
"Jared's so good at Go! I wish I can quickly become as strong as he is!"
Perhaps, as a testament to Martin's precociousness, Jared and Martin's second game soon became a difficult test of survival as Martin held Jared until a small error in one of the most dangerous fights tipped the scales away from Martin. The third and fourth games shook young Jared, but nevertheless, small errors cost Martin and Jared was able to seize these gilt-edged opportunities to secure victories.
On the final day, Dent and Philip had a bet that the children didn't know - if Martin was able to beat Jared, Philip would see him through to junior high. Dent took the bet, since there were no strings attached, and, because neither he nor Philip were accurate judges anymore of their children's ability, had automatically assumed that Philip was just going through a rhetoric knowing Jared would surely win.
And so Martin and Jared began playing, not knowing the weight of the bet behind their last game. Martin and Jared were still a ways from each other, so Jared had relaxed his attention a little, and began to play experimental moves he never usually considered in a game, since Martin was so much fun to play with and is so unpredictable. Martin, however, didn't miss this change in play style, having noticed that Jared wasn't playing his usual cautious style, although at that time he didn't actually knew what the word "cautious" meant - he just knew.
While Jared happily sets his gameplan in motion and prepares to obliterate Martin's formations around the board, a surprise play in the tengen which neither of the seniors noticed - put Jared into a state of panic, realising later than Martin that Martin had just played a crippling move that would force him to waste at least three moves while he tried to surreptitiously focus Martin's lax attention elsewhere. After recovering just one move, Martin realised that Jared had suddenly switched his style of play into one even more cautious than what he had been doing for four days. He then played moves, not knowing where Jared was protecting, but in about ten moves he finally figured out what. Martin then broke through the weak spots, effectively ending the game as the game balance tilted towards Martin for the first and only time in five days.
"...How long did you say you learnt Go, again?"
"Four months!"
TO BE CONTINUED...
At least, from a simple person's perspective, he is a person you could truly call a local.
== Birth ==
He was born in a middle-class family, to Dent Chang, a senior clerk at a printing company, and Seline Ngan, a textile factory worker who later became a full-time housewife. The romance between Dent and Seline could be fairly described as a marriage since childhood, them having known each other for close to twenty years before tying the knot some thirty-five years ago, when they were both twenty-somethings.
== The Eight Character Conundrum ==
As Chinese in a non-Chinese environment, being the insecure people they were, they went to the nearest Chinatown to have Martin's Eight Characters foretold by a fortune-teller, reputed to be one of the best in the nation. Martin remembers his father telling him that that fortune-teller, upon seeing the couple and the baby Martin, suddenly went into a spike of panic and chased them out of his consultation office; every Chinatown that the couple went to afterwards, the local fortune-tellers did almost the same thing without hesitation.
This happened during a time that the country's economy was in the doldrums and no city was spared in its effects, including Pebbleton, so it came as a surprise that fortune-tellers, hard as it is already that work would come their way, would chase them off.
Still, Chang Sr. would not let a little Eight Character problem get in the way, so they raised their child the traditional strict-father way without mentioning this incident until years later.
== The Beginning ==
When Martin began elementary school, two things happened. The regional subway network was established, allowing people access to the city center in half the time needed as they would have using the overland bus route. It was also that day that a meteor shower was first recorded in Pebbleton, precluded by Martin sitting all evening at the window sill. When the meteor rain came as expected, Martin quickly wished that he would one day do his Dad proud and excel at something.
But little Martin had no idea on what to excel on. Having very little interest in music, and the fact that Martin's father had been stuck with the same salary amidst an inflation crisis - the last of the significant economic problems in Pebbleton as far as Martin remembered - meant that piano, guitar or any musical instrument was out of the question. His father, being protective of Martin, had also forbidden him from playing sports, worried that any childhood injury might severely impact Martin's future.
