Chinese characters are used in several countries in the East Asian region. Calligraphy with Chinese characters is a beautiful and ancient art form which varies from place to place. In Japan, particular styles of creating this beautiful art have evolved, which include not only Chinese characters (called kanji – 漢字 in Japanese), but the local Japanese scripts, hiragana and katakana. In Japan this is known as shodo – 書道.

In these videos, students from Nara University of Education demonstrate how to write or draw different characters. We hope you enjoy their work.