Be Brothers, Be Sons

Ernest was initiated to the Chinese calligraphy long time ago. Even though his knowledge of the spoken Mandarin was limited to "nihao" and "xiexie", he could write quite a number of Chinese characters. After I had come back to Malaysia, I even received his writing of "Happy New Year" at one of the year end. Bravo for a Westerner who was over sixty!

Through Chen Ke, Ernest knew other Chinese who were studying in or passing by Besançon. I was not surprised when I saw his four treasures of the study upstairs: the paper called xuanzi, black ink, from small to giant size of brushes, and inkstone.

His way of holding the brush was more correct than many Chinese, including me.

He had bought several wooden frames to put his writings in, which he offered to friends whenever there was an occasion. When I was there three weeks, I could not demonstrate to him any good skill of the calligraphy since I had only practised it during school lessons more than ten years ago. Yet, he confided me to be the calligrapher two times, the first time when we were invited to the neighbours' house, and the second time to Merley's.

I was assigned to write the same Chinese characters "Be brothers, be sons" for both frames. Then I typed and printed out the French translation, together with a question "Can we be brothers without being sons?" with the computer, and pasted the two sentences at the bottom of the frame. Ernest's inspiration was from a Sunday morning sermon on television.

How much do these words mean to you? You are welcome to God's family to be His children and have loving brothers and sisters through our Lord Jesus Christ.