Chinese calligraphy in touch-screen age

Wang Minghu completes a piece of writing in Shuyuanmen, Xi'an. Zou Hong / For China Daily

Zhou Qing holds a brush in one hand as she gestures with the other while talking to a potential customer at her shop in Shuyuanmen, where a network of streets behind a section of the Xi'an city wall, are lined with dozens of shops like hers that sell articles of Chinese calligraphy.

Xi'an, the capital of Northwest China's Shaanxi province, is one of the country's oldest cities. And Shuyuanmen, among the city's oldest areas, was likely a hub of cultural activities in imperial China－at least during the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties.

As touch-screen devices increasingly take over China and handwriting becomes sparse in high schools and colleges, the fallout on calligraphy－if any, can be assessed here. While a few sellers of calligraphy materials say business is falling, some customers and scholars contest the idea of a big threat from technology to this ancient writing tradition.

"The younger generation uses computers, and that will affect Chinese calligraphy," says Zhou, 26, standing beneath brushes that hang from the ceiling of her family-owned shop. A thick or thin ink-dipped brush is used to make strokes of Chinese characters on special paper or cloth.

"There are very few students that come to buy these days," she says of her shop that has seen better days.