Trying to learn Chinese calligraphy, alone, from a book, is probably akin to trying to learn martial arts or ballet from a video or DVD - perhaps useless, potentially dangerous. Yet the book still deserves credit on the principle that in remote lands, a poor map made by a foreigner is better than no map at all. In fact, there is an apparent gap in the literature in English on this subject: a perusal of copious material available at Shanghai Foreign Language Bookstore on Fuzhou Rd reveals nothing any better. There is simply no authoritative English reference.

In any case, there are numerous points of contention within this book, concerning the presentation of basic strokes, composite strokes, stroke ordering rules, etc. The author presents the `basic' strokes as follows:

heng2, shu4, pie3, na4, tiao3, dian3, gou1, zhe2

The author presents tiao3 as a basic stroke. The stroke he is evidently describing is referred to elsewhere in the literature as ti2: `an upwards diagonal character stroke, rising from left to right; or a lifting brush stroke in painting'. In no other reference can I find this stroke named as tiao3.

The author presents gou1, `a hook stroke appended to other strokes', as a basic stroke with four variants. A hook stroke can definitely be appended to the basic strokes heng2, shu4, pie3, such that these strokes exist in `unhooked' and `hooked' variants. But as noted in other references, gou1 can also be be used to create wan1 gou1 `bent hooked', xie2 gou1 `slanting hooked', and wo4 gou1 `crouching hooked' as valid composite strokes, as well as heng2 zhe2 gou1, heng2 zhe2 wan1 gou1, heng2 zhe2 zhe2 gou1, shu4 wan1 gou1, shu4 zhe2 zhe2 gou1, heng2 zhe2 xie2 gou1, etc, which brings the number of variations to a dozen or more.

The author presents zhe2 `to fold, to turn' as a basic stroke with two variants. The author ignores wan1 `bend, bent', and xie2 `slanting', which are also used to describe direction or directional changes in composite characters, but with an obvious visual difference from zhe2. A useful visual comparison of the composite strokes (a) heng2 zhe2 heng2, (b) heng2 zhe2 heng2 wan1, (c) heng2 zhe2 heng2 zhe2, and (d) heng2 zh2 heng2 zhe2 should make the differences obvious. In fact, the two variants the author discusses are heng2 zhe2 and shu4 zhe2. These are only two of numerous uses of zhe2 in composite strokes. Other `variants' of zhe2 include: heng2 zhe2 ti2, heng2 zhe2 heng2, heng2 zhe2 heng2 wan1, heng2 zhe2 heng2 zhe2, heng2 zhe2 gou1, heng2 zhe2 zhe2 pie3, heng2 zhe2 wan1 gou1, heng2 zhe2 zhe2 gou1, heng2 zhe2 xie2 gou1, shu4 zhe2 zhe2 gou1, etc.

The author dismisses the study of composite strokes as unnecessary:

"These composite strokes can be seen as combinations of the eight basic strokes, and it is not really necessary to practice them separately."

This is nonsense.

The models or example characters the author provides for his basic strokes consistently use basic strokes not yet studied, and composite strokes, which the author dismisses as unworthy of study. For example, like every other book on Chinese calligraphy, the author presents the character yong3, meaning `forever', as a model for studying the basic strokes, but glosses over the composite strokes used in yong3.

In fairness, the literature in English on Chinese calligraphy is inconsistent, contradictory, confusing; and Bjorksten's book is a cut above the sorry lot. But it's discouraging to think that by following Bjorksten's method of practicing basic strokes over and over again, with no feedback from a teacher, that one may be ingraining incorrect knowledge and technique.

First, I have now been studying Chinese for about 4 years, and this was an early book I got cheap from a used book store. I have changed my mind about it several times over the years. The discouraging part of the book is indicating how many times you would need to practice a character to get good at it. In the beginning, this was definitely true becasue a newbie simply cannot understand the important parts of a character and the relative alignment of strokes. As you acquire more characters, it becomes clearer what is important within the character.

In the beginning, this is tough. You need to write them again and again until your hand moves fluidly, not haltingly. This book gives you directions to achieve this, and key pieces (or parts) of strokes that will distinguish your writing from a first grader. There a fixed number of actual strokes, the difficulty is this relative positioning that's the killer.

The book is short, but gets to the point. I would have preferred larger and more examples, but he nevertheless gives you what you need.

The issue of stroke order has arisen. In my Chinese class, the native-born instructor says we should not obsess on stroke order. BUT it is important. I find that it is easy to correct an order, less easy to recognize characters in beautiful balance. This book helps.

