Take a calligraphy lesson in China

“As someone who paints, draws, and loves all things creative, I naively assumed I would be rather good at Chinese calligraphy. I was proven wrong. The session started with setting up the workplace. A placement is used under the sheet of paper and a small paperweight is placed at the top to make sure everything stays in place. We received paintbrushes and ink, and then sat down to draw. Our calligraphy teacher first went through a small presentation showing us about the history of each of the different kinds of scripts. We first started writing the word “forever”—永—on yellow paper with large grids. This particular symbol can be rather difficult, as when you paint with a Chinese calligraphy brush you cannot lift the brush off the paper—everything should be in one stroke. You also have to be extra careful when changing the angle or direction of the brush, especially if you press too hard on the paper.”

“Then one day, we were doing a focus group in a local Shenzhen pub, trying to gather some information about where we can improve [...] and a TV news crew happened to be there at the same pub. They were filming foreigners in Shenzhen and testing their Chinese language levels. When they got to me, we ended up having a relatively long conversation which led to them inviting me the next morning to do a short interview on Shenzhen TV and to try out Chinese calligraphy. I was a bit nervous to try it for the first time on camera, but I sucked it up and did it anyway. [...] Finally, they turned it over to the calligraphy teacher and he showed me the basics of holding a brush and how to write 我爱深圳 (wǒ ài shēn zhèn) or I love Shenzhen.”