On November 14, I had the opportunity to go to Indy Translations and Language Center, located in Carmel, to sit in and watch a private Chinese Language class taught by instructor Tian Tan. To start off class, instructor Tan had written a Chinese poem on the board that Elon Musk had posted and captioned it “Humankind.” She read the poem and had the student repeat after her after each line. Then she went line by line helping the student translate and understand it.
The poem was about beans being boiled and cooked in a pot. Then the poem states how they all grow and come from the same roots and beanstalk, so why are they all killing or harming one other? We then discuss why Elon Musk captioned it “Humankind.” It relates to us humans because we all come from the same ancestors, yet we turn against one another and end up harming and hurting each other.
After examining the poem, she taught the student some radicals which are a part of characters that are usually related to the meaning of it. For example, the word smoke would have the radical that indicates fire. The word ice has one of the radicals that indicates water in its frozen state. The word heat has one of the water radicals that indicated water in its condensed state. The ocean and lake have one of the water radicals that indicates water in its liquid state.
After teaching us the radicals, instructor Tan gave us a brush and a water calligraphy cloth that had boxes with outlines of characters and radicals that she let us try to fill in. She taught us how to properly hold the brush with our hands. The brush is supposed to be held vertically and between our middle and ring fingers rather than our index and middle finger.
We spent most of our time doing water calligraphy, trying to get a hang of it while instructor Tan was working with the student on hospital and doctor visit words and phrases. Water calligraphy was really calming and fun. It was cool because the watermarks would slowly disappear after a short period of time. I have had little experience with Chinese calligraphy, but if I remember correctly, it was with ink. It was nice to be able to redo the character if it didn’t end up being to my liking.