Summer story: Hunmin Cha

During the summer, PhD student Hunmin Cha enrolled in a Chinese calligraphy class at Ohio State which covered not only the basic techniques of writing Chinese calligraphy but also the vast history and culture behind it.

“I’d never formally learned to write traditional calligraphy although I’d had a taste of it in my elementary school art class in South Korea,” Hunmin says. “Countries in East Asia share a long history of Chinese calligraphy, and having admired it for some time, I decided to use the summer to deepen my understanding of this tradition.”

One of Hunmin’s assignments included practicing writing characters from the Thousand Character Classic (千字文), a Chinese poem from the 6th century used to teach Chinese characters, as well as some ancient writings from poets and philosophers. For her midterm project, she wrote Spring Festival Couplets, a Chinese custom of composing poems on red paper to celebrate the Lunar New Year. Hunmin’s final project involved writing a quote from the Analects by Confucius: “The noble man is in harmony but does not follow the crowd. The inferior man follows the crowd but is not in harmony (子曰、君子和而不同、小人同而不和)” (Analects, 13.23).”

Hunmin discovered the Chinese calligraphy class while searching summer course listings to fulfill credit hour requirements for her fellowship.