Calligraphy is an art dating back to the earliest day of history and widely practiced throughout China to this day. It is understood in China as the art of writing a good hand with the brush or the study of the rules and techniques of this art. Over the thousands of years, the style of Chinese calligraphy has evolved continually.

    Regarded as the most abstract and sublime form of art in Chinese culture, "Shu Fa" (calligraphy) is often thought to be most revealing of one's personality. There are five major styles of calligraphy:

    1) The zhuan script or seal character . it was the earliest form of writing after the oracle inscriptions, which lacked uniformity and many characters were written in variant forms.

    2) The lishu (official script) came in the wake of the xiaozhuan in the same short-lived Qin Dynasty (221 - 207 B. C.). This was because the xiaozhuan, though a simplified form of script, was still too complicated for the scribes in the various government offices who had to copy an increasing amount of documents.

    3) kaishu, regular script. The standard writing today is square in form, non-cursive and architectural in style. The characters are composed of a number of strokes out of a total of eight kinds-the dot, the horizontal, the vertical, the hook, the rising, the left-falling (short and long) and the right-falling strokes.

    4) caoshu (cursive hand). It is rapid and used for making quick but rough copies.

    5) The xingshu or running hand . It is something between the regular and the cursive scripts. Chinese masters have always compared with vivid aptness the three styles of writing-kaishu, xingshu and caoshu-to people standing, walking and running.

    In the history of Chinese art, calligraphy has always been held in equal importance to painting. Great attention is also paid today to its development by holding exhibitions of ancient and contemporary works and by organizing competitions among youngsters and people from various walks of life. Sharing of experience in this field often makes a feature in Sino-Japanese cultural exchange.