Liu Zhili, a grassroots peasant woman in Jinghai County, Tianjin City, because she writes small regular script, closely following the "originator of regular script" Wang Xizhi, her works leaked out of the Internet, and were wildly praised by netizens. However, in the eyes of experts, she was criticized for not getting started and not understanding art, which aroused controversy among many netizens.



Without further ado, let’s start with the works.


Liu Zhili's calligraphy works


Liu Zhili is a rural tailor and her husband is a farmer
No one in the family is engaged in culture
No family background


In 1983, after graduating from high school, Liu Zhili failed to enter college.
At the age of 17, due to the pressure of life,
I had no choice but to enter a hometown-run garment factory.
Become a sewing worker

became a tailor



In the 1980s, for rural people

I don’t know how many times better it is to work in a factory than to farm at home.

No need to be exposed to the sun or rain, no need to watch the weather to eat


But Liu Zhili is less than 1.5 meters tall

Weak and sick since childhood

I have to work in the factory for more than ten hours every day


Liu Zhili calligraphy



At the end of the day, Liu Zhili suffered a lot. In addition, the factory work was single and boring. Therefore, Liu Zhili was not willing to deal with machinery like this all her life. She decided to find some fun and make her life more fulfilling.



a chance

Liu Zhili saw Wang Xizhi’s calligraphy fonts

Then I picked up a writing brush and started practicing calligraphy on old newspapers.

As a result, she found that her writing was not bad~

So, she got off work every day, no matter how tiring or hard the work was

I will practice calligraphy for an hour or two.


Liu Zhili calligraphy



Not only that, she also studied calligraphy and frugally spent part of her salary to attend a calligraphy training class. During her break, she rode a bicycle more than 10 kilometers back and forth to take classes at Nankai University. She studied calligraphy hard, went through hardships, and gained a lot. Many famous calligraphers such as Yu Fuqian and Ning Shulun even accepted her as their disciple.


Liu Zhili calligraphy


Liu Zhili's journey to school seemed ridiculous to those around her. How could a peasant woman learn calligraphy? Some people mocked her as having "a neurological problem" and some pointed at her nose and said, "A golden phoenix that cannot fly out of a chicken coop."



Others are talking more and more

The more Liu Zhili practices, the more fascinated she becomes.


The art of calligraphy taught to her by her teacher is, first of all, the way of being a human being: the most important thing for a person is what kind of self he lives and what kind of pursuit he pursues.


In this way, Liu Zhili spent several years practicing hard. She started from Ouyang Xun's "Jiucheng Palace Liquan Ming", then to "Huadu Temple" and "Huang Fujun Stele" to Wang Xizhi's small regular script "Luo Shen Fu" "Thirteen Lines" and calligraphy in small regular script by Zhao Mengfu, Zhong Shaojing and others.


Look at Liu Zhili's calligraphy, which is elegant and clear. It's no worse than what professionals write in one go.



Liu Zhili’s long scroll of more than 1,500 words in small regular script, "The Miaoying Sun Zhenren Lun of the Tang Dynasty," was given to the exhibition as an expert model.
See pictures and partial pictures below


Liu Zhili calligraphy


Liu Zhili has made great progress. She has participated in municipal calligraphy and painting competitions many times and won numerous awards.



2006: Liu Zhili was elected as an outstanding representative of the peasant community, a member of the Jinghai County CPPCC, and a model worker.

In 2008, Liu Zhili was elected as Tianjin Model Worker.

In 2012, she was elected as a member of the Tianjin Municipal People's Political Consultative Conference. Because of her calligraphy achievements, she became a member of the literary and artistic circles.


Because her family was poor, during the Chinese New Year, she went to the village to sell couplets, which attracted a lot of attention and applause. Soon, she received a lot of new media attention, including Tianjin TV, "Tianjin Daily", "Tonight News" and other special reports.



Her works of teaching children in rural areas for free have been collected by knowledgeable people in Singapore, the United States, Canada and other countries and have become famous. Liu Zhili still humbly studied this subject and persisted for 35 years.