|
On a hot summer’s day in June, our WLE excursion took us to a traditional Japanese cultural school. The group of six students including Abigail, Max, Matt, Laura (all from the US), Sabrina (from Italy) and Xui Mui (from Sweden) were eager to experience their first Japanese Calligraphy lesson. The school was located in a quiet and cozy neighborhood and it was hard to believe that we were in the middle of the bustling area of Omotesando in Tokyo.
 |
 |
 |
Shindo sensei explaining
how to use the equipment
for calligraphy |
Laura, Max, Sabrina, Abigail,
Matt and Xui Mui
together with Shindo sensei |
A real work of art |
After arriving at the school we began our private calligraphy lesson supervised by Shindo sensei. At the same time other cultural courses were taking place in the center such as Kimono, Ikebana (flower arrangement), Okoto (Japanese harp), Nichibu (classical Japanese dance) and Sado (tea ceremony).
Firstly, Shindo sensei gave us a brief lecture about the nature and history of calligraphy. Calligraphy is an art form which has been studied for more than 300 years. Learning the art of calligraphy is an important element of understanding Japanese culture.
Then she explained how to use the equipment. The following items are necessary for calligraphy: Fude (Japanese brush), Shitajiki (black-felt underlay), Hanshi (special thin writing paper), Suzuri (heavy black inkstone), Bunchin (metal paperweight) and Sumi (solid ink stick that used for rubbing with water in the suzuri to produce the black ink for writing). Some of the points she highlighted were the following:
1) Hanshi has a smooth front-side and a rough back-side. The smooth side should always be facing up when writing.
2) The brush needs to be held with a right angle at all times.
3) Do not allow the brush to soak up too much ink; adjust the thickness of the brush every time you start writing a new word (or stroke).
4) Always put your left hand on the table to hold the paper.
When you learn hiragana or kanji, the writing is “drawn” with each stroke. This is called Kaisho or printed style. In addition to this, there are two styles of writing in which the words become less legible. These styles are written with only a few strokes just like writing Roman letters in calligraphy. These two styles are called Gyosho or semi-cursive style or Sosho cursive style.
After these explanations, Shindo sensei handed us Hanshi asking us to make nine lines by creasing the paper and we wrote down the hiragana in Kaisho. Although Laura and Xui Mui had done calligraphy before, for the rest of students it was their first time to use a brush and ink which made them struggle keeping the size of the words the same.
Next, we tried to write hiragana with Gyosho. “It is harder than it looked,” noted Sabrina. It was difficult to distinguish which word was written with Gyosho style, although everyone liked the flowing look of the characters. Once we finished writing hiragana, Shindo sensei went around checking each piece of work. She said, “Writing a word is considered to be the reflection of your thoughts, so there is no bad or good writing in calligraphy.”
 |
 |
| Practising the art of calligraphy |
Displaying the final product |
After spending some time practicing, Shindo sensei asked us to pick out favorite words in kanji so that we could create our own original calligraphy. Laura chose ‘自由’(which means freedom), Abigail’s choice was ‘平和’(which means peace) and Sabrina wrote down ‘運命’(which means destiny). Max made up his name in Japanese and turned it into ‘真久澄’. Since Matt used to do judo, he chose the word ‘柔道’ (judo). Mui wrote her Chinese name, ‘梁士梅. An hour and a half lesson ended with Shindo sensei giving each of us a perfect and beautiful sample of our chosen kanji upon our request.
We enjoyed a wonderful experience at Reisenkai and the staff members there were so hospitable and helpful. We look forward to our next visit to this cultural center!
|
2008 Summer
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
Name: Jennifer Grier
Name: Travis Ito-Stone)