Taiwan Today

Imagine running into an old friend, someone you haven’t seen for many years. Naturally, you want to catch up on the news, but because time presses you hastily write down each other’s phone numbers and part with mu­tual promises to get in touch. The whole process has probably taken a couple of minutes at most.

Now envisage yourself in the same situation several centuries earlier, with the encounter taking place on the streets of a Chinese city. First you have to find a table, sit down, and take out your “four treasures of the scholar’s studio”—inkstone, inkstick, paper, and a writing brush. Before you can actually write anything, you have to add some water to the inkstone, grind it with your inkstick, and dip your brush in the ink. When the details have been com­mitted to paper, you still have to allow sev­eral minutes for the ink to dry, wash your brush and inkstone, and restore them to your carrying-case.

The practice of calligraphy is in decline, and it is not hard to see why. It does not fit in well with today’s frenetic pace of life. Most people prefer to equip their offices with a computer rather than the four treasures, and a Parker fountain pen is much kinder to a suit pocket than a damp, unwieldy brush. But although hand­ writing is increasingly giving way to com­puter-generated printouts, calligraphy still retains a high profile in Chinese society. Many shop signboards, for example, con­tinue to be composed with brush calligra­phy, and the auspicious couplets on the doors and walls of businesses never saw the inside of a computer. “Most Chinese realize that calligraphy has a certain ongo­ing role to play in our culture,” says Lu Jen­ching (呂仁清), chairman of the private ROC Calligraphy Education Association. “But if you ask them to write, few people know what to do with the brush.” Lu thinks the main reason for this is a lack of proper calligraphy education.

In Taiwan, people receive a ground­ing in calligraphy while still very young. Elementary students have their first formal encounter with the writing brush in the third grade. Out of the six Mandarin classes required each week, one must be devoted to writing, and although use of the brush is not mandatory, the Ministry of Education (MOE) says that in practice almost all schools devote the forty-minute period to formal calligraphy. And at schools that include calligraphy in their art education, students can opt for another forty-minute class each week.

Taipei’s Minchu Elementary School is one of the few schools to focus on art education. A visitor to one of its calligraphy classes can sense a definite rapport be­tween the teacher and her thirty enthusias­tic students. “Most kids start [calligraphy] because it’s in the curriculum,” says Yeh Wen-ling (葉紋伶), the school’s calligra­phy teacher. “You can’t expect ten-year-old kids to sit quietly and ponder theory, so the main goal at that stage is to get them interested. Once they’re hooked, they’re ready to learn and practice.” Yeh lets her students start by familiarizing themselves with the brush, using it to paint pictures if they wish, rather than concentrate on standard strokes and whole characters. “They’re up against a writing tool very different from what they’ve been using,” she says. “They start by playing with the writing brush, and that way they become familiar with its characteristics and get to know the basic ways of controlling it.”

Yeh Wen-ling does not expect all of her students to go on to become famous calligraphers. But, like many of her col­leagues, she considers writing calligra­phy to be good for the development of a rounded personality. Huang Chih-yang (黃智陽), research director at the Ho Chuang-hsih Calligraphy Foundation, notes that it takes a lot of practice to become a good calligrapher. “There are many things, such as patience and the appreciation of art, that kids can pick up from writing calligraphy,” he says. Chang Ping-huang (張炳煌), who oversees Minchu’s art education, points out yet an­ other advantage. “When you’re getting some fun from writing, you’ll probably find that your self-esteem benefits in other ways,” he says, “because keen calligraphy students usually develop better handwrit­ing than their peers. What’s more, callig­raphy is a good way to control one’s temper.” Chang’s own son, who is now a high-school student, kept up his calligra­phy even after he graduated from Minchu’s art class. “Whenever he gets stressed out by schoolwork, he writes cal­ligraphy,” Chang says. “As he writes, I can actually sense him relaxing. I think that’s the biggest benefit he gets.”

