About Me

My calligrapher’s name is Sou Syuu(湊萩.) I was born in Japan in 1967. I started calligraphy at the age of 10. When I was a University student, I was playing the drums in a rock band. After graduating from the University, I became a screenwriter for TV programs. I worked as a guest house landlady and artist manager after getting married. In parallel, I have been making calligraphy works all the time. I am a calligrapher who shows craftsmanship and pop expressions rather than an edgy one.

Sou Syuu
Sou Syuu
SouSyuu Calligraphy

Operation of this website

Gens Japan LLC. – ゲンズジャパン
Company that discovers, creates, and disseminates Japanese culture and entertainments.
Website

Yasuhiro Sasajima – 笹島康弘
Sou Syuu’s husband and representative of Gen’s Japan LLC.

Gens Japan LLC
Yasuhiro Sasajima

About Japanese Calligraphy – Shodo(書道)

Calligraphy is called Shodo in Japanese. Shodo is one of the oldest traditional forms of art in Japan and has existed since 5th century. Shodo is the way of writing characters with a brush in Japanese ink. Good Shodo work not only possesses beauty, but also expresses rhythm, calligraphers’ character and even their mind state.

About Japanese characters

There are three kinds of Japanese characters: “Kanji”, “Hiragana”, and “Katakana”. Kanji is characters introduced from China a long time ago and it evolved uniquely in Japan. There are several meanings and readings and they change when two or more characters are combined. Hiragana and katakana are pronunciation characters. Katakana is mainly used for loanwords. Japanese is expressed by combining these three types of the characters.

*Even though Kanji and Chinese characters are similar, they might be different in pronunciation and meanings in Japan and China. There are also Kanji characters devised by Japanese and imported back to China. Hiragana and katakana are not used in China.

漢字

Kanji

漢字
ひらがな

Hiragana

ひらがな
カタカナ

Katakana

カタカナ