Long Time Expat In Japan
This month's kanji reads hakugan soushin in Japanese, or baiyan shuangxin in Chinese. Like a lot of these four character sayings, it evokes sense imagery and invites you to fill in the gaps. Hakugan (baiyan) means white goose. Sou (shuang) means frost. And shin (xin) means to believe, to know, to inform. Long story short, when … Continue reading November Shodo
Kanji I wrote earlier about Gan Shinkei (aka Yan Zhenqing) and his writing style. I kind of fell head over heels for this style. Sensei tells me that I will probably rank up with this submission. If so then that would be awesome. Kana has always been better for me, still not sure why. … Continue reading October Shodo
Great Chinese calligraphers of old were also great drinkers. The Eight Immortals of the Wine Cup (飲中八仙) were Tang Dynasty scholars known for their love of wine. Probably the best known was Zhang Xu, who used to get so plastered, he'd write calligraphy with his own hair. When he finally sobered up, he could never … Continue reading Honoring the 8 Immortals of the Wine Cup
My sensei turned me on to a style of calligraphy based on a famous calligrapher of the Tang Dynasty. Yan Zhenqing (Gan Shinkei in Japanese) was a governor during the Tang Dynasty. Apparently he was pretty wild at the time. His style had really thick vertical lines with thin horizontals. What I wrote here is … Continue reading Yan Zhengqing Style
Amazingly, it's been a year since I started Japanese calligraphy. I started it because of my youngest. She was struggling with her kanji tests at school, and I saw it as a way to encourage her, and also a way we could spend our Saturday's together. About three months in, I decided to pursue it … Continue reading Shodo Anniversary
Kanji has been hard for me. I freeze up. I get stuck in my head, get tense. Thankfully, last month the kanji practice was a more fluid style. More freedom. Below is my kanji for next month (not the one that got me the level up). Still, you can see, I hope, a little more … Continue reading Level Up! Kana 7th kyu
Finally made it up one level in kanji. It has only taken me... gulp, 7 months to get here. Kind of a long time, but I can feel a big difference in my ability. This last week at my lesson, I had to write a month's worth of kanji, kana, andpenji. While it wasn't great, … Continue reading Kanji – level 9 !
Surprisingly, I leveled up in the kana section of Shodo! Again! This was doubly unexpected because it is both hard for my classmates, or so I'm told, and also because I have never had any formal education in Japanese. I studied Kanji in Chinese, and even took a couple of lessons in Shodo (which they … Continue reading Level Up! Lvl 8 Kana
In February I was really pleased to say that I was, again, not last. As you can see below, I'm plugging along well enough. The first is kanji. https://bsdonovan.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/janfebkanji.jpg Then here is my pen submission. I must admit, I'm kind of struggling here, but still not last. https://bsdonovan.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/janfebpen.jpg But below is the really exciting part. … Continue reading Level up!
This week, my kanji submission for shodo is onko chishin. See below for a picture. Roughly translated, it means "know history's mistakes." https://bsdonovan.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/img_0464.jpg The kanji we need to submit is often a four word idiom, what they call a Yoji Jukugo. Yoji = four word. Jukugo = idiom. So there's no real mystery there. But … Continue reading 温故知新 – Know History’s Mistakes
B.S. Donovan 
