Promoting Calligraphy Education: Taichung City Houli Center Unveiled

(Taiwan Business Daily News) The Taichung City Government yesterday (the 7th) established a "Calligraphy Teaching Resource Center" at Neipu Elementary School in Houli District to promote calligraphy education. In addition to displaying the results of calligraphy education promotion at Neipu, Yong'an, Zhongzheng, Dongshan, Tonglin and Longhai Elementary Schools, it has also published calligraphy teaching book series on regular script, seal script and clerical script, set up a professional calligraphy teaching website, organized various student calligraphy competitions, and held teacher calligraphy enhancement and improvement workshops and other activities to improve calligraphy teaching ability, so that the seeds of calligraphy can continue to be passed down.

To highlight the heritage of calligraphy education, the Taichung City Education Bureau specially invited Professor Tu Chung-kao of National Taiwan Normal University to inscribe the title for the center. After the unveiling, Director Wu, District Chief Chiu, Principal Huang and six schoolchildren from six elementary schools including Neipu Elementary School together held brushes and wrote the congratulatory phrase "Taichung is a good place, ink and brush fragrance fills the city," bringing the unveiling event to a perfect conclusion.

In his speech, Vice Mayor Tsai said that Taichung City has achieved success in promoting calligraphy education. After Yong'an Elementary School was selected last year as an excellent school for calligraphy education and was personally inspected by President Ma, this year it is hoped that through the establishment of the Calligraphy Teaching Resource Center, and by combining the efforts of six elementary schools including Neipu Elementary School, Taiwan's inherent Chinese culture can be promoted and cherished amid the global Chinese-language boom.

The Taichung City Education Bureau said that Neipu Elementary School has been established for 106 years and has promoted calligraphy teaching for 8 years. Teachers and students have achieved outstanding results every year in calligraphy competitions. The current Principal Huang is himself an excellent calligrapher and has spared no effort in promoting calligraphy teaching. This year a calligraphy community was established at the school, receiving enthusiastic responses from one third of the school's teachers; therefore, the Education Bureau decided to set up a calligraphy teaching resource center at the school.