“The art of
calligraphy is the transformation of fineness and thickness.” This is Ms. Scary’s
famous quote. I call her this to protect the guilty.
Just like what you
may guess, Ms. Scary was my Chinese calligraphy teacher. She was an old woman
with huge, dark cotton clothes to cover her “king size” body. She always put a
pair of thick glasses on her nose to hide her piercing eyes. I have nothing
good to tell about her but everybody else tended to admire her knowledge and
talents. To me--a six-year-old girl’s point of view, she was the beginning of
all the disasters in my life and this is why I would like to call her “Ms.
Scary.”
I have to say that
she was super strict and rigid with each of her students, especially students
in her advanced class. She never let us talk or sit in her class and she never
gave us perfect grades. In order to satisfy her, we could only compare the
fineness and thickness of each Chinese character and be patient till the class
ended. I hated her so much that I even started to detest my brush work. Whenever
I put up my brush, I felt like she was right behind me. Whenever I looked at my
practice paper, I felt like I saw the reflection of her. Finally, I could not
bear the nightmare she gave me and I decided to quit the practices.
After 10 years, I
got my first chance to visit America and somebody asked me to present my
Chinese Brush work. I hesitated. However, when they gave me several rounds of
applause, I suddenly felt the magical power of my little brush. In the deep
blue eyes of the audience, I saw the attraction of the glamour within calligraphy. After that
successful performance, I decided to continue developing calligraphy skills.
Those intrigued eyes helped me find the value of calligraphy. The applause and
attention made me finally realize that my love of calligraphy was not something
that could be changed by an odd teacher.
Without any
unwillingness, I lifted my brush up, thought about the structure and details of
each character and started to write. Just like the flowing wind, the tip of my
brush moved smoothly throughout the entire poem. With different thickness of
strokes, each of the characters was like a person with different motion. I
finally experienced the actual art of calligraphy and became dedicated to this
traditional Chinese art.
Calligraphy, the
constant change between thickness and fineness, helps me transform my attitudes
when I am confronted with difficult tasks. From each exquisite stroke, I
learned to change my hasty temperament to a peaceful state of mind. In my mind,
the “Ms. Scary” illusion has changed into the figure “Ms. Helper” after my revelation
over the Chinese calligraphy.
