This is the way we brush our... words?

Back when I was a student, I always got a sharp rap on the knuckles for poor penmanship. "Feh, cursive script is for weenies," or so I thought. Come to think of it, my handwriting still looks as if I'm either juvenile or drunk. And that was just for roman letters. That's write (pun!), I'm completely hopeless when it comes to Chinese characters. Forget stroke order, I even had trouble with remembering what each individual character looked like.

The kids here have no problem with that of course, having been drilled in stroke order, pronunciation and meaning since elementary school or before. It seems to also be part of their curriculum for them to learn basic calligraphy. In almost every school I've been to, the walls have been adorned with student works, some of which look really good (to my untrained eyes of course). So naturally, that annoying little voice in the back of my mind (as opposed to the other voices in my head ^^) started yelling, "Hey, I wanna do that too!" However, it wasn't until I commented on the tea lady's work on the congratulatory certificates my school hands out that she revealed that she was taking classes at the local calligraphy association.

Since my apartment block is a bit of a social wasteland for the only girl amongst the gaijin (or if you like, the rose among the pri... *ahem* thorns... ^^;), I decided to take a chance and go in on an evening when the place wasn't filled with ankle-biting germ factories (I wuv the kiddies, honest!).

What followed was a fairly civilized evening with some of the locals, from junior high students to an 84-year old grandfather, all sitting seiza-style and practicing their brushstrokes. Since it was my first time there, I was given a few basic items to start with, namely a beginner's fude (brush pen), an inkstone, premixed ink, a long, narrow paperweight, a brush stand, a felt shitajiki (pencilboard, but in this case it was to catch any bleed through from the paper) and a stack of 20 sheets of rough calligraphy paper to practice on.

I only vaguely remember what each individual stroke is called from way back in primary school, but most of my time was spent practicing the basic horizontal and oblique strokes. With that, I was able to produce my first (somewhat shonky looking) piece of calligraphy in the basic kaisho style, the phrase "hitori", which means "one person" or "alone":

I still have lots of practice ahead, really. *sigh*

A few more basic strokes (and a heap of pins and needles in my feet) later, and the teacher told me to try this, the phrase for "words" or "characters", read as "moji":

As you might have guessed, the paper is just a little too big for my desktop scanner to handle, but that's ok, since you see less of it ^^ The strokes in black are my own miserable attempts, the orange marks are the teacher's corrections. I thought that calligraphy was a fairly quick affair, because how long should it take you to write a few words on a piece of paper anyway, even if you have to stop occasionally to reload your brush? Turns out you have to be sitting in the right position, with your writing arm level with the floor and holding the brush the right way. The strokes themselves are not particularly tricky, but are really hard to do well. Then comes placement, balance and stroke style, dependent on how much ink you load your brush with, and what consistency it is. Apparently making up your own ink from the block of dried stuff is also an artform in itself, and less of a cop-out than using the premixed stuff.

Just for reference, here are the teacher's examples of both phrases:

Now that's the result of a lifetime of doing calligraphy. Much practice on my part shall ensue. Even if I'm completely rubbish at this, at least I'll have an excuse to get out of the house and soak up some local culture. Heck, I might even make a few friends in this little town. Which is about time really, since I've been here for more than half a year. *twiddles thumbs*

Sometime during that evening, the teacher called me over and presented me with a set of kid's calligraphy tools, which completely floored me. She said it was to encourage me to come back and keep at it. I tell ya what, I really wasn't expecting it at all, but it sure did make me feel really welcome. Well, I might not get to her standard anytime soon, but I reckon I'll give this a shot, and see how far I can go before my time here runs out.