Li Shouhong, born in Beijing, Sichuan, had a strange feeling when he first picked up a brush and started copying in a Chinese character class at the age of five. His pen exudes a faint scent of ink, which makes him sit longer than other children. I put down my pen and looked at my work, and my heart seemed to bloom. At the age of eight, I began to copy the Preface to Lanting. "I seemed to have a natural love for writing big characters at that time, and I gradually became interested." More than 80 years later, when Li Shouhong told reporters about his childhood writing, he felt that this was the earliest proof of his attachment to calligraphy.
Every holiday, the teacher will let the students finish their homework in big characters. Li Shouhong's grades are always among the best, so his works are constantly posted in the classroom of the middle school attached to Beijing Normal University. Later, his words began to appear in newspapers, which increased his confidence in writing. He said that his love was influenced by his family to some extent. A piece of money, Wen Zi, was written by his uncle Gan, a calligrapher in the late Qing Dynasty. This laid a solid foundation for him to learn Wang Xizhi's writing in the future.
The love of calligraphy in childhood did not make Li Shouhong regard it as his main business. After graduating from high school, he entered the railway management major of Beijing Jiaotong University, and then took charge of financial management in the railway bureau. In 1950s, he returned to his alma mater and became a financial management teacher. During this period, Li Shouhong couldn't afford to pick up a brush every day because of his busy work, but as long as he had time, he would spread out the paper and grind ink, just like meeting an old friend, writing two strokes irregularly.
It was not until 1984 that Li Shouhong retired from his post as a teacher and finally settled down to hold a brush all day, and writing became the most important part of his later life.