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謝小龍Andy Strack 個展

Interpreting Chinese Calligraphy

On her second visit to Taiwan I remember my sister Lucy asking me ‘What does that mean?’ I 

looked at the many neon signs along the street, ‘Which one?’ I asked her.  She was pointing at a 

particularly colorful sign, ‘That one in purple, the letters are so beautiful.’  ‘Oh, yes they are, 

that says, Fresh duck’s blood in soup, do you want to try some?’ ‘Yuk! You’ve got to be kidding!  

People don’t really eat that do they?’ ‘Actually they do, and pretty much anything else.’ 

My sister wasn’t so keen on the local food but loved the mountains, the beaches, the islands, 

the people and all the Chinese symbols and lettering she saw. I have yet to meet a foreigner 

who doesn’t. Whatever the words say, ‘duck’s blood soup’ or ‘Stinky Dofu’ to the western eye 

they are all beautiful images. This is one of the big attractions of learning Chinese as a language, 

trying to decipher the mystery of what these interesting pictograms actually mean. 

Not long after I first arrived I started studying the art of calligraphy hoping to learn the language 

and wield the brush to create beautiful black lines on the delicate off-white paper. I spent hours 

copying out each Chinese character onto the squared paper that the teacher gave me. I 

watched the local children filling small books in the same time it took me to write a few pages. 

After months I had forgotten most of the words I had previously studied. I also needed to buy a 

new pair of glasses, it was hurting my eyes. I put my brush down, not to pick it up again for 15 

years.

It was after starting to incorporate some Chinese characters into my colored paintings, and 

wondering how accurate or ugly they were I decided I needed to take calligraphy classes to 

learn how to write correctly. I was very lucky to find a wonderful teacher 汪老師. He is so 

popular that registration for his classes is full within 60 seconds of it opening online. Many 

students are turned away as there are just not enough places.