Parents see value in calligraphy

Children learn calligraphy at a training course held by Han Calligraphy Education this summer in Beijing. More and more children take the training during their summer vacation.[Photo by ZOU HONG/CHINA DAILY]

Traditional writing styles are thought to foster children's patience, self-discipline, restraint.

After donning an apron and folding a piece of paper both horizontally and vertically, 10-year-old Jia Jia stood in front of his desk, dipped a writing brush in ink and began to form the Chinese characters for zheng zhi－integrity.

This is the second time the fourth-grade pupil has taken a calligraphy class and he is currently learning seal script, an ancient style of writing Chinese characters that arose during the Qin Dynasty (221-206 BC). In the eyes of Jia Jia's teacher, he is progressing quickly.

In recent years, an increasing number of students like Jia Jia have been flocking to calligraphy institutes, as traditional Chinese writing styles garner more attention both at home and abroad.

Li Xiaoya, founder and president of Han Calligraphy Education, a leading teaching institute in Beijing, said that when she started the business seven years ago, it mainly focused on teaching adults. Soon they started to add courses for children, however, after they noticed a gap in the market.

"A series of preferential policies carried out in recent years have also helped calligraphy attract attention and interest from more children and their parents," Li said, citing as an example an Education Ministry directive, first issued in 2013, that urges China's primary and middle schools to make calligraphy part of their curriculum.

To date, the institute has registered upward of 10,000 learners and more than half are children. The summer vacation brought even more young learners, Li said.