A few days ago, Zhu Hongxin, a 9-year-old amateur six-dan boy from Fujian, was abused by his father for a long time because of losing chess, and finally jumped off the building to commit suicide. The majority of netizens were shocked with emotion, on the one hand, they felt sad for the loss of a new star in the Chinese Go world in such a way, and on the other hand, they condemned this somewhat neurotic and rough male parent with the most severe condemnation, and bluntly said that "they are not worthy of being parents at all". This incident seems to be just an isolated case, but it reflects many social issues worth pondering, and arouses people's thoughts about how ordinary children can counterattack through the road of Go.
On the evening of May 19, 2025, Zhu Hongxin, a 9-year-old Go player in Fujian, jumped to his death.
According to China's national conditions, under normal circumstances, children are in the first grade of primary school at the age of 7, so the amateur six-dan boy who committed suicide is 9 years old this year, which is the age of the second or third grade of primary school, and this stage is a watershed in life for children who are learning Go. Know that Go is easy to learn, but it takes years to reach a mastery level. It is reported that beginners usually take at least two years to become an enthusiast, but many students quit before they reach that stage, in part because Go, like music or painting, is not a compulsory subject in their extracurricular education. It has been observed that only those who have reached an amateur level will continue to play Go for the rest of their lives. Many training providers in China's Go education market do their best to improve students' skills before they enter the second grade, when most students have to choose to continue playing Go or quit.
The results show that in 2023, Zhu Hongxin won the championship in the children's group of the "Hunnan Cup" National Children's Go Open Tournament with nine wins. In the same year, he participated in the "Rotten Ke Cup" competition, known as the "Go College Entrance Examination", and became the youngest player in the Fujian Weiqi Association. He also participated in the National Go Fixed-stage Tournament and was the youngest player to sign up for the Fujian Weiqi Association. It can be seen that Zhu Hongxin is obviously the best among his peers, and if everything develops as expected, he can not only embark on the path of becoming a professional chess player, but even change the trajectory of his life. More and more parents have also seen that in recent years, Tsinghua University, Peking University and Fudan University have all provided a series of preferential policies for recruiting skilled Go players. However, it is a pity that he won the national children's championship at the age of 7, and was already an amateur sixth dan at the age of 9. Unable to bear it, he chose to jump from the upper floor......
Some netizens said that Zhu Hongxin would be regarded as a gift from God in any family, but unfortunately he was born in the wrong child.
Each child should be respected as an individual, not as a tool for parental ambitions. As netizens said: "Such parents neither love Go nor their children, and their children are just tools for them to gain a sense of achievement." If Zhu Hongxin's father is well aware of the hardships and huge costs that his child needs to pay on the road to growth in Go, I am afraid he may not necessarily bet all the treasure on the child. First of all, from an amateur six-dan chess player to a professional chess player, it is a "moat", even with the identity of a professional chess player, there is still a long way to go from the national champion and the world champion.
According to a 2019 report, the Nie Weiping Go Dojo, founded in 1999, has enrolled more than 5,000 students in 25 schools across the country, and the dojo has produced 23 international and national Go champions, including the world's top professional chess player Ke Jie. This means that even if a student learns Go at Nie Weiping's Go Dojo, the probability of winning the national championship title is less than 0.5%. Secondly, professional chess players have their own troubles - you need to play as many professional Go tournaments as possible to compete for the few tournament prizes. If you want to get a high prize money through international competitions like Ke Jie, players need to step into the top of the national team pyramid.
Sumire Nakayi, a Japanese amateur chess player who was hailed by the Japanese media as a talented girl in the Go world
The story of the growth of Sumire Nakayi, a Japanese amateur chess player who has been hailed by the Japanese media as a talented girl in the Go world, may provide us with some references. It is reported that in 2019, when she was only 9 years old, she was allowed to become a professional chess player of the Japanese Chess Academy when she was 10 years old, and set a record for the youngest professional chess player in the Japanese Chess Academy. She was born in a family of Go, her father is Nakayi Shinya Kudan, and her mother is former Go instructor Nakayi Yuki. With such a family background, Zhongyi Sumire has received a good education and influence in Go since he was a child. As insiders, parents certainly know how to pave a fast road to success for their children, and in such a family environment, the more malleable their children's future growth will be, and the greater the tolerance rate in life. At this level, when designing a development path for their children, every parent should comprehensively consider factors such as development costs and success rates on the basis of accurately matching their children's interests and hobbies, after all, sometimes the cost of trial and error in ordinary families is a bit large. The same thing is an opportunity for some people, but not necessarily for you......