A principal at Jhongping Elementary School in Taoyuan’s Jhongli District (中壢) hopes to calm students’ minds with daily Chinese calligraphy practice.
School principal Liu Yun-chieh (劉雲傑) teaches half-hour-long classes on weekdays to prepare students to learn calligraphy and help them to calm their minds, he said.
“Modern people are too focused on their mobile devices, to the extent that they find no time for anything else,” Liu said.
Photo: Hsu Cho-hsun, Taipei Times
This has led to sloppy handwriting, even when writing in print with ballpoint pens, he said.
It is sad that schools have phased out the art of calligraphy, which used to be mandatory for elementary-school students, he said.
Another reason he instituted the program was to keep the most unruly students occupied, so that they can learn to calm their minds, if only for a brief moment, by observing, copying and, hopefully, learning to appreciate calligraphy, Liu said.
The program eventually gained a reputation among parents, who began asking if their children could enroll in the class, he said.
“Every stroke of the brush, regardless of what action you make with it, reflects the calligrapher’s nature and emotions,” he said.
Liu, a student of renowned calligrapher Chiang Yu-min (江育民), is proficient in the regular script of Chinese calligraphy and uses Tang Dynasty regular script master Ouyang Xun’s (歐陽詢) Sweet Water Ode at Jioucheng Palace (九成宮醴泉銘) as part of his teaching materials.
Ouyang’s work features many core concepts of the regular script, which could also express other ideas on how to comport oneself in life, Liu said.
“Ouyang’s script is orderly, eschewing flowery script and bearing with it an inner strength, the likes of which can only be recreated through diligence and concentration,” he said.
Many students do not truly appreciate the meaning of “giving it their all” until they try copying Ouyang’s scripts, he said.
A student surnamed Lin (林) said that he was impatient and usually wrote sloppily, as he often could not wait to leave the classroom.
After the course, he said that not only was his handwriting much more legible, but he was also much calmer.
A parent surnamed Lo (羅) said that Liu’s requirements for the class — to put everything in order before they are allowed to begin writing — has encouraged her child to adopt orderly habits.
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS