Hi! I'm E-Ching. This is an orphanage for the deserving art of Chinese calligraphy. It will probably be perpetually under construction, but please come in anyway.

I love calligraphy, both Chinese and Western. It's not really necessary to be good at Chinese, or even to know it, to enjoy Chinese calligraphy. You can think of it as abstract art, or (as I do) grace and movement recorded on paper. Or you might see it purely practically, as the ingenious innovations of generations of artists, all aimed at rendering the complicated but beautiful Chinese script in pleasing forms. Yes, that's my idea of "practical" -- when it comes to calligraphy!

Although I'm trying to make this project informative, for people who really want to know names and dates, I'd hate it to be off-putting to casual browsers. If you're here to take in the scenery, you might like to start from Styles to get a general picture, and go on from there.

If you're interested in stories about the demented folk who created these squiggles, why not try People? Funny stories a specialty.

You might try out my fortnightly Snippets for bits of info that'll help you understand the vagaries of Chinese calligraphy and culture. The newest thing is the 21 Sept snippet on Liáng Shanbo and Zhù Yingtái, the Butterfly Lovers. I'm not too good at telling love stories, but this is one of my favourites. [Apologies: the 5 Oct snippet is indefinitely delayed, but I'll try to write it this coming weekend.]

My own work is up too ... please be kind, it obviously can't hold a candle to the great masters on this site.

Please feel free to skip what you don't fancy. Calligraphy was meant for you to enjoy, not to bore you!

calligraphers have ventured into Caliriel since 8 June 1997.
This site was last modified on 7 Feb 1998.

Intro ~ Styles ~ People ~ Snippets ~ My Work ~ Other Sites My Homepage ~ My Lit Essay site Comments? Tell E-Ching at e-ching@geocities.com!

I really owe these people ...

My teacher, Khoo Seow Hwa, for his highly entertaining (and bilingual!) lessons, as well as his invaluable English book Behind the Brushstrokes,
My friend Katherine Chew for her painstaking scanning,
My mother, who gave me a lovely new scanner that I never get round to using.

More thanks due to ...

Professor Pei at China the Beautiful, for information, pictures, and most importantly encouragement,
Classical Midi Archives, which provided me lots of sound files (and never coerced me into a single link),
Providers of pictures for Snippets, Graham G Hawker and the Birmingham Museum of Art.
Cowgirl's Homepage, which has lots of these special Geocities icons.

Cool Homestead for 28 Aug 97 and Featured Page!

The Chinese dance from Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker