==JAPAN: KM== [Culture]

I went up the steep stairs and entered Mr. Eikin and his wife's classroom after a 10 year absence, but there was nothing different than it used to be; the long, low wooden tables for calligraphy, the floor and the walls "decorated" with many spots of Chinese ink, and the fragrance of the ink itself, something like the deep woods. For a while, I felt like no time had passed. Even Eikin and his wife looked the same.
One evening this winter, I happened to get a chance to do some special New Year's writing after a long absence from this calligrapher's house. It was my first New Year after succeeding in the entrance exam for Fukui Medical University. That afternoon, I went to his house to say "Happy New Year" to them. We very much enjoyed talking about my succeeding, our past and future, and so on over New Year's dishes and alcohol, and not until it was getting dark did I notice what time it was. For several years, I had had a hard time entering a medical university, so I was very happy to be able to ring in an ordinary New Year.
When I was in kindergarten, I started to learn calligraphy, and I had been attending Eikin's class for about 18 years. Eikin and his wife are not only my calligraphy teachers but also my and my wife's matchmakers, and so to speak, they are one of our best supporters. Eikin is a slim person and has a long, gray beard and has slightly sharp eyes, so he looks strict at first sight. It is true that his teaching is hard, but it is equally certain that he has much consideration for his pupils and has a pure heart, somewhat like a boy. He frequently praised or told off his pupils, and I remember, he occasionally used to say to us "MIZUKUSAI!" with crossness or embarrassment. (We Japanese use "MIZUKUSAI" when we want to say to others, "Why haven't you told me about this big matter concerning us!?" Sometimes it is said when we make fun of others and at other times when we really get angry.)
In calligraphy, everyone is required to copy "Kaisho" at first. "Kaisho" is the most basic style of the Japanese written languages of Hiragana and Kanji, so we can learn the most basic points of calligraphy through imitating "Kaisho". And as the works grow true to an ideal model, our works stop showing the gender of the writer. We next learn "Gyosho" which is a softer and more cursive style than "Kaisho". It looks more difficult and stylish, so when I started it, I felt as if I had come a long way and I started to pride myself. I used to be made to recopy models written by Eikin over and over again, and during that time I tried to make my work as beautiful as I could, concentrating my attention on it. It was rather hard to recopy the same words, and I could have quit copying anytime I wanted to. Actually I had thought to several times, but I didn't. I can't remember clearly why I wanted to do calligraphy, and in my schoolchild days I took calligraphy as one of the lessons at a cram school outside my regular school hours. But it came to be more the essential thing for my school life. This is because I gradually came to think that, since I could continue doing calligraphy in spite of its hardness, I would be talented for calligraphy. And thanks to that, I was able to have confidence in myself.
People who have never picked up a calligraphy brush may sometimes wonder what is interesting about calligraphy, or they may sometimes want to take calligraphy lessons only in order to write more beautifully. But only after doing "Gyosho" will a person come to know that there is something different from his first impressions of calligraphy. As I did calligraphy longer and longer under the guidance of Eikin, I often had a peculiar experience that the more beautiful I tried to write, the lower Eikin would evaluate my works. On the contrary, it seemed to me, the easier I took it, the higher Eikin evaluated my works. So I often couldn't see how I should pay attention to my work or what I was capable of. But later on, I gradually learned that the works became livelier when I was paying more attention to the strength and the sharpness of the line springing from the angle and the speed of the brush, the depth springing from the blur and the running of the ink rather than on the beautifulness of its appearance. And when Eikin said to me, "You seem to have understood why and where your works are good," I was really happy.
Before leaving their house, I was told to do New Year's writing all of a sudden, and at first I was embarrassed because I wasn't told what words to write and what style I should use. Then Eikin said to me, "Draw freely - just draw as you want to". At that moment, calligraphy appeared to me to have more different aspects. Now I realize that the biggest challenge in calligraphy is simply to express all my ideas and feelings at one time dynamically by using the meaning and the style of Japanese characters and the means to draw lively. The characters that I chose, literally translated mean "Washed Heart". I chose these characters to get rid of my stress and tiredness which had been piling up on my heart since I began to study to enter a medical university. And I also wanted to impress the fresh feeling of wanting to be a good doctor firmly upon my heart. Still I can't write freely by myself, but since I did the New Year's writing, the work has been standing for that good memorable day like a picture, a wonderful treasure from a wonderful meeting.


"Getting It Together"

Imagine that you are told to "Draw freely - just draw as you want to". Either with a brush in calligraphy or writing in The Kuzuryu Memoirs, it will be the most difficult to express your idea freely by yourself. But once you try to, you may possibly be able to find a great challenge in it. I don't know whether I have succeeded in expressing my idea in this essay or not, but I enjoyed myself while writing it. At first I was at my wit's end to have to write 800 words or so in my essay, but after I chose the topic of my essay which concerned something I wanted to tell people about, I wrote 1000 words at one sitting. If you try to write your essay in the future, I think it is necessary to choose the topic which you really would want to talk about with your close friends.