02/02/18 Spice

The Chinese Calligraphy Club held a workshop about Spice on Friday, Feb 3rd. In this workshop, mentor Yu Dekun gave a presentation on the long and fascinating history of spice in China. Although we typically tend to assume that spice is primarily meant to be used as food, in actuality, these valuable substances had a wide variety of uses from vital medicines to aromatic incense. Yu Dekun mentioned the value of fragrant trees such as sandalwood (檀木) and agarwood (沉香). Additionally, Yu showed examples of incense burners including a famous magnificent artifact from the Han dynasty. After the presentation concluded, Yu demonstrated the calligraphic technique for writing two characters. Yān (烟/煙) which means smoke and Lú (炉/鑪) which can mean stove or incense burner (香炉). After Yu Dekun finished her demonstration, workshop attendees had fun practicing and improving their own calligraphy with the help of our mentors and enjoyed delicious Chinese cuisine from the Bloomington restaurant Gourmet Garden (美食林).