A brush with history

"International students feel a sense of accomplishment in calligraphy class, not just as a result of the art itself, but also as a result of their love for traditional Chinese culture," Liu says.

For An, calligraphy is also a way to find friends who share his interest in Chinese culture. One of them, 23-year-old Kim Joon-yeop from South Korea, who is majoring in international Chinese language education at university, joined the calligraphy club in 2021.

"An is a PhD student and I am an undergraduate, so ordinarily, we might not have had a chance to really know each other," Kim says. "But our common interest in Chinese culture brought us together at the calligraphy club. An is a classmate and he practices calligraphy with great dedication."

Kim started studying Chinese at high school in South Korea. When he arrived in China and learned about the history of oracle bone inscriptions, the most ancient form of Chinese characters, he was amazed.

"It was the first time I really understood that writing has its own history," he says.