Diplomats experience Korean calligraphy

Popular Hangeul calligrapher Kang Byung-in demonstrates various calligraphy styles for the Korean character “Kkot,” or flower in English. In the back row from left are Austrian Ambassador to Korea Elisabeth Bertagnoli, Singaporean Ambassador Wei Kiat Yip, Malaysian Ambassador Rohana Ramli and Alexandra Prasetio, the spouse of the Indonesian ambassador. / Korea Times photo by Kim Jae-heun

By Kim Jae-heun

Renowned Korean calligrapher Kang Byung-in gave a speech and lesson on Korean calligraphy to foreign diplomats at the invitation of the Corea Image Communication Institute (CICI), led by President Choi Jung-hwa, at the residence of Malaysian Ambassador Dato Rohana Ramli, Tuesday.

“I am honored to introduce Korean calligraphy to foreign ambassadors tonight,” said Kang. “We tend to limit Korean letters as phonograms, but Hangeul can also express the meaning of the letters through calligraphy. I wanted to show the value of Korean letters, especially to foreigners who may only know Hangeul as a means to deliver information.”

After an hour-long speech, Kang wrote diverse styles of the word “kkot” (flower) in Korean calligraphy _ some of which looked like actual flowers. Malaysian Ambassador Ramli and Singaporean Ambassador Yip Wei Kiat volunteered to try their hands at the calligraphy first.

“This is my first time trying Korean calligraphy but I knew calligraphy from before because we also have calligraphy for Arabic letters in Malaysia,” said the Malaysian envoy. “But I am afraid that in my national language, we don’t have the stroke. We use the Roman alphabet. Stroke is important (for Korean calligraphy) when you write from top to bottom and from left to right.”

The Singaporean Ambassador agreed that experiencing Korean calligraphy was completely new although he has studied the Korean language before and did Chinese calligraphy at school when he was young.

“I had fun,” said the Singaporean envoy. “I was impressed by the way Kang wrote flower in a more artistic form, which evolved into a picture from what could be just a normal Korean character. It was interesting.”

The event was held as a part of CICI’s Korea Culture Quotient (CQ) program, which brings together more than 60 foreign diplomats posted in Korea.