I have been in to all of the little shops that sell curios in chinatowns from Brooklyn to Queens to Manhattan. To my surprise, I have been unable to find someone who engraves seals. Not even one that does it with a machine. Yes, I know you can order them online, but thats not as fun. I had my first seal stone made in Taipei by the guy near main station who sits on the corner with the machine. He did a good job, but yet, it was with a machine. Its not difficult to understand that when seals were made in ancient china, there was no machine to do this. The engraving of a seal was done by hand. As it was then, so can be done today. About 6 months ago when I was in Kinokuniya book store by Bryant Park, I was surprised to find a little kit for the engraving of seals in their stationary department. My first attempt back then was not so good, its difficult to write the desired characters backwards on the seal in order for it to be the right way when you use it. And even more difficult to engrave deep and detailed enough for it to work in the first place. I thought I would share this with my fellow learners for perhaps someone out there may be interested in doing the same thing. Yeah, its not the most practical thing to be doing at 4 am but it makes learning chinese more interesting. I’m just setting it up again now for my second attempt at making a seal, still haven’t decided what I will engrave on it, but I think I will use a cool cheng yu and do it in oracle bone script. I’ll post a update when its finished in a few days.
