Taiwan's calligraphy enthusiasts write Lunar New Year scrolls ahead of festive season

Record ID: 165587

  • Title: Taiwan's calligraphy enthusiasts write Lunar New Year scrolls ahead of festive season
  • Date: 26th January 2017
  • Summary: PARTICIPANT TAPPING ON SMARTPHONE SCREEN TO STOP RUNNING GIF TO CHOOSE WHICH SCROLL TO PRACTICE
  • Embargoed: 9th February 2017 05:43
  • Keywords: Taiwan Lunar New Year calligraphy scrolls
  • Location: TAOYUAN CITY/TAIPEI, TAIWAN
  • City: TAOYUAN CITY/TAIPEI, TAIWAN
  • Country: Taiwan
  • Topics: Living/Lifestyle,Society/Social Issues
  • Reuters ID: LVA00260PVN7P
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: The young and old in Taiwan are celebrating the centuries-old tradition of Lunar New Year scrolls by hand, despite the vast availability of cheap, printed scrolls.
    New Year scrolls are traditionally pasted on apartment and office doors, believed to keep out evil spirits and invite luck and fortune for the coming year.
    Every year for the past 11 years, hundreds of calligraphy enthusiasts flock to the city of Taoyuan in the north of Taiwan, to test their writing skills in a big scroll-writing competition.
    Participants from all parts of the country sit down to write auspicious slogans on red scroll paper. The slogans are assigned to them by the organisers to keep the competition fair.
    Contestant Li Chun-chung, 75, competing for the second time, says he writes calligraphy every day.
    "The people of today don't value New Year Scrolls as much. In the past, people's homes were all filled with an auspicious atmosphere. There was a feeling of Lunar New Year," he said.
    Eleven-year-old Sun Wei-ting first got into calligraphy after seeing his older sister writing the beautiful characters.
    "Because (I) can write very big characters on it (the paper), otherwise on smaller sheets I can only write small characters. So I can empty my mind and relax," he said.
    The yearly competition is organised by Taoyuan City Government's Ministry of Culture and aims to promote scroll writing as an integral part of Lunar New year traditions and Chinese culture.
    According to Yu Kuo-ching, a curator at Taiwan's National Palace Museum, pasting auspicious scrolls on gates and doors date back to the Eastern Han Dynasty in China that lasted from 25 to 220 AD.
    Yu Kuo-ching says it is hard to keep the tradition alive nowadays as young people in Asia are increasingly influenced by the West.
    "It's because the whole of Taiwan as well as Japan and Korea are too influenced by the West, that the degree of importance of the Lunar New Year has greatly changed. So New Year scrolls are not as common anymore. Another factor is that printing is just too convenient. If you ask for a hand-written scroll in a shop, it will cost at least 100 Taiwan dollars ($4), while a printed one will be 20 dollars ($0.64). And then the printed one is very bright and also made of plastic, so (people) can have it pasted for one year without it falling apart. Some people think that this is good enough for them," he said.
    Despite this, some in Taiwan say they miss the traditions they grew up with.
    Chen Ying, who works on photos as a retouching artist, decided to take part in a scroll-writing workshop this year and brushed up on her calligraphy skills.
    "I have to say that during (my) education I didn't pay much attention to this kind of classes and afterwards I also didn't have the chance to pick up a brush to write characters. But the reason that I came here today is that I suddenly had a yearning and recently I also noticed that I should learn again about my own culture," Chen said.
    Lunar New Year festivities this year will start on Friday (January 27), the eve of the Year of the Rooster.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2017. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: Video restrictions: parts of this video may require additional clearances. Please see ‘Business Notes’ for more information.
Register