January 20, 2025
His hand-painted messages usher goodness and harmony into your home
By Joy Rojas
Each Lunar New Year, it is customary for Chinese families to decorate the front of their homes with red scrolls bearing auspicious messages hand-painted with Chinese characters. The scrolls, which are hung vertically side by side or horizontally above the main entrance, are believed to ward off evil spirits while welcoming good fortune, peace, and prosperity into the home.
Chinese calligraphers were part of Tzu Chi Philippines’ Year End Blessing Ceremony held last January 12 at the Jing Si Auditorium. As the program proceeded with videos, reports, and sharing of 2024’s highlights, Chua Hu Hua (蔡富華)sat at the back of the auditorium with other calligraphers, hand-painting long red paper with graceful brushstrokes.
Nearly 80, Chua began Chinese calligraphy in elementary school by simply picking up a book in Chinese and copying the characters as he saw them. “Little by little, I learned,” he says.
Eventually, the self-taught calligrapher got so good at it, he received numerous invitations to hand-paint scrolls, beginning with Chinese temples in 1967. To this day, the invitations both here and abroad just keep coming: from Chinese New Year events held in large local malls to exhibitions in China, Malaysia, and South Korea.
A regular of Tzu Chi events for the past nine years, he hand-painted Dharma Master Cheng Yen’s message for 2025 in two scrolls that hung from a screen next to the large door of the auditorium. Chua carefully considers his words before translating their meaning in English. “You have to practice more. Then you may learn more.” he says, reading the scroll on the right. “As long as you learn it, you have to practice it. You have to use it.”
“It’s deep,” he agrees when someone comments on the cryptic message.
Despite the influence of the West, traditional Chinese hand-painted scrolls remain very much in demand, says the calligrapher. Filipinos want to know how their names are written in Chinese, and the older generation of Chinese appreciate the messages inscribed in them.
For anyone interested, he is happy to oblige. The aches and pains that come with age may have slowed him down, but he has no intention of stopping, as the practice benefits him as much as it does the recipient.
“Peace of mind,” he says when asked what he gets out of hand-painting messages of goodness, harmony, and joy. “When I was young, my writing wasn’t that good. Now it’s more mature.”
And that, for this calligrapher, is a blessing.
Nearly 80, Chua Hu Hua began painting Chinese characters in elementary by copying what he saw in books. Since 1967, the self-taught calligrapher has been a regular of Chinese New Year events in local temples and malls, as well as international exhibitions.
“When I was young, my writing wasn’t that good. Now it’s more mature,” says Chua Hu Hua of his Chinese calligraphy.
A volunteer hangs the red scrolls with Chinese characters created by Chua Hu Hua and other calligraphers during Tzu Chi’s Year End Blessing Ceremony. Typically found at the main entrance of Chinese homes during the Lunar New Year, the scrolls carry messages of goodness, peace, and joy.
Chinese scrolls come either vertically or horizontally.
Chua Hu Hua translates into English the 2025 message of Dharma Master Cheng Yen. “You have to practice more. Then you may learn more,” he says.