In my article last May, entitled My tutelage in Japanese graffiti, aka Shodo, I gave a very brief introduction to Japanese calligraphy, and some points on brush stroke principles and techniques. This time I want to introduce and describe some of the basic styles of shodo, and highlight their differences.
I live in a town of about 45, 000, mostly young families and obaa-chans, where you escape to big cities like Osaka and Kobe if you are young and able enough to get out of inaka life. Sometimes, seeing my students graduate, I feel a twinge of jealousy as they move on to an exciting care-free Japanese university life, in the metropolis of Japan, leaving their little ALT behind in the rice fields and mountains of this small town. I’m a big city girl but I really adore life in inaka Japan…