Week Four (February 4-10)

This week I had an interesting conversation about language/using a language that is not your own what does "own" even mean?

A guest of the museum (presumably of Chinese descent) had criticized the couplets that I wrote, saying that it was incorrect. This was pretty stressful for me, as I had spent so much time double/triple/quadruple checking the characters and texting my Mandarin speaking friends before even touching the paintbrush to the fabric. Turns out there was a tiny typo that I was able to fix & I was assured that it was a small mistake.

But, later, someone else complained that the banner was clearly written by someone that was not of Chinese descent. This was an interesting complaint to me. I thought about what that meant and how someone could tell from my handwriting. Is there a difference between someone that is Chinese and speaks Mandarin fluently but wasn't taught calligraphy?

I didn't come to any conclusions, but I decided to focus on the plenty of families of various backgrounds that seemed to genuinely enjoy the Lunar New Year celebrations and decorations.

You can see the couplets in my previous post.

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Here's how the cherry blossom bloomed with tissue paper flowers!