Sino—Japanese Calligraphy Exhibition Held in Kanazawa， Japan

The Heavenly Stems and the Earthly Branches， used to indicate the sequence of years in the traditional Chinese calendar， have a long history and farreaching influence. They are the crystallization of the wisdom of the ancient people of China. An oracle bone unearthed at the ruins of Yin （capital of the Shang Dynasty， 16th to 11th century BCE） had a complete sixty-year cycle known as one Jia-Zi —traditional Chinese chronology —inscribed on it. This confirmed that the Stem-Branch cycle had been used almost four millennia ago.

The cycle consists of two parts. The Heavenly Stems can be compared to the trunk of a tree， with the Branches as the offshoots again just like a tree. The characters， namely jia， yi， bing， ding， wu， ji， geng， xin， ren， gui， indicate the 10 stems in order， while the twelve characters of zi， chou， yin， mao， chen， si， wu， wei， shen， you， xu and hai represent the 12 Earthly Branches. Thus， the first in order of Stem-Branch is jia-zi， followed by yi-chou； the cycle then advances in order each year creating 60 permutations.

The Chinese have been using the Stem-Branch cycle to record years， months and time of the day since ancient times. Later many cultural connotations have been attached to it.

To the Chinese people， the Stems and Branches are， just like Arabic numerals， still used in daily life. When studying Chinese ancient books， the Stems and Branches will help one easily calculate the specific years and time mentioned. And the 12 symbolic animals （Chinese zodiac） in Chinese culture are their concrete manifestation. In a word， the Stems and Branches bear a lot of traditional Chinese culture and serve as an important material for studying the way of thinking and the way life of ancient Chinese.

The Stem-Branch system is no only extensively used in China， but in the Sui and Tang Dynasties， i spread to neighboring country Japan In Nara， Japan， there are cultural relics reflecting this. Like China， Japan also keeps the zodiac culture today. People exchange greeting cards with zodiac animal designs or characters at the New Year. It may be said that the Stem-Branch culture is also a concrete example of the long-standing cultural exchange between China and Japan.

On March 8， a Sino-Japanese calligraphy exhibition on StemBranch culture， jointly sponsored by the CPAFFC， the Ishikawa Prefecture Japan-China Friendship Association， the Hokkoku Shimbun and the Hokushi Seal Cutting Society， was held in the Ishikawa Prefectural Museum of Art in the beautiful an- cient cultural city of Kanazawa. On display were calligraphic and sealcutting works by artists and amateurs from both China and Japan， who， by way of calligraphy and seal cutting， offered their interpretation of the Stem-Branch culture. The exhibition showed that Chinese and Japanese cultures are closely linked.

The 40 Chinese exhibits had been collected by the Jiangxi Provincial People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries and the Jiangxi Provincial Federation of Liter- ary and Art Circles and the Japanese ones were mainly works by members of the Hokushi Seal Cutting Society， a private group engaged in the study of calligraphy and seal cutting in Japan’s Hokuriku area.

Present at the opening ceremony were representatives of the CPAFFC， Katsumi Koga， President of the Ishikawa Prefecture JCFA， Nanen Kitamuro， President of the Hokushi Seal Cutting Society and several members of the Ishikawa Prefectural Assembly.