Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on July 2010
Photos by Kouichirou Miura
I am about to try writing a kanji character on washi with a fude brush and ink for the first time. Although the tools themselves are beautiful, I am not entirely sure that these traditional implements can improve my Japanese writing. No matter how carefully I try to draw them, my kanji generally look like the lopsided scrawling of a preschooler. When they are legible at all, that is.
At my side, Kouchiro Miura talks me through the stroke order of my chosen character: 空. Miura has asked me to pick a kanji with a clear image that I can hold in my mind as I write. Sora, (Sky) seems to fit the bill, while being simple enough that I can conceivably write something sufficiently close to leave my pride intact. I put brush to paper, and sure enough, I produce a reasonable facsimile.
I’m taking part in an event organized by the newly founded Shuujiya-san Project, which seeks to introduce foreigners and Japanese via calligraphy. “Through kanji, people can communicate and think about these beautiful words and their meanings,” explains Miura, who started and runs the project. “And foreigners and Japanese alike will go home with this gift in their hearts.”
Miura says he was inspired to pursue the project by two experiences. The first was a trip to Korea, where he became fascinated with the hangul writing system. He was told that in the 1400s, Koreans used Chinese characters, but only the elite government officials could read and write. King Sejong the Great (1418-1450) wanted to empower the people through literacy, so over the objections of the higher classes, he came up with the phonetic hangul script. Miura was impressed that he could learn so much about Korean culture and thinking from their writing system.
The other experience was recounted to him by a Japanese friend who was traveling overseas. When a Westerner approached her and asked if his kanji tattoo meant what he thought it did, she didn’t know how to tell him that 不景気 (fukeiki) actually meant “recession.” Miura could see that foreigners were interested in the aesthetics of kanji, but somehow they were missing out on the culture behind it.
A computer engineer and student, Miura is spending his free time this summer camped out in Asakusa and offering tourists the opportunity to try Japanese calligraphy. For adults, he collects a small fee to cover the cost of materials, but children can try it for free. He also asks if they would like to fold an origami crane, hoping to collect 2,000 of them by the end of the summer in order to send 1,000 each to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Miura emphasizes that the aim is to build communication, not just give foreigners a little taste of Japanese culture. Through the act of teaching and doing calligraphy, each side will come to know the other better. “Writing characters is like having a conversation with yourself,” he says. “The characters will show the condition of your inner self. They tell a story about you.” That story and the experience are springboards for conversation and cultural exchange.
After writing a character, Miura asks people to reflect on the experience and to write down some comments to share with future visitors. In particular, he wants to know why people chose the character they did, what kind of image they connected to the meaning, and how they felt when they looked at their completed drawing.
As for my somewhat pear-shaped sora, Miura says I’ve done pretty well, but reinforces my suspicions about the quality of my penmanship by asking if I would like to decorate it with some markers he’s brought. Hoping to spruce things up a bit, I add a sun and some birds with fluffy blue clouds floating between the arms of the top radical. Appraising the finished product, I decide my imagery for “sky” is pretty simplistic, but Miura likes it. After all, he points out, the word kanji means “Chinese characters,” but it can also mean “impressions.”
To find out more about the Shuujiya-san Project, email Kouichiro Miura at kouichiro.miura@back-4.com.
