Third Hoson Ando’s Poetry and Calligraphy Exhibition

In Jinan, the city of springs with willows turning green and fragrant peach flowers in blossom，everywhere was a spring scene. From March 25 to 28, 2006 the Third Hoson Ando’s poetry and calligraphy exhibition sponsored by the CPAFFC and the Japanese Ronkosha was held in the Shandong Provincial Museum.

Hoson Ando is a commentator of the All Japan Calligraphy Federation and representative of the Ronkosha. At the age of 18 he began to learn calligraphy from the famous Japanese calligrapher Kano Watanabe and later studied Chinese poems with Shifu Hatori. He is a poet, a calligrapher and a seal maker. In the past many years he traveled over the famous Chinese and Japanese mountains and great rivers and composed poems on what he had seen and felt and created calligraphic works to match the poems. His rich artistic forms of expression and attainments are greatly admired in the poetry and calligraphy circles. This time he selected 86 poems, calligraphic works and seals that he had created in recent years with the aim of strengthening exchanges with his Chinese counterparts and further enhancing mutual understanding between the Japanese and Chinese people.

At the opening ceremony on the morning of March 25, Cao Xuecheng, vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the Shandong Provincial People’s Congress, announced the opening of the exhibition and gave a speech. Li Liguo, deputy director general of the Department of Cultural Exchange of the CPAFFC, on behalf of CPAFFC President Chen Haosu, read out the message of congratulations. Hoson Ando made a warm speech.

After the opening ceremony, the Ronkosha represented by Hoson Ando and the Shandong Calligraphers’ Association represented by its president Zhang Yefa had exchanges on calligraphy. Both Chinese and Japanese calligraphers demonstrated their skills on the spot and made friends through calligraphy and exchanged poems. Their superb art won bursts of applause. Finally the two sides exchanged their works to commemorate this grand meeting.

After the exhibition, the 25-memebr Japanese delegation headed by Hoson Ando visited Jinan, Mount Tai and Qufu. Shandong Province boasts rich natural resources and many outstanding personalities. In history many painters, calligraphers and writers stayed in or visited Shandong, and made many places famous and left many much-told tales. As most of the members of the delegation were calligraphers, they spent most of the time on visiting ancient stone tablets scattering in the province such as the well-known tablet of Buddhist scriptureJingangjingin Jingshiyu，Li Si tablet in the Dai Temple and many classical stone inscriptions praised highly by the ancient and contemporary Chinese and foreign calligraphers. Standing before these stone tablets that had past through great changes of history, all the members were deeply touched by the long-standing Chinese civilization, and amazed at the superb art of Chinese writing. They carefully listened to the explanations, and at the same time took this rare chance to copy the models of calligraphy.

China and Japan have a history of friendly exchanges for over two thousand years. Chinese characters are used by the people of the two countries, and Chinese poetry and calligraphy are loved by the two peoples. The exhibition of Hoson Ando’s poems and calligraphic works helped shorten the distance between Chinese and Japanese calligraphers as well as calligraphy-lovers, giving the two sides a chance to have close contacts, to raise their artistic level and play a positive role in promoting cultural exchanges between localities of the two countries and enhancing mutual understanding and friendship between the two peoples.