Towada Soroptimists

Mandy and I spent the day with the Towada Soroptimists on Monday. This is a friendship club between the wives of the American Military and some lovely Japanese women who live in the town of Towada. We take turns hosting a luncheon. We were invited to learn some Japanese Caligraphy before a lovely lunch and a traditional Japanese tea ceremony. Mandy's picture is of the word moon in Kanji, mine is of the word spring. Kanji is actually Chinese. The Japanese written language is composed of the Chinese Charaters called Kanji, and Japanese Characters and Japanese characters dipicting words whose origin did not come from Japan. I forget the names of those Characters.

There is actually an art to writting these characters. We used a paint brush and practices for at least an hour. The angle you hold the brush, the pressure applied, the speed of your stroke, all these things impact how the line turns out. Mine is actually really horrid. It is supposed to look more like this See how my lines are more uniform in width and they are really supposed to taper, plus my horizonal lines were not equal distance appart or parallel. We got to take home our brushes and ink, so I can practice. It was so much fun. At lunch we got the chance to visit. Everyone at my table besides Mandy and I spoke Japanese. I really should learn the language. Still it was fun. The Japanese ladies were very warm and lighthearted. Just like women everywhere.