Writing good calligraphy is a fine tradition of the Chinese nation. Since ancient times, there has been a saying that words are like people and that words are people's second face. Relevant research shows that writing well is not only a manifestation of cultural accomplishment, but also has a significant impact on activating people's thinking and regulating people's mood. Nowadays, many foreigners are also interested in writing Chinese characters, especially Japanese and Koreans.
However, now more and more of our citizens cannot write well, dare not write, or even do not want to write... Writing is facing an unprecedented crisis.
What is puzzling is that although as early as the third session of the Ninth National People's Congress, many representatives proposed "strengthening writing education", in recent years, the number of media and related people paying attention to writing issues has also increased. , but the "writing crisis" has not improved, but has become more and more serious.
Recently, the author specially interviewed Mr. Zhu Chunhui, the founder of 1 Week Practice Calligraphy, who works on the front line of handwriting education.
Author: Based on your years of teaching, what do you think is the cause of the “writing crisis”?
Zhu Chunhui: Objectively speaking, the popularity of computers has affected writing education to a certain extent, but the main reason, I think, is that educational institutions at all levels lack truly effective methods for teaching writing.
Author: Why do you say that?
Zhu Chunhui: I found that when teaching writing in many schools, they basically use copybooks as a model, dividing strokes, radicals, single characters, and combined characters into chapters for tracing and copying, supplemented by fields. Practice with calligraphy stickers, rice character stickers, Huigong grids, etc., and the purpose is very clear: it is to resemble the copybook, the more similar the better, and it emphasizes step-by-step, diligent study and practice, slow first and then fast. It's just that the copybooks used by each school are different. Some are from ancient calligraphers, and some are from modern calligraphers. Some practice regular script, some practice official script or running script, some practice with hard pens, and some practice with brushes. According to them, the same goes for traditional writing exercises.
In my opinion, this is not so much a practice of writing as it is a practice of resembling words, like the words on a copybook, which is the same thing as drawing, except that the graphics are changed into glyphs. If the traditional practice of writing is the same, then why is there only one Wang Xizhi, but there are many people who can write well? Besides, if it doesn’t look like it, it’s wrong and bad, right? In addition, there are many things we need to learn now, so how can we have so much time to slowly practice like it?
I think it is these wrong methods that have led to today's writing crisis, which makes many people afraid of writing, unwilling to write, and think that writing is too difficult.
Author: So do you think writing is difficult? What is the correct way to solve the "writing crisis"?
Zhu Chunhui: Writing is not difficult. On the contrary, it is very easy and regular. If it were really difficult, it would not have been passed down for more than five thousand years. Think about it, among the four ancient civilizations, why is it that only Chinese characters have a long history? Doesn’t this also mean that Chinese characters are not only easy to write, but also must have rules to be popularized, otherwise, they will also be eliminated by history.