Writing in Chinese

[renderer]

I have started studying Chinese and I've read quite a lot of information regarding penmanship and fountain pens. I'm still phased by the myriad of choices, but it seems Japanese and Chinese pens have something that other pens do not/might not have:

 

-Round pointed nibs. For a consistent stroke no matter what direction you are stroking in.

-Fine nibs. Or very very very fine nibs to write hundreds of legible strokes in a small area.

 

My question is, what are my best choices or where should I start looking for a suitable pen? It's easier for me to look and buy online since there is more availability and diversity.

 

Performance is more important than price, and practicality is preferred over luxury. I'm striving for beautiful oriental calligraphy, not pretty pens.

 

 

http://www.stutler.cc/pens/murex/images/clock_murex1.JPG

Edited March 24, 2008 by renderer

[daveg]

I use Pelikan M600s with either factory Fs or XFs and finer from Richard Binder. They work great for writing Chinese and to my eye look more "classically Chinese" than most modern Chinese pens.

 

After taking the college courses, I've moved to classes that happen in homes with barely adequate lighting. As a result, I find that if I write small Chinese with anything smaller than an XXF, it becomes hard to read it back in class.

 

I don't consider anything that I do to be "beautiful oriental calligraphy". It takes a brush to do what I consider to be real calligraphy. I just try for reasonably passable everyday Chinese writing with my fountain pens. (I once had to fill out a form in a Chinese police station and was surprised that the cup of pens was full of fountain pens.)

 

Some of the Chinese fonts used in textbooks are best emulated with an italic nib. If that's the look you're going for - but I wouldn't call that the "classic" look. You could also look at a "zoom nib" which can do some brush like things but isn't easy to learn. There are also brush pens - essentially a small brush with a built-in ink supply - like a super soft fiber marker.

 

Some Chinese teachers recommend a firm hooded nib (Parker 51 style) and then writing on a very thick stack of soft paper and pushing down hard to get stroke variation - basically you wrap the paper around the nib for much more ink contact when you do this. I suppose that works, but I much prefer the gliding FP feeling.

 

[renderer]

On the topic of beautiful calligraphy, some calligraphers consider fountain pens the "proper" tool for modern writing because of the way the strokes come out similar to a "brush" feel like you pointed out, with a stack of soft paper. I just want my hooks and details to have the right boldness/thinness when writing, something I can't do with a 0.5 korean ballpoint pen or a gel pen.

 

And I've seen the brush pens, and they are too big for writing everyday notes. Brush calligraphy is an art that I probably will never learn.

[asamsky]

Just FYI, almost all modern fountain pens have round nibs - only italic, flexible or stub nibs produce line variation. You might be interested in all three of these kinds of nibs if you get very good at writing in Chinese - vintage flex nibs especially might be able to give you a brush-like line variation.

 

If you want an inexpensive pen designed for a Chinese market, you can't go wrong with the Hero brand (well, you can go wrong, but you won't be out very much money). hisnibs.com stocks some excellent, inexpensive Hero pens that write a very fine line, and he'll stand behind his product if you have any issues. The 327-1 accountant pen is less than $10 I think, and mine writes surprisingly smoothly even though it's somewhere in the XXF area.

[Skygreen]

I know it is heresy on a fountain pen site, but you might give fiber point pens a try. Get a couple of Paper Mate Flairs with fine points and spend a good 5 minutes bending and flexing their points until they get nice and soft and are more like a wet noodle than a hard tip. Then, when you write, put your paper on a stack of a dozen or so other sheets of paper so that the surface of the paper on which you are writing has a little give to it. You can get these kinds of pens to write like tiny brushes with line variations and thick starting areas going to thin points where you gradually lift the point up off the paper. It takes a little experimenting and you do not want to totally crush the point - you just want to make it ultra flexible while retaining its pointy shape - but you can get really nice effects.

Edited March 24, 2008 by Skygreen

[JetPens]

Along the lines of non fountain pens, have you tried pocket brush pens? These tend to capture the authentic brush lines of Chinese characters very well. Plus they are portable and come in varying line widths. Here are some samples we wrote with:

 

 

http://www.jetpens.com/images/ohto_f-200.jpg

http://www.jetpens.com/images/platinum_cftr-250c-1.jpg

 

Best of all, they cost around $3.

Edited March 24, 2008 by JetPens

[JetPens]

Oh, our second suggestion would be a Pilot Cavalier. It has a very nice fine nib:

 

http://www.jetpens.com/images/PenPedia/pilot-cavalier-writing.jpg

[PaulGeo]

Those portable brush pens are a great option... I practice with it as often as I can (which is not very often ).

 

Jetpens, your writing is beautiful

[renderer]

Thank you all for your great input! I shall eventually try all the options y'all gave me. I want to see what this whole pen thing is about.

[tulipa]

As a Chinese myself who started to write Chinese since I learned how to hold a pen, I would say that any pen or pencil can do the job. If you would like to get the variable thickness in Chinese characters as those printed in books, you will have to use brushes. Traditional brushes are made with real animal hair with different level of softness. The brushes come in different sizes tailored for different sizes of characters. Some of them are small enough that they can be used daily for journal writing. But of course you will have to get ink and ink dish in addition to the brushes. If there is China Town in your area, you can probably find them in a stationary store. Japanese brush pens can be a convenient alternative. Yet, I don't have any experience on them. When I was a kid, the school I went to did not allow us to use the Japanese brush pens since we would not be able to learn the real Chinese culture that way.

