Crossing ocean to learn Vietnamese calligraphy

VietNamNet Bridge – Keen on Vietnamese calligraphy, having a passion for quill pens and Chinese ink, a lot of people from the western hemisphere have crossed the ocean to come to Vietnam to study Vietnamese calligraphy.

In his 3-storey house, located in a small alley on Hoang Van Thu road in HCM City, is where calligrapher Le Lan lives and devotes himself to calligraphy.

The ‘calligraphy house’, as it is called by Lan, has witnessed many generations of students studying calligraphy. Many of Lan’s students are foreigners.

It was a rainy afternoon in HCM City, and people might think that Lan’s calligraphy class would not gather this day. However, when I arrived, I saw nearly ten students. Though it was an ABC class about calligraphy, the students were older. The youngest of the students was over 30 years old, while the other students were nearly 60. There were couples from the US, Italy, Germany and France travelling in Vietnam. Other students are living and working in Vietnam. But all of them have a passion for Vietnamese calligraphy.

On the third floor of the house, the nearly ten students were trying to learn how to use a quill pen. The students looked at the teacher with concentration, trying to hold the quill pen in a vertical position. They also learned how to dip the pen into the ink in the most effective way, so that not much ink stagnated in the pen.

Kelvin, a French engineer, 30, who works in HCM City, related that his friends told him to go there to learn with teacher Lan. Kelvin showed off the letters he had finished writing, smiling happily.

In the class, Kelvin is the student with the deepest knowledge of calligraphy. He said he likes learning Vietnamese calligraphy because it uses Latin characters.

“After learning Vietnamese calligraphy, I will be able to write well in French and English as well,” he said.

The Italian couple Frandi and Natasha, though just having arrived in Vietnam, have found teacher Lan to learn Vietnamese calligraphy. Though having only attended three periods, the 35-year-old couple has made big strides.

In order to learn more effectively, the couple has hired a Vietnamese catholic priest who can speak Italian to serve as interpreter for them in the class. Natasha said that besides the learning hours with teacher Lan, they also go to calligraphy galleries to learn more about Vietnamese calligraphy and take pictures.

Every training course with teacher Lan includes 20 periods. However, not everyone can follow the whole training course. According to teacher Lan, for many reasons, western students arrive in Vietnam once or twice a year, and they follow the training courses during their trips. A lot of western students hear about Vietnamese calligraphy via tours to Vietnam with Vido Tourist or Saigontourist.

Teacher Lan is a Viet Kieu from Germany, and spent 30 years of his life working as a mechanical engineer, but he has devoted himself to calligraphy since returning to Vietnam.

Lan said that more and more people nowadays are learning Vietnamese calligraphy, and this proves to be a good opportunity for Vietnam to introduce its culture to the world.

Lan related that in 2004, the Switzerland Tourist Association invited three calligraphers, including him, to attend the international tourist trade fair. At that time, Vietnamese artists carried three containers of palm-leaf conical hats, bamboo shades and pictures to the country to introduce Vietnamese culture and Vietnamese calligraphy.

‘Westerners can easily understand Vietnamese calligraphy with its Latin letters, though the materials and methods are purely oriental,” Lan said.

He has been unceasingly organising talks, providing lectures about Vietnamese calligraphy to tour guides and foreign tourists who drop into his gallery. “These are opportunities to popularise Vietnamese calligraphy, and introduce Vietnamese culture to the world,” he said.

VietNamNet/TP