Category Archives: Graphics

Kung Hei Fat Choi

Ladder Street, Sheung Wan


I have only spent Chinese New Year in Hong Kong once before, and I was too young to remember. In the build up to the big day, I felt a flutter of excitement every time I left the house and past stands of calligraphers painting good wishes, streets lined with little orange plants and doorways surrounded by bright lanterns. My aunts tell me “it’s not the same anymore, it’s so commercial these days, many of the old traditions have been lost”. Walking past the 10 dollar shop (the 80p shop) filled with various red clothing items adorned with cutesy bunny rabbits, and yet another political party dressed in costume surrounded by suited men shouting propaganda through megaphones, I hoped that not all had been lost.

Gift of a Word

Beijing

Taking a few turnings off a  people-packed shopping street, the last thing I expected to see was a calligrapher practising with a bucket of water and some large paintbrushes in the middle of the road. He was calmly copying out a long poem from a book. Around him numerous people hovered and left, a policeman sat bored in a car watching, bikes and scooters drove around and over his work.

Having stood there for some time, mesmerised by his brushstrokes, he turned to me and said “Miss, I give you a word, as a gift”, and with that he wrote  me the following:

It is amazing how such a simple act made my day.