[His Nibs]

Hi Renderer,

 

If you are interested in practicing the writing of characters, then I'd suggest the pen with which literally millions of Chinese have learned to do so throughout their schooling (including my wife), which is the Hero 329.

 

http://www.hisnibs.com/Hero329Black2_small2.jpg

 

If, in addition, you're venturing into Chinese calligraphy, then the Multifunction pen I carry is the best of both worlds...a rollerball with liquid ink, and a faux brush fed from the same ink supply.

 

http://www.hisnibs.com/Uranus2018BothHN_small.jpg

 

Unfortunately, the Hero Accountant pens that Asamsky was kind enough to mention are no longer available. I have buyers in China continuing to search for them, but as its a discontinued model, it appears that I purchased the last 1000 or so of them, and they're now gone.

 

http://www.hisnibs.com/Hero237-1AcctGroupLine_small.jpg

 

 

[asamsky]

Unfortunately, the Hero Accountant pens that Asamsky was kind enough to mention are no longer available. I have buyers in China continuing to search for them, but as its a discontinued model, it appears that I purchased the last 1000 or so of them, and they're now gone.

 

http://www.hisnibs.com/Hero237-1AcctGroupLine_small.jpg

 

It's no problem. Now that they're impossible to find I'd be willing to let mine go for a few thousand dollars - LET THE BIDDING BEGIN!

[Sailor Kenshin]

Those portable brush pens are a great option... I practice with it as often as I can (which is not very often ).

 

Jetpens, your writing is beautiful

 

 

HONTOU!!!!

[Neill78]

If you are looking for a "brush look" but don't want to learn real calligraphy (which would be required for a brush pen), you might want to consider an italic nib. I am using a 1.1mm italic nib (from a Lamy Joy) on my Lamy Safari for writing Japanese and it's very nice: smooth with a lot of line variation between vertical and horizontal strokes. It is a bit broad so I wouldn't want to use it for filling in forms, but on traditional grid paper or for everyday writing, it's really great.

 

The Lamy Joy looks like a nice pen, but the shape and length would make it difficult to fit into a pocket, so I just bought the nib, which is interchangeable with many Lamy pens.

 

I could provide a writing sample in a day or two, if you'd like to see.

 

Neill

[Sailor Kenshin]

Oh, our second suggestion would be a Pilot Cavalier. It has a very nice fine nib:

 

http://www.jetpens.com/images/PenPedia/pilot-cavalier-writing.jpg

 

KYAAAAAA!!!!

 

You had to post that link, didn't you?

 

Now I'm several dollars poorer and my pens are on their way. :ltcapd:

 

[JetPens]

Those portable brush pens are a great option... I practice with it as often as I can (which is not very often ).

 

Jetpens, your writing is beautiful

 

Aww, thanks! Shu not only has beautiful handwriting, but she's also an artist and can draw some fantastic oil paintings.

 

Oh, our second suggestion would be a Pilot Cavalier. It has a very nice fine nib:

 

http://www.jetpens.com/images/PenPedia/pilot-cavalier-writing.jpg

 

KYAAAAAA!!!!

 

You had to post that link, didn't you?

 

Now I'm several dollars poorer and my pens are on their way. :ltcapd:

 

Lol, we hope you like them! The fine tip on the Cavalier is really impressive, let us know what you think!

 

Edited April 1, 2008 by JetPens

[Sailor Kenshin]

I got them this week---posted pics in another thread.

 

*mostly the Preppy and Petit pens---I like cute*

 

Now I'm practicing kana using a Sai watercolor brush. I love those things! I should post a pic, shouldn't I?

[Renzhe]

As tulipa said, for general purposes any round-tipped writing instrument, including a ballpoint, will do. In my opinion, it isn't worth it to try making Chinese look like brush-written characters with anything but a brush. It takes less effort and time with a brush, so if you're into making your characters look really good, you'd best go the whole mile with a brush.

[Taki]

As tulipa said, for general purposes any round-tipped writing instrument, including a ballpoint, will do. In my opinion, it isn't worth it to try making Chinese look like brush-written characters with anything but a brush. It takes less effort and time with a brush, so if you're into making your characters look really good, you'd best go the whole mile with a brush.

I agree with tulipa and Renzhe

 

Also I would not recommend using Italic nibs for learning Chinese characters. Line width changes in Chinese characters are produced by how much pressure one puts on the brush within a stroke. The width variation created by directional change with Italic nibs are not really suitable for Chinese characters. I know some people (including myself) use Italic nib when writing in Japanese for fun, but it could make learning difficult for beginners. I noticed some Japanese people use BB or larger nibs to get an effect sort of like Italic nib writing in Japanese for that reason(so that they don't get as much difference between vertical and horizontal strokes).

Edited April 2, 2008 by Taki

[Dr.Grace]

I just bought one of Richard Binder's Condor nibs, which are patterned after the Sailor Nagahara Concord nib. I'm finding it a lot of fun to play with. You can actually make strokes that resemble those made with brushes, but it does take some practice and experimentation with wrist action and changing the angles of the pen. For me, it's a fun thing to use while practicing Chinese characters. I agree that a brush is easier to use, especially if you've spent time learning brush strokes, but the Condor nib is portable and works with Pelikan pen bodies.

 

Link for Condor nib.

 

Don

 

edit: the link doesn't seem to work. You'll need to go the the specialty nibs page, scroll down and click on the Condor reference info link.

Edited April 2, 2008 by Dr.Grace