Each year Go players in Portland host a table teaching Go at Portland’s Mochitsuki festival, an annual Japanese and Japanese-American cultural festival and celebration of the Japanese New Year held at Portland State University. Several thousand people attended this year, and volunteers Neal Wright, Patrick Easley, Stewart Towle, Rick Steinfeldt, Olin Wexler, and Peter Freedman were busy all afternoon teaching new Go players of all ages, from 4 to 74.
Teachers at the table ran a Hikaru no Go anime to attract attention and provided Way To Go pamphlets, along with some Go Worlds, Go books, and of course information on Go locally and nationally. “It was a great day, I am hoarse,” reports Peter Freedman, and not for nothing. Their engagement and enthusiasm have gotten them invited to host a table at the Cherry Blossom Festival at Clark College in Vancouver this April by an impressed attendee of Motchitsuki Portland.
