There are many ways to learn about a new culture. One way that we experienced today was through observation and participation in calligraphy and archery classes at Sakushin Gakuin, the high school in Utsonomiya.

We were split into two groups. My group went to a calligraphy class first. We had been in a calligraphy class previously in Ichicawa, so we all had an idea of what we were doing. However, this time we had all new characters to draw.

Calligraphy is the art of writing kanji (Chinese characters) and kana (Japanese syllabary characters. It was introduced to the Japan introducedaby either Korea or China in the 5th century. We used a fude (brush) dipped in ink to draw the symbols on a special paper (hanshi).

It was really hard to commit to only using one stroke, because I wanted to go back over my lines to make them perfect. Some people really excelled!

For me, calligraphy is really relaxing. You are extremely focused on every mark and movement the brush is making. It goes slowly, but results in something meaningful, as well as an excellent souvenir. We even got one of our characters laminated!

Calligraphy in Japan is important because at one time, writing was the only way to keep records. Today, it’s more used in special ceremonial occasions, such as writing New Year’s greeting cards, and less for everyday practical situations. It’s a required part of elementary education: to teach students how to use the brush and create the characters, as well as to learn the characters. In junior and senior high school, it is an elective. it was an amazing experience and I feel so lucky to have been able to learn about this beautiful art form.

The next class we went to was archery. Archery was introduced to the Japanese by the Chinese in the sixth century. It was first for warfare, but after guns were developed, it became a form of body and mind training, and is now a very well-known martial art form.

It is important to remember that the target is your opponent, not another player, and that it is not about competition. It is about physical, spiritual, and moral development. It is to be enjoyable by oneself, and can be enjoyed by people of all ages, because the bows can come in all sizes and strengths. However, the bow is typically 2.21 meters long and made of laminated strips of bamboo. There is a hand grip at least two-thirds of the way down from the top, and the bow is lacquered. The arrows are made of a bamboo shaft, and then eagle, crane, or pheasant tail feathers and steel tips. The quivers can be very ornamented.

The first thing the archery students did was give us a demonstration. They gracefully moved through several poses, before releasing their arrow at very small targets. All but one arrow struck.

Then, it was our turn! It took a few attempts, and we were much closer with much bigger targets, but almost everyone hit somewhere on a target.

Overall, it was very fun and a very neat experience to be able to participate in these activities with some amazing students helping us out!