Calligraphy

There have been very few extra-curricular activities at the school this year. Club activities for students were cancelled in the spring and then slowly re-introduced in the summer and fall. Students are now able to participate in their clubs (basketball, 4H, movie club) about once per month.

Extra-curriculars for the teachers have also been very limited. I was told that the staff would typically have dinner and a party every term. This would've been my formal welcome to the school and a great way to connect with the teachers early on. Unfortunately, with concerns surrounding COVID-19, staff events have been cancelled. Staff are even reluctant to schedule casual dinners at a restaurant after school.

Likewise, opportunities to engage with Korean culture in my free time have been very limited. The local community centre stopped offering Korean language classes. Taekwondo dojos were also closed for a while in the spring. 

I was very happy when calligraphy classes were offered to the faculty once per month. I don't have a particular interest in calligraphy, but it is an interesting art form and provided an opportunity to practice with the Korean alphabet and spend some casual time with teachers whom I don't normally get to interact with.

Naturally, the classes were offered in Korean, so teachers helped translate the instructions for me when required. But mostly, I sat quietly and practiced my letters. It was very relaxing and even meditative.

The calligraphy instructor was hired from outside of the school. She couldn't speak English so she constantly recruited other teachers to translate. Humorously, she would go off in Korea for a minute or two, then the other teacher would say to me, "She said you need to practice more."

At first, we used a paintbrush to practice the writing techniques of Korean calligraphy. After a while, we switched to the much easier to handle "brush-pen."

Each we week had a new project to work on. We needed to select a meaningful phrase and carefully draw the calligraphy on the paper or object. First, I made a little card that says "My home is Canada."

Then I made a hanging placard that says, "Cheer up!" Of course, I hadn't learned these Korean phrases in advance, but our teacher gave us some samples at the beginning of the course, so I just copied my work from that and the teachers translated for me.

My last project was a tissue box cover. For that, I chose the expression "You are my sunshine."

I can't say that my calligraphy is any good since I'm an absolute beginner. The other teachers learned some calligraphy when they were students. But I think I did not too bad considering I had never done it before, didn't practice, and have no artistic ability. One teacher examined my work and said my calligraphy was at the middle school level. Good enough for me.

At the end of our last class, I received a beautiful calligraphy set with nice pens as a gift for participating in the course. "Please practice," I was told. We'll see.