In recent years, it seems that many parents have started to notice positive side effects from practicing calligraphy, such as preventing kids from watching televi­sion all day, or keeping them from making a nuisance of themselves at home. For whatever reason, more and more parents are sending their children to calligraphy classes. “The existence of so many private classes must mean there is a market,” says Yeh Wen-ling, who teaches several chil­dren’s classes in addition to her daytime work. “Parents send their kids to us be­cause they can’t get, or can’t get enough of, what they want from the system.” Huang Chih-yang, who teaches both children and adults, has also noticed this trend; he, too, believes that some parents, rather than wanting their offspring to share in the pres­ervation of a centuries-old art, are more interested in getting them out of the house.

Why do parents feel that Taiwan’s educational system is just not good enough when it comes to calligraphy? Lu Jen-ching of the ROC Calligraphy Education Association points out that most schools lack both qualified calligra­phy teachers and adequate class time. Stu­dents at Minchu’s art classes form part of the lucky minority: Their teachers are pro­fessionals hired from outside the school and paid by the MOE. But for most other schools that do not have art classes, there is no provision in the budget for hiring professional calligraphy teachers. For them, Chinese-language teachers, or Mandarin teachers, as they are called at primary-school level, have to teach callig­raphy. “There are good teachers around,” Lu Jen-ching says. “But often they them­selves don’t know much about calligra­phy, so how can they teach the kids how to write, or grab their interest?”

Lu believes that this shortage of qualified teachers has its roots in Taiwan’s educational system. While Mainland China, Japan, and South Korea offer cal­ligraphy majors, there is no calligraphy department or institute in Taiwan’s higher-education normal school system, which produces the island’s teachers. Chinese majors at normal colleges are required to take calligraphy in either their first one or two years, depending on the institution. But, like the elementary stu­dents they are going to teach, these teach­ers-to-be attend only one or two classes a week. Currently, most professional cal­ligraphy teachers are not art or Chinese majors, but simply people who have an interest in the subject and have themselves learned from other calligraphers.

Compared to the formal educational system, private calligraphy promotional groups have much more to offer. The ROC Calligraphy Edu­cation Association has two levels of free classes, and trains about 300 teachers from Tai­pei’s elementary and high schools a year. Since these student-teachers already have the foundations, they generally experi­ence no problem teaching elemen­tary and high­ school students after just two weeks of first-level summer classes and sixty-six hours of second-level evening classes.

But no matter how devoted the teach­ers may be, or how much interest students show, calligraphy studies usually end with graduation from primary school. In most high schools, calligraphy then becomes just another extracurricular activity. According to the current standard high­ school curriculum, last revised in 1985, high schools are at liberty to include cal­ligraphy in their Chinese education, but most choose not to. Instead, they ask stu­dents to write their weekly diaries with a brush. In the absence of required calligra­phy classes, most students naturally forget what they learned in primary school. “High-school students come under a lot of stress in preparing for their senior high or college entrance examinations, and schools don’t really encourage them to spend time on subjects that aren’t in the exam,” Chang Ping-huang says. “It’s a pity for both students and teachers that most people throw away what they spent four years learning at primary school.”

Then why bother to put so much ef­fort on teaching elementary students cal­ligraphy at all? One reason is that some of those who are really interested in the sub­ject may take it up again after the pressures of high-school exams have eased. “One of the best experiences in teaching calligra­phy is getting phone calls from old stu­dents,” Huang Chih-yang says. “It makes all the effort worthwhile when they tell you they can now afford the time to pick up their writing brushes and want to come to class again.”

But promotional organizations also hope to attract more adults. “We try to send out the message that writing calligraphy is not like preserving a dying art,” Huang says. “It’s more like making a lifetime friend, finding a means of relaxation, or even doing a sport.” Calligraphy as a lei­sure activity has recently been gaining in popularity. Minchu elementary school, for example, has opened an evening calligra­phy class for students’ mothers, and the numbers of private or community callig­raphy classes are increasing. But promot­ers think there is still a long way to go. Lu Jen-ching points out that in Japan, one­ tenth of the 200 million population regu­larly do brush calligraphy. With that, contrast his estimate that of Taiwan’s 21 million people, fewer than 20,000 keep up the habit. “In Japan, calligraphy is a part of life,” he says. “But for most people in Tai­wan, it is merely an element of Chinese culture that has nothing to do with their daily routine.”

