Japanese News

Japanese Calligraphy for Mother’s Day

7F, the Year 7 SEAL class, has really taken to practising their writing skills in Japanese with ink brushes on special practice boards. Having now learnt all the Hiragana (one of the three writing systems used in Japanese), and little by little amassing some Kanji (the characters adopted from Chinese), the students were thrilled to have the opportunity to display their skills on traditional gold-edged Shikishi boards. Rather than setting out their message in the more contemporary yokogaki (writing organised in rows running from left to right, as in English), the students opted to use the more traditional tategaki format, setting out their text in two columns, which are read from right to left. They even finished off their work with a seal dipped in traditional red ink. Once complete, the students wrapped their work up carefully, so as to protect it on the way home and prevent their mothers from catching a glimpse of it before Mother’s Day came around. Their message read: お母さん、ありがとう。(Okāsan, arigatō. Thank you, Mum). Photos by Wendy Huang, 7F.

Bronwyn Salton

Japanese Teacher