So Martin was left with mind sports to play, and there was very little on offer. In the end, Martin decided he'd pick the simplest sport to play, and do his best at it. He found English Chess (now International Chess) too difficult, as was the complex rules of Chinese Chess and Shogi. In the end, at age eight, his Uncle Philip, a rich but earthly man, visited Martin during Chinese New Year, asking Martin what he wanted as he did not want to give anything to Martin that isn't useful to a child, money being one of many "useless" things.
"A simple to play board game that people can see me being good at!"
Having played Go in his youth, Philip Chang decided that it was the next best thing Martin could be schooled at, him not thinking much of what the significance of the act was. So, one month later, Dent was given a rather thick delivery package that contained a traditional Goban (Go board), lots and lots of black-and-white pieces in a brilliant shimmer of ivory, and five large books related to the game, in order of difficulty from pure beginner to semi-pro.
Dent, having played Go with Philip as a past-time, was fairly confident that children being children, Martin would probably lose interest after a few months. However, what came to Dent was a series of shocks that would precipitate the beginning of Martin's interest.
On the first day, Dent beat Martin with relative ease, having taken out three large territories that Martin had forgotten to protect with eye-building. On the second day, Dent still beat Martin, but only after taking out a single large group that was crucial to victory. From then on, however, Dent, having taken Martin lightly, was beaten in a close loss of just two stones.
One week after the goban arrived at the Chang residence, then further south of the town center, Martin was beating Dent by increasingly larger margins as Dent struggled to keep up with Martin. Knowing how deep Go actually is and astounded by his son's pace of improvement, Dent excitedly phones Philip, who by this time was busy at work again and could not spare time for Martin. Philip sent his home-schooled son, Jared, to the Chang residence during the summer break.
== Martin's determination seizes attention ==
The children agreed to play five games, once per day, as per Philip's request to keep records of the children's game. On the first day, Jared soundly beat a very surprised Martin by a large margin, and it was then that Philip revealed that Jared had, in fact, been home-schooled only because he had wanted Jared to eventually play in Japan as a full-time professional, and thus focusing his childhood on Go. This was a shock to Dent, wondering why Philip had sent such a strong child to play poor little Martin, but Martin's words later stunned the father with such shock.
"Jared's so good at Go! I wish I can quickly become as strong as he is!"
Perhaps, as a testament to Martin's precociousness, Jared and Martin's second game soon became a difficult test of survival as Martin held Jared until a small error in one of the most dangerous fights tipped the scales away from Martin. The third and fourth games shook young Jared, but nevertheless, small errors cost Martin and Jared was able to seize these gilt-edged opportunities to secure victories.
On the final day, Dent and Philip had a bet that the children didn't know - if Martin was able to beat Jared, Philip would see him through to junior high. Dent took the bet, since there were no strings attached, and, because neither he nor Philip were accurate judges anymore of their children's ability, had automatically assumed that Philip was just going through a rhetoric knowing Jared would surely win.
And so Martin and Jared began playing, not knowing the weight of the bet behind their last game. Martin and Jared were still a ways from each other, so Jared had relaxed his attention a little, and began to play experimental moves he never usually considered in a game, since Martin was so much fun to play with and is so unpredictable. Martin, however, didn't miss this change in play style, having noticed that Jared wasn't playing his usual cautious style, although at that time he didn't actually knew what the word "cautious" meant - he just knew.
While Jared happily sets his gameplan in motion and prepares to obliterate Martin's formations around the board, a surprise play in the tengen which neither of the seniors noticed - put Jared into a state of panic, realising later than Martin that Martin had just played a crippling move that would force him to waste at least three moves while he tried to surreptitiously focus Martin's lax attention elsewhere. After recovering just one move, Martin realised that Jared had suddenly switched his style of play into one even more cautious than what he had been doing for four days. He then played moves, not knowing where Jared was protecting, but in about ten moves he finally figured out what. Martin then broke through the weak spots, effectively ending the game as the game balance tilted towards Martin for the first and only time in five days.
"...How long did you say you learnt Go, again?"
"Four months!"
TO BE CONTINUED...