Blizzardboy | A Kiwi in Japan

I went to a trial shodo, or Japanese calligraphy, lesson on Saturday, and then had my first proper lesson last night.

Living in central Tokyo it is quite easy to forget that one is living in Japan at times, so I wanted to do something Japanese and improve some of my skills at the same time. I am not really into Japanese swords – although I can see how people appreciate them as art forms, and I don’t find the idea of Japanese martial arts that appealing (I mean really judo gear stinks!) so I thought I would give shodo a try. And now that I am a bit more settled into work (must tidy that site up soon!) I have time to try some new things.

Another reason is that I would like to get better at writing Japanese. I write a bit in Japanese at work, business emails and the like, but it is all done on a computer (good old Ubuntu!) so I forget how to write the characters by hand – I think this happens to a lot of Japanese people to. And, earlier this year, we sent a wedding present to a friend in China who got married. She wrote back saying I write Chinese like a primary school student. Ouch!

Much more difficult than it looks would have to be my first impression of this Japanese art form. I think I can now draw a simple line. The idea basically is to become one with paper and brush and there is a long way for me to go to achieve that.

The image is from wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Haruichiban.JPG. Calligraphy by Ishizaki Keisui, uploaded with author’s permission, http://www.sho.ne.jp/artists/a/html/ISHIZAKIkeisui.html.

Something to aim for!