A Foreigner Invents a Bizarre Gadget to Spread Chinese Calligraphy

Chinese water calligraphy 1 is often seen as a hobby of elderly Chinese men. Every morning, elderly men gather in Beijing's parks to practice this ancient art on the ground with giant brushes dipped in water, writing fluid lines of ancient characters that disappear one by one as they dry.

Many take it up as a hobby after retirement 2 to train their concentration and precision.

But today let's follow our reporter Wei Tong to meet with a young foreigner who is now bringing water calligraphy back to the streets of Beijing.

 

Nicholas Hanna, a Canadian media artist living in Beijing, has invented a tricycle that writes Chinese characters with water.

His calligraphy-mobile is based around a tricycle with a palette similar to those used by the salesmen and waste collectors who trundle around the city's traditional "hutong" alleyways.

An Apple laptop mounted on the handlebars uses software Hanna designed himself to transform Chinese characters into a series of signals that are sent to electromagnetic valves at the back of the tricycle.

From these valves come drops of water which fall on the ground to make characters, or words from any language in fact, as the vehicle moves.

His bizarre contraption has been puzzling local residents since it made its maiden 3 voyage two weeks ago at the opening of Beijing design week. Hanna explains.

"So the idea for this project comes from when I first arrived in Beijing and I started going to the parks here. And if you go to the parks, you will find generally older people. They are doing water calligraphy. They have these really long brushes and they dip them in a bucket of water and they write Chinese calligraphy on the ground. And so I thought this is a really interesting thing. I thought it's really beautiful and I decided 4 to build the machine."

Beijing residents are familiar with water calligraphy, but have never seen anything like the tricycle before.

"I think it's quite interesting that a foreigner has designed such a tricycle. It writes 'long live the communist party' and 'China is great'. It's very interesting and innovative 5. This foreigner shows his creativity in China. It's all quite new. We really like it."

Twenty-six-year-old Zhang Xinzhe was distracted by the machine as she passed through the area, which is popular with tourists.

"This foreigner came to China from thousands of miles away. I think first of all he must have an in-depth understanding of Chinese culture. Secondly 6, he must also have a good understanding of Chinese characters. So that's why he could invent such a high-tech 7 machine."

The art is temporary. Like those written by the elderly men in the park, Hanna's characters only live for a few brief moments before drying up and disappearing.

But the image of one foreigner and his outlandish machine rolling down the alleyways is unlikely to fade from the minds of all those who see it.

For CRI, this is Wei Tong.