Well, I always thought that part of the Companion's duties was influenced by the examples of the Hetaira of Greece and the Geisha of Japan. The job a Companion is not simply sex, it is, well *companionship* with his or her clients (who are usually very rich). We see this in "Shindig," where Inara accompanies Atherton to the ball. Rich people with advanced education and no need to work tend to become interested in philosophy and the arts and thus would want to share or discuss them. Thus, a Companion is able to be a true *companion* and engage in such high-minded discussion--or perhaps accompany his/her client musically. Or they could write elegant love poetry in Chinese. The Companions deal almost exclusively with high society (from what we've) seen and they need to fit in to properly engage their clients. That's one of the things separating them from everyday prostitutes, and is probably one of the reasons they have such high standing.

150 years ago a university education was not to prepare one for a career (because a gentleman inherited or married his money, he didn't work for it), it was to create the ideal, well rounded gentleman, much like the world tour he was expected to take.

Enara must be prepared to fascinate a wide range of well educated, upper level clients. To do so, she must be able to converse intelligently on nearly any topic, as well as practice the arts that can fascinate a client. Thus, music to entertain him, calligraphy to send him appropriate notes, dance to appear in public with him, flawless table manners ditto, etc.

Geisha training is similar, music, dance, conversational skills, etc.

No no ... I understand the reasons they have for doing the art, I just don't understand what their arts have to do with being a companion.

Yeah calligraphy is a high class thing, but the dulcimer, and her little incident, is what drove her out of the House. I'm just wondering what the correlation is between their very passionate art and companionship.

rawr. A male companion. Now, that's someone I could do business with ;-)

Okay, but more seriously. Inara is from Sihnon, which is the more Chinese of the main core planets, so Chinese culture would probably have a tremendous influence on the customs of the planet, and therefore the companions on it. Calligraphy is a Chinese practice that has "high class" implications because it was originally practiced by scribes in courts, the learned folk, ets. Since Companions are very much part of high society, this explains why Inara does calligraphy. Also, Companions are highly trained and in ther version of Serenity Pilot found here (http://twiztv.com/scripts/firefly/) when Book comes to give Inara supper, he makes a comment about how he would like to talk with her about things because, he, "always heard that by law, Companions are educated in the literary arts, philosophy and whatnot." If the two dominating powers in the universe are American culture and Chinese culture, it makes sense that Inara's training would incorporate literature, philosephy, etc of both cultures.

As for practicing -- that's just part of how its done. I don't know much about calligraphy. I took a class on Japanese art two semesters ago and we covered it for a week, but it was a survey course, so we didn't go broadly into anything. I remember the video we saw talking a lot about how the artist making the symbols draws them over and over and over again for hours, trying to make the form of the letters become the perfect representation of the word or phrase, almost so that you can see the letters and understand what they means before you read them. I think your theory that Inara could use calligraphy to express her emotions has merit, if for no other reason than she's so repressed, but I'm not sure if the fact that she practices calligraphy for any other reason than, "she's high class so she should", though. I mean, that's what could end up happening, and inevitably does with any art -- the artist puting something of themselves in their work, but... yeah. I am rambling. Peace.