One reason for this lack of interest is a widespread belief that writing calligra­phy takes a lot of time and practice. Many people feel they are too busy or too old to do it. Calligraphers agree that their art takes a long time to learn and requires much practice: it is possible to spend dec­ades on it and still not be satisfied with the results. But experts also believe that as long as you stick with it, there will be progress.

In order to render the learning process more attractive to beginners, experienced teachers make adjustments in several ways. For example, correct use of inkstone and inkstick is supposed to be the first step in learning calligraphy, but it is now taught only in senior classes because grinding ink is too time-consuming. Ready-made ink has been substituted in nearly all beginner classes. “A lot of people won't get inter­ested unless they see quick, obvious results,” Huang Chih-yang says. So although teaching approaches for adults may differ from those employed with chil­dren, the purpose is basically the same­—to catch the students’ interest within the shortest possible time.

One example: Huang prefers to skip the practice of basic strokes and start with the structure of Chinese characters. Given a little help, most people find they are able to copy an exact representation of the char­acters in the model copybook. Only when students’ confidence has been built up in this way do they return to the basic strokes. Huang compares the process to tea culture. “The deeper you get into it,” he says, “the more you like it, and the more you want to find out about it. You’re an addict before you know it.”

Learning calligraphy is relatively inexpensive, compared to classes in, say, flower arrange­ment or piano. A two-hour beginner’s class costs about US$7.50 to $11, and the basic tools—a writing brush, a bot­tle of ready-made ink, some paper—cost about the same. But even so, there will always be those who cannot afford it, or have difficulty in adjusting to the learning environment. In an attempt to give such people a chance, calligraphy promotional organizations have extended their hori­zons. The Ho Chuang-hsih Calligraphy Foundation, for example, gives free les­sons to people in prison or in senior citi­zens’ homes. “We don’t really expect them to become great calligraphers,” Huang Chih-yang says. “But we do hope that by writing and enjoying calligraphy, these people will be able to build up a more posi­tive attitude toward life.”

Promotional organizations also spon­sor numerous calligraphy contests to give both adults and children a chance to have their work assessed. The ROC Calligraphy Education Association has been holding annual islandwide contests for sixteen years now. Each year, the association receives about 3,000 works. Nearly half of them gain recognition in the form of an award. Lu Jen-ching explains that they deliberately make things easy. “Frankly, a lot of the works we receive are not of award standard,” he says. “But for many people, a small award and a little encour­agement may provide enough motivation to help them keep on writing. So besides giving awards to outstanding works, we also try to encourage those who are merely interested in calligraphy.”

It is difficult to know how many such contests are held in Taiwan, just as it is hard to ascertain the exact number of private calligraphy classes and promo­tional organizations. According to callig­raphy promoters, many such groups exist in the guise of community art classes, or are simply get-togethers for a few callig­raphy admirers. But no matter what their size and form may be, the biggest obstacle for these groups when they sponsor edu­cational or promotional activities is still a tendency on the part of the public to regard calligraphy as an irrelevant skill in modern society. Even those who promote it agree that brush calligraphy is not very practica­ble any more. “Ten or fifteen years ago, good handwriting was a useful attribute for someone trying to find a job,” Huang Chih-yang says. “But now, when we want to hire a secretary for our own calligraphy foundation, even we look for experienced Chinese-language word-processing skills, rather than decent handwriting. It’s impos­sible to replace computer keyboards with writing brushes.”

Why, then, do these private organi­zations strive to interest more and more people in calligraphy, instead of just pre­serving it as part of Chinese culture? Lu Jen-ching offers one answer are fast, convenient, and produce nice, uniform print,” he says. “But classical cal­ligraphy is what has given Chinese char­acters their vitality and spirit. And a computer simply can’t compete.”