Chinese Calligraphy

Chinese Calligraphy

    When I was a young girl, my mother had a friend who was well known as an expert knitter who could transpose any scenes, designs, and/or symbols she saw into beautiful sweaters. Her tastes were adventurous, so she also traveled quite a bit as well, sampling as wide a variety of foods, sights, and experiences as possible. She always had a good story to tell.

    One day she came for a visit and told my mother about the newly opened Chinese restaurant in a town nearby. Of course, we had to go try it out as soon as Mom could get us ready. I was excited because this would be my first time to visit a Chinese restaurant.

    Upon entering the place, I remember most of all the beautiful, big, red lanterns and the many dragons everywhere. I also remember the individual booths per table. A beautiful woman in a cheongsam waited on us while traditional Chinese music played in the background. It sounded like magical music to my young ears, which was appropriate to what was a magical place in my eyes.

    Next came some very unusual (for me at that time) but very fragile and wondrous serving dishes filled with foods that seemed to be artwork. Very tasty artwork, too! I had fallen in love with the sights, the sounds, the smells, and the tastes of Asia then and there. I decided that China specifically must be a magical place indeed.

    My mother's friend must have felt similarly because she copied down some Chinese designs and calligraphy from the menu and decor for a new sweater project. That sweater was completed in record time, as I recall. It was breath-taking in capturing the feel of the restaurant as I remembered it.

    Then one day, mom's friend wore her new sweater to a Chinese restaurant in the Chinatown of a large American city. While she was there, many Chinese businessmen gave her strange looks, winks, smiles, and chuckles that were not the sort of which she was accustomed. She could not understand why the men were behaving this was until later when an older Chinese women who owned the restaurant explained to her that it was because of her sweater.

    "Where did you get those Chinese calligraphy figures," she asked. "Do you know that they mean, 'This dish is cheap but good"?

    That was the last time we saw that beautiful sweater unfortunately.

Ó Copyright 2002, Daphne Yvonne Bradshaw.