Monday 30th of April was a very busy day at Tokyo Calligraphy class.

Actually we were fully booked for one class with 9 students, but two of our lovely students ended up getting lost and were late for their lesson so we changed to two classes, one with 7 students and one with 2 (so that the students who arrived on time would not have to wait.)

Our group of 7 was full of talented, nice, smiling individuals from different countries and age groups. Although it was a big group, they were able to focus well and were all able to learn Japanese Calligraphy together. With 4 Students from Sweden, 2 Students from Finland, and 1 student from Thailand it was a very international class!

Calligraphy/Kokedama Made By Big Group of 7 People

You can see that our students decided to draw a range of different characters for their final assignment.

「友」”Tomo” or “Yuu” means “friend” in Japanese. And although it looks simpler than some of the others, it can be very challenging to get the curvature of the lines to look just right. I am very proud that someone that has never tried Japanese calligraphy before were able to produce these results.

「幸」”Shiawase” or “Kou” means “Joy” or “Happines” in Japanese. While it looks a lot more complicated than friend, with a higher number of strokes, the individual strokes are shorter, straighter, and simpler, so it ends up being around the same difficulty. Our students were able to produce some joyful 「幸」characters, and faces as well.

Then, one of our students was brave enough to challenge herself with 「季節」”Kisetsu” which means “Season” in Japanese. Seasons are very important in Japanese traditions and culture, with many festivals and events marking the turn from each season to the next. While our students missed the famous “Cherry Blossom Season” we hope that they enjoy the rest of their stay in Japan during spring!

One of our students taking a short tea-break, one taking a smart-phone break, and the other two working on carving their own seal/stamp from a simple eraser.

We hope that you all had a good experience taking our class!

Class 2: America!

Next up, our two remaining students were finally able to join our class! I am happy that they found our school without getting lost.

They chose to write different characters than the first group:

「月」”Tsuki”, “Getsu” or “Gatsu” means moon, and month in Japanese. Interestingly, Monday is also named after the moon in Japan, “月曜日”, “getsuyoubi”, or “moon weekday”.  Sunday is also named after the sun (日曜日　”Sun weekday”), but that`s where the resemblance ends. With Tuesday(”火曜日”  “kayoubi”  “fire weekday”) being the day of fire, Wednesday(“水曜日” “suiyoubi” “water weekday”) the day of water(not the day of Odin), and Thursday(”木曜日” “mokuyoubi” “tree weekday”)　being the day of trees not Thor, and Friday the day of Gold(”金曜日”　”kinyoubi” “gold weekday”).

「鳥」”Tori” means “bird” in Japanese. It`s also commonly used to in cooking terms to refer to chicken. For example in the famous Japanese dish; yakitori 焼き鳥 (charcoal grilled chicken skewers).

They were both talented and I am especially impressed with how they were able to slowly release pressure to create the ends of the characters.

They were also very impressive all-round students, and did very well during the Kokedama as well.

We hope everyone enjoyed our classes today! And that you enjoy the rest of your stay in Japan.

If you`re interested in taking our full Japanese culture course, you can read more details about it here. (Until the end of May 2018, it`s only ¥4000)