To celebrate the 12^th UN Chinese Language Day, USTB-DMU Confucius Institute (CI) delivered a Chinese calligraphy workshop on 23 April 2021. At the CI’s invitation, Calligraphy artist WANG Shen from the School of Foreign Studies of USTB delivered the event with great success.

Dr Yingjun Yang, Chinese director of the CI, presented the calligrapher, expressed appreciation of the help from both USTB and DMU, and welcomed all participants.

The calligrapher started with an introduction of the “Four Treasures of the Study --- a brush, paper, an ink-stick and an ink-stone --- followed by a brief history of Chinese calligraphy and different writing styles. He showcased the beauty and wisdom of Chinese calligraphy with two well-known masterpieces,  Preface to the Poems Collected from the Orchid Pavilion  and  The Manuscript of the Funeral Address for Yan Zhenqing’s Nephew. The audience was greatly intrigued by such works of art.

After a sharing of his experience of practicing calligraphy and his understanding of Chinese calligraphy, Wang demonstrated brush-writing of the poem “Ode to a Village” character by character. Not only did he show how to write the characters, but also decoded the etymological evolution of individual characters and the aesthetic beauty and wisdom behind. His explanation of the pictographic origin of “村”，“家”，“亭”，“座”, etc., amazed the audience.

In the interaction section, Richard Fynes is satisfied by Mr. Wang’s demonstration of the poem in wild cursive script. Dr. Jo Rushworth (唐非凡), associate professor in biochemistry at DMU, asked Wang if he could write “非凡和克俭，有缘千里来相会” and she emulated the characters accordingly and planned to present her works of calligraphy to her husband as their 10th wedding anniversary gift.

The CI is greatly encouraged by the positive feedback from the participants: “This workshop kindled my interest in calligraphy.” (Pravinpathi Vengadapathy) “This session was such an inspirational and fascinating demonstration, so beautiful!” (Jo Rushworth)

As a follow-up of the event, participants are to submit in two weeks their own calligraphic works to the CI for competition. Many of them have already sent us requests that the CI offer more workshops and classes on calligraphy in the future.

(Draft: WEI Zhiping; Revision: YANG Yingjun)