A Special Martial Arts Challenge on Paper: Chinese Calligrapy Class

From October 24th to 28th, 2022, undergraduates of the Faculty of Humanities, University of Latvia experienced the fun of “Calligraphy Meditation”. Bai Bingyu, a Chinese teacher, introduced the origin and evolution of Chinese characters to the students. Through images and videos, she guided students to experience the objects that carried Chinese characters in various historical periods, the way people wrote Chinese characters, and the influence of historical events on characters fonts, so that students could get a panoramic view of Chinese characters over 4000 years. In the process of trying to write Chinese characters, the strokes that the students are already familiar with are no longer simple. When writing a Chinese character, attention should be paid to the angle, strength, and structure at the same time, and even each stroke requires several steps of starting, moving, and closing. According to students, it was “too difficult to write”, “like a special kind of martial arts”, and the process is “difficult but decompressing”. There were even students who challenged cursive script hence discovered the importance of stroke order in Chinese characters writing. Bai is very happy to see the students enjoying the pain and pleasure of calligraphy. Touching Chinese characters in another way may give students new inspiration in language learning.

2022年10月24日至28日，人文学院本科生们体验了一把“书法冥想”的乐趣。汉语教师白冰玉为学生们介绍了汉字的起源与演变，通过图文及影像引导学生感受各个时期承载汉字的物件、人们书写汉字的方式以及历史事件对汉字的影响，使学生们体会到汉字从龟背上的简单图形到龙飞凤舞艺术品的全过程。在尝试书写汉字过程中，学生们已经熟悉的笔画们也变得不再简单。书写一个汉字要同时关注角度、力度、结构，甚至每个笔画都需要起、运、收几个步骤，学生直呼“太难写了”，“像一种特别的武功”，也有人觉得整个过程“艰难但解压”。课堂上甚至有学生挑战了草书，并发现了汉字笔顺的重要性。看到学生们享受着书法的苦与乐，教师白冰玉很开心。从另一个角度感受汉字或许可以给学生以新的启发。