龍的孵化器

David Chan believes that China has to gain the world's trust, respect and even admiration in order to truly become a strong nation. To materialize this goal, we, as Chinese, must export our culture and values to the world. For more than a century, we have learnt from our Western counterparts through various means and have laid aside our own culture. China has somehow been assimilated by the West. We must go through our own Renaissance, discover our wisdom from the classic Chinese literature, and integrate it with the modern civilization. We can then provide a new set of values to the world and a new direction to humankind. By doing so, we can gain people's respect and even admiration.

In order to study the Chinese culture, one should first study the Chinese characters. David Chan discovers that the Chinese character is the core of the Chinese culture. Unlike phonic alphabets, the Chinese characters are pictographs. They are words and pictures at the same time! Thus, the Chinese need to use both the left brain and right brain when they think. That is why some people think that the Chinese are more intelligent. There is of course another important reason behind the Chinese's wisdom: The ancient people, after ages of observation, found that the nature and the universe, as well as the changes and patterns of the living things, are either illustrated by physical phenomena or images. The ancient Chinese people used "alphabets" to narrate the "pictures", and that is why the Chinese characters are called pictographs – every character carries the ancient people's views on life, on nature and on the universe. Luckily, there has been no discontinuation in the use of our Chinese characters since the ancient times.

That is why calligraphy is the core of the Chinese arts, and the art that every Chinese learnt in ancient times. They wrote and drew simultaneously. It became a special art form which was non-existent in other races, particularly after the brush was invented. Calligraphy is a meaningful symbol as well as an abstract painting. It is a form of art composed of dance on the paper and music without sound. Not only does it influence the development of civilization of China, it also has a great impact on Western art (abstract expressionism in the early 20th century). In order to bring about the Chinese Renaissance, David Chan believes we should rediscover calligraphy (rediscovering calligraphy means rediscovering self confidence) and redefine it. In other words, we should modernize calligraphy.

David Chan believes, to rediscover calligraphy means to integrate it with other modern art forms, mainly modern painting and graphic design. The outcome is amazing. He cautiously hammers out the design, making countless amendments, and executes after thorough tempering and condensation of mind. But when he creates his calligraphy, he is in a very natural and carefree condition.

Chan has said, "We are not happy because we have asked so much, but there is actually no answer in this world. The poet Su Shi had defined happiness as 'a sweet-tone qin, a jug of wine, a valley of clouds'. I cannot see the moon from my window, and I cannot drink nor play qin. But if I am given a piece of paper, a brush and some ink, I can draw a line. This line links my heart to all things in the world. I am the world, and the world is me. In such a moment, do I still need to ask any questions?"