Honing handwriting in the digital age

Some do it for better grades, others for self-confidence; some to preserve tradition, others to teach their children. Whatever the reason, Hanoians are hung up on handwriting.

Despite the rain and the cold last Sunday morning, Duong Phuong Thao took her 6-year-old son to a handwriting class seven kilometers from home.

“Handwriting expresses personality and cultural beauty. I want my son to have good handwriting as he enters first grade,” the 29-year-old English interpreter said.

“His handwriting looks much better after three months of classes. I used to help him practice at home, but it didn’t help much because I don’t know the rules.”

Nguyen Phuong Anh, a first-grade student from Quang Trung Primary School in Hanoi, practices her handwriting. Hanoians, for different reasons and at different ages, are working to improve their handwriting at citywide penmanship centers.

Thao is just one of thousands of parents around the capital now sending their children to handwriting classes outside of school.

Though most students learn to write on computer and prefer writing emails and blogs to anything with pen and paper, parents say they want older cultural values to be respected.

“Every child in my son’s class is taking handwriting classes. I don’t want my child to fall behind his classmates,” Thao said. She said she plans to take a course herself so she can help him at home.

Knowing the skill might not even be necessary in the business world anymore, parents say it can help their children in other ways.

Nguyen Lam Thanh, a 35-year-old gold merchant in Hanoi with a fourth-grade daughter, said, “Good handwriting has helped my child in several school subjects. If she has bad handwriting, it would be hard to get good marks in literature.”

In Vietnamese literature classes, teachers often give students bonus points for good handwriting.

Not only school children, but also adolescents, teenagers, college students and young professionals are enrolling in handwriting courses.

“Many of our learners are students, engineers and accountants. Some of them want to have better handwriting to write job applications or even love letters,” said teacher Trinh Thanh Mai from the Nice Handwriting Center in Hanoi.

“Some of our other students consider practicing handwriting a hobby,” she said.

Even the elderly are interested in improving their penmanship.

“Our eldest learner is 60 years old. She’s learning so that she can teach her grand children properly,” said Mai.

Mai, who learned to teach handwriting in a course she took as a second-year university student, opened the center with her husband in 2005.

The goal was to lure school children, but their classes span all age groups.

“More and more young people, not just children, are attending our class,” said Mai.

“It’s an interesting phenomenon in the age of information technology when everything can be done on computers.”

Accountant Le Thu Trang, 23, said she was taking the course because her handwriting was ugly and her bosses couldn’t read documents from her desk.

“After a week in the class, I already see my handwriting improving. I used to be so self-conscious and insecure about my writing,” Trang said.

Centers like Mai’s have cropped up all over the capital city recently with dozens of courses opened at local cultural houses as well.

To meet increasing demand, Mai’s center has opened additional evening and weekend classes.

Reported by Bao Anh