After reading The Rainbow Girl - a similar story from my culture

In Japan, calligrapher "Shoko Kanazawa" is famous and she has a Down syndrome. There are 50 thousands of patients of Down syndrome patients in Japan. I have image that their understanding is slow and limited, but they have supple mind and special ability in one field. Some of them has special ability especially in the art/music field.

Ms. Shoko Kanazawa is active on calligraphy field and her special ability is as per my image/understanding.

Nowadays, she wrote the title "平清盛" of annual famous drama played by NHK which is public television. Her calligraphy doesn't pretend to ingratiate to people (=to be famous? to make money?) and her supple mind is shown on calligraphy. I have never seen her calligraphy, but I saw a article that most of people who saw her calligraphy, were moved and her pernal exhibition or events were increasing.

At a feature segments of Mr. Shoko Kanazawa, I found that I had incorrect understanding and prejudice for Down syndrome. There are so many patients of Down syndrome, so incorrect understanding causes big problem. I think that various success of people having Down syndrome will decrease people like me.

Posted for Ritsuko

Jungle Book - after reading: a respected teacher

Mowgli gets a lot of good advice from his teachers. Write about a teacher you respected and why their advice was important for you.

I was learning calligraphy when I was a student. I was not a good student at all. I went to the school because my friends went to. I didn’t go there when it was too cold to go out in winter. As a matter of course, I had bad writing. My friend always told me that they could not read my letter. I was wasting lecture fee.

We have a culture called, Kakizome that we do calligraphy at the beginning of the year, 2nd Jan usually. My calligraphy school was joining a calligraphy association, which constituted of several calligraphy schools in my city, and one day, the association held Kakizome meeting. Students of other calligraphy schools gather city center. We did calligraphy and those teachers taught us how to fix our letters.

I went to the meeting because my teacher recommended. I spent the boring meeting time, and wrote ugly letter like I did calligraphy in my school. In the end of the meeting, one of the teachers gave us speech, and his word hit me in my mind.

He said, “You must not compare your writing with the one of other people. You do calligraphy to face yourself. Calligraphy is not a competition. You must improve your writing from yours yesterday.”

Since then, although my calligraphy was still ugly, my attitude against calligraphy was changed. It was only one time to see him, but he is one of my respecters.

Posted for Yumi