So, do I write well. My teacher says I need more work. A ball point pen or pencil does not emulate a brush very well. The book focusses on that. I still think the book in less focussed on "calligraphy" vs. good character writing. Calligraphy is much more than writing characters accurately: it's an art form usually deviating from a standard printed/written character. This book focusses less on the art form, and more on the appearance and quality of a character. A western analogy: the book improves printing, not cursive script.

I really like the book. Before you can do calligraphy, you must be able to write characters in the regular way. [That segment in "Hero" on calligraphy was excellent!]

Get the book now, before you develop bad habits.

There are two problems with this book. One is that the author is unfortunately unaware of the correct calligraphic stroke order that's been used for many centuries and still is used for proper calligraphy. It's not used in schools in China and Taiwan, though all Japanese still only know the calligraphic stroke order. What am I talking about? You don't always follow the "horizontal before vertical" rule and that is very important for both speed and aesthetics. I think this of particular importance for foreigners who will never write characters as much as a Chinese child does in school. Take a proper calligraphy class. Look at masterpieces in books or museums and you can follow much of the stroke order (except not necessarily in kaishu).

A few examples: if you write 'field' -- tian2 -- (or any characters containing it) the third stroke is vertical not horizontal. If you write 'king' -- wang2 -- (or any characters containing it) the second stroke is vertical. If you write 'neighborhood; 1/2km' -- li3 -- (or any characters containing it) the fifth stroke is vertical. I assure you, absolutely no real calligrapher would write them otherwise. There are a number of other very common characters/character building blocks (sheng1 'give birth', qing1 'green', and zhui1 'short-tailed bird' come to mind) where the stroke order is different in calligraphy from what is taught in schools in Taiwan and China (for the convenience of teachers) as well as in all the books I've seen for foreigners to learn characters (though Rita Choy mostly uses the calligraphic stroke order in both of her writing books).

The problem is that Mr. Bjorksten claims to be writing a book about calligraphy. No matter with a brush, a fountain pen, a ballpoint pen, chalk, crayons, or chicken grease -- there is a standard stroke order for calligraphy and this book is unaware of it.

Your CFL/CSL teachers and regular K-college teachers in China (and more and more in Taiwan now) are unaware of this because of changes to the method of teaching the writing of characters that make it easier for teachers and more uniform. So, go ahead and ask them but chances are that your teachers in China, and maybe in Taiwan, know nothing about this topic.

The second problem with this book is that the author gets very caught up in the idea of correctly written strokes/characters. Look at masterpieces of calligraphy, even kaishu. There are plenty of bad/wrong strokes. Yes, there is a certain shape that is vaguely considered standard, but early on a good teacher will tell you not to write 'perfect' characters. In fact, perfect characters are not so. Just as we say an antique's wear marks give it character, so it is with Chinese calligraphy: too perfect is not good. Sure you should practice kaishu, but no one ever writes the way his teacher did in the book in real life with a pen. But people -- including top notch calligraphers and painters -- do write (with a pen or a brush) in what he calls the wrong way. Ah, but the bones must be strong no matter how you write. It's no different for a pen. Calligraphy is after all, an expressive art. Relax and enjoy. And don't worry about what this or that stroke is called.

There are also smaller errors. No, you shouldn't practice a character 100 times in a row, unless you're a masochist. No, dialects are not the same when written.

I gave him 1 star because stroke order is that important and because he wrote this as a calligraphy book. If he wrote a book on driving and didn't mention steering or braking, then it's a one star book. As mentioned above, had this been just another character book for foreigners, that would have been different, since nearly all do it wrong. The focus on the one right way to write perfect kaishu is also dangerous.

What Mr. Bjorksten does right is to provide well-written characters as a model and point out something about spacing and such. Too often neglected.

You can do much better with the following: in Taipei, Hui4Feng1Tang2 has stuff for kaishu and xingshu with a pen. There are other books in Taiwan to teach you this and caoshu. Fred Wang's _Introduction to Chinese Cursive Script_ can introduce you to xingcao. Or you can take a calligraphy class in Taiwan or Japan. All the Japanese kanji books for foreigners I've seen have the correct stroke order (except for 'grass' on the top of characters, since they use the simplified form (as four strokes it should be down-across-across-down) and a couple of others). Calligraphy books I've seen in China are written for the new method. I can't tell you about calligraphy classes in China, but talking to people suggests that they may teach the correct stroke order there.

This is a simplified discussion of the subject. About 1% of what I've written is more nuanced than I let on.

[September 24, 2006]

This book was quite helpful by helping one to gain a better understanding of the background and make-up of Chinese characters which helps one to better appreciate both their historical and aesthetic value. I definitely recommend this book for anyone who wants to seriously learn about Chinese characters.