The Hometown of Calligraphy

　　       Since Preface of Orchid Pavilion, written by the most famous calligrapher Wang Xizhi in East Jin Dynasty, Shaoxing is widely known as the “the hometown of calligraphy”, and the Orchid Pavilion becomes the famous Holy Land of Calligraphy.

　　In China, Shaoxing is famous as the hometown of scholars and literati, not to mention calligraphers in history. 143 calligraphers from Shaoxing are recorded in Chinese Blue Book of Calligraphers edited by Liang Piyun. In 1984, Shaoxing Calligrapher Association (SCA) was established and March the third of the lunar calendar is set as the Calligraphy Festival by the Shaoxing People’s Congress when famous calligraphers and calligraphy amateurs home or abroad are invited to exchange their opinions in seminars. SCA has sponsored several national calligraphy competitions and exhibitions successively such as, “Orchid Pavilion Cup Calligraphy Competition”, “China Dayu Cup Teenagers’ Calligraphy Competition” etc. Orchid Pavilion Calligrapher Association, with members all over China, always branches out into national academic activities of calligraphy and exchanges with the related calligraphy organizations in Japan, Korea and Singapore etc.

　　What’s worth mentioning is that the great men’s calligraphy works such as Zhou Enlai, Lu Xun are always printed in issued stamps in China. In September 1999, Orchid Pavilion Calligraphy School was founded to cultivate the reserves of calligraphy talents, with Sheng Peng, chairman of China Calligraphy Association the honorary president and Sheng Ding’an, chairman of Orchid Pavilion Calligraphy Association as the president chairman respectively. It is so popular to learn calligraphy in Shaoxing now that there have emerged many rising stars in calligraphy. The vice-secretary of China Calligraphy Association, Liu Zhengcheng once made an encouraging comment that, with so many experts of calligraphy in Shaoxing, it goes without saying that Shaoxing is the center as-of-right of calligraphy.