The pillow book I mention here is not the book written by Sei Shonagon, but the movie starred by Vivian Wu. It was about a girl who was passionate for poetry and calligraphy.

Nagiko’s father wrote characters of good fortune on her face on every of her birthdays until she got married. This ritual rooted deeply in her heart as a blessing and intrigued her love for writing diaries and calligraphy. Later on, she creatively transformed the writing to an art. She first took her own skin as paper to illustrate the magnificence of calligraphy, and then she calligraphed on men’s bodies. Every calligraphed body was an art composition. After her lover’s death due to misunderstanding between them, she revenged the evil book publisher, who dishonored her father and who skinned her lover and made his flesh a book, by writing her pillow book on men’s bodies, which were sent to the greedy publisher as messengers to convey her hate and vegence. At the end, one of the “flesh-books” killed the publisher.

This movie was sensual, sexy and romantic. Above all, it was artistic. The settings composed of Chinese and Japanese calligraphy under soft yellowish light were awesome and impressive. I was so proud of Chinese traditional culture. Those calligraphed characters were like elegant girls dancing in the charming moonlight. Every word was a picture and telling a story, happy or sad. No wonder Chinese characters were called pictogram. It reminded me of my love for calligraphy as a high school student. I went nowhere in summer vacations but practised the brush writing about the poems in the Dream of the Red Chamber everyday. Unfortunately, my love for it yielded the way to prepare the entrance examination for college. It turns out I am a Jack of many trades but master of none. Shame!