Beauty World Calligraphy Class: Running Script on Fridays

Chong Zheng Academy teaches Chinese calligraphy in the Robin Room on level 4 of Bukit Timah Shopping Centre, 170 Upper Bukit Timah Road, Singapore 588179, a few minutes from Beauty World MRT. Unlike most Singapore classes, which stay with upright regular script, this one specialises in semi-cursive xingshu, the flowing running hand. Its four-session beginner course, Ink Origins, costs S$160, and the weekly practice class, Path of the Brush, is S$240 a month.

The academy's homepage gives its founding as 1912 and explains the name: Chong Zheng Academy was started by Wan Chung's great-grandfather in the late Qing and early Republican era as a shuyuan, a place where literature and art meet. The present academy revives that name for a modern studio, and the classes are taught by the great-grandson, Lai Wan Chung.

His background is unusual for a calligraphy teacher. The site describes him as an organisational psychologist by profession, a co-founder of a work technology start-up and a former learning and development director at a global FTSE 100 company, with more than 20 years of calligraphy behind him. He coaches in English and Mandarin and was trained to write with both his right and left hand, a detail worth asking him to demonstrate.

Xingshu sits between the careful kaishu taught in school and the wild grass script. Strokes join, pressure rises and falls in one movement, and a character can be written faster without losing legibility. The academy says it picked this style because it is versatile, and it pairs the script with poems from the Tang and Song dynasties, often chosen to celebrate the season.

The approach is unusual too: rather than drilling single strokes for weeks, students begin writing complete poems and phrases, building stroke control and spacing the way a musician learns by playing whole pieces. If you have tried a regular-script class elsewhere and found it slow, this is the practical alternative in the west of the island.

The beginner course is four sessions of two hours each, and the shop price is S$160. Every session opens with a short lecture and a live demonstration before guided practice. You start with the eight basic strokes of the character yong, then move to single-character blessings, 福 for good fortune, 寿 for longevity, 喜 for happiness and 恩 for gratitude, before combining them into short phrases.

By the last session you finish a piece on premium rice paper and write your own name in Chinese. No knowledge of Chinese is needed: classes are bilingual in English and Mandarin, with support in Cantonese and Hokkien if needed. The course runs about once a quarter, and the 2026 intakes listed so far started on Friday 9 January and Friday 6 March.

For people who want to keep going, the regular practice class meets weekly for two hours on Fridays, except public holidays, with flexible monthly enrolment. One month costs S$240, a three-month bundle S$680 and a five-month bundle S$1,080, which brings the monthly rate down to S$216 if you commit for longer.

The class mixes ages, from young students to seniors, and moves from blessings such as 吉祥 and 平安 to four-character idioms and classical poems. Later months cover layout, mounting and finishing a work with traditional red seals. If you miss a Friday, a make-up slot runs before the regular class, and if you need three weeks or more away you can pause and rejoin the following month.

Materials are bought separately rather than bundled into the fee. The academy's accessories kit is sold from S$5 per item and includes a long-tip goat-hair brush, Red Star ink, xuan paper cut to 34 by 69 centimetres, a table mat, a bamboo brush holder, a tutorial booklet and a tote bag. Beginners can buy only what they lack.

A long-tip goat-hair brush holds plenty of ink and responds to small changes of pressure, which suits the swelling and thinning lines of semi-cursive writing. Expect the first sessions to feel loose; learning to control that soft tip is much of what the Friday coaching is about.

The academy does not publish a phone number. Enquiries go through the contact form on chongzhengcalligraphy.sg, and enrolment and payment for both the beginner course and the practice class happen through the site's shop. Pick a start date when you buy the beginner course, since the class is built around a fixed cohort of four Fridays.

There are also one-off Ink and Essence workshops for events, from Chinese New Year blessings to birthday, wedding and company celebrations, booked by enquiry. Groups planning one should write in with a date, headcount and the occasion, since the phrases and poems are chosen to suit the event.

Bukit Timah Shopping Centre stands on Upper Bukit Timah Road in the Beauty World area. The class is not in a shop unit: the academy gives its location simply as the Robin Room on level 4, so head up to that floor rather than looking for a storefront. Beauty World station on the Downtown Line is the nearest MRT, roughly a couple of hundred metres away.

Bring a cardboard tube or a flat folder on the last day of the beginner course. Rice paper creases easily, and the finished poem or blessing you take home is meant to be displayed or given as a gift.

Beauty World Centre, at 144 Upper Bukit Timah Road, is the neighbouring building and an easy place to eat before a Friday class. A slightly longer walk brings you to Bukit Timah Plaza at 1 Jalan Anak Bukit, so the two malls bracket the academy on either side.

For something quieter after class, the edge of Bukit Timah Nature Reserve is a short bus ride north along the same road, and an evening walk there is a calm way to end an afternoon of brushwork.

Address: Chong Zheng Academy, Robin Room (Level 4), Bukit Timah Shopping Centre, 170 Upper Bukit Timah Road, Singapore 588179. Nearest MRT: Beauty World (Downtown Line). Beginner course Ink Origins: S$160 for four two-hour sessions, about once a quarter. Practice class Path of the Brush: weekly two-hour Friday sessions; S$240 for one month, S$680 for three, S$1,080 for five. Accessories from S$5 per item. Languages: English and Mandarin, with Cantonese and Hokkien support. Contact by web form; no phone is published.