Calligraphy

Our program hosts weekly events for us like the Sports day etc. so this week was Calligraphy. We went to class for the first period and half of the second period on Wednesday and then then went to different room to learn how to write calligraphy. In Japanese calligraphy has many different names but the one they told us was shyodoo (書道）。We received all of the writing utensils, practice papers, ink, and everything else we needed. They told us to lay out the felt that was in the box and place a piece of paper over it. The felt is used to soak up any excess ink that seeps through the paper so it does not get on the table. They then showed us how to pour the ink and then gave us a directions sheet to practice our basic strokes with.
It is a lot harder than it looks- I knew I wouldn't be very good at it since I have terrible precision when doing anything that involves patience and commitment. I got the basic strokes down though and they then told us to write our favorite Kanji. Kanji is kind of like one of the Japanese alphabets. They have Katakana and Hiragana which are two ways to write the symbols but when Hiragana symbols are placed together, they make different symbols called Kanji. You have to be able to know over 5,000 Kanji to be able to read a Japanese newspaper- so most people cannot read a newspaper until after high school!
I wrote some Kanji and then they gave us cardboard sheets that we could write anything on and keep as a souvenir. Mine wasn't as bad as I thought it would be thank goodness but I would really like to keep working on my strokes. Calligraphy is a traditional way of writing and it is practiced by many people- even children in elementary school. It is hard to perfect but with practice, like anything, I can get better at it. We later wrote some of our wishes on pieces of paper that we hung from the bamboo tree that was in the room. Japanese do this to celebrate some of their holidays. It was a fun activity where I learned a lot about Japanese culture.