Show and tell

Mel is hosting Show and Tell again this weekend. I've never had anything I wanted to show, but I've enjoyed seeing what others post about and finally, finally it's my turn! I've got something!

I've mentioned before that I'm taking a weekly calligraphy class. My instructor is a wonderful, calm and patient man who is retired and is doing this strictly for the fun of it. He's a friend of the family and I'm incredibly grateful to him. He teaches me entirely in Japanese. This cannot be an easy thing for him since my Japanese is, well, a work in progress. As such, I'm sure it's difficult for him to convey some ideas to me, although the "watch what I do" technique has worked quite well for us thus far. And it surely helps that I'm getting one-on-one instruction.

That's the telling, now on to the showing. My work is on the left and my instructor's work is on the right. I still need quite a bit of practice but this is my best work from my class the other day:



Updated to add: I've been asked about what the words mean. Good question! It's actually part of a larger phrase. Thus, on it's own, this segment doesn't really mean anything. However, it's my understanding that starting from the top right and reading counter-clockwise the characters individually read as: world, taste, usual and gate. As is the case with reading these characters in Japanese, sometimes you combine two words and get a third (often related) new word. Oddly enough, in my Japanese class I find it easier to read than write the Kanji I study, while in calligraphy class I find it easier to write than to read. I'm all a-jumble!