Lai Kwan Yee
Writing in Chinese is not a difficult task for us. However, foreigners may not think so. Our reporters interview three of the Lions Club members from Austria, Poland and Tunisia. They visit Hong Kong together, exploring the intrinsic values of Chinese writing and calligraphy.
“Sound of the Music” is one of the camps organized by the Lions Club for international students every year. Last summer, participants from different countries like America, Germany, Canada, Poland, Tunisia and Japan went to Austria to learn different languages and cultures.
“Russian writing is interesting but I think I like Chinese more,” Lili Hauser, who comes from Poland, has been to Europe, India, Africa and Russia before, tells our reporter during the visit in Hong Kong.
“I normally write with a pen or pencil. But this time, I have a chance to write with a writing brush. Some of my awesome Chinese friends let me try. It was really fun because I saw Chinese writing in movies and on some products but I never got to do it myself.”
Lili says she likes Chinese “because it’s something different and it brings meaning to things that you ‘put’ on paper”. She knows nothing about Chinese calligraphy except putting something black on the paper.
“Chinese writing is very pretty and carefully made. Ha! I don’t think I have any difficulties in ‘drawing’ but children must learn a lot to be able to write,” she adds.
Being asked the feelings when she writes in Chinese, she replies with a smiling face: “Well, it was pleasant, relaxing and I actually felt more like I was ‘drawing’ but not writing.”
However, Lili likes English more. “Chinese is a hard language to learn for a European because there are only 26 characters in English,” she says honestly.
“I would say that the majority knows about Chinese writing from movies and from Chinese products but I’ve never heard of any courses about Chinese writing in Poland.”Besides Chinese writing, Lili loves Chinese lanterns. She thinks Chinese celebrations with dragon boats are also very cool. “If I have a chance, I’ll try to learn too. It will be exciting!”
