The calligrapher's shop

Tonghai boasts more than one professional calligrapher in the old town, which is probably why so many houses have elegantly written banners round the door, rather than the more usual printed ones.

This chap works out of an open fronted shop, closed at night by a series of carved wooden panels. I suspect he makes much of his income from teaching shufa to children. At least this was the one occasion I saw him when he was not surrounded by small children laboriously copying characters.

We asked him to write us two lines of a favourite old Chinese poem - which he did most beautifully.