The government has also promoted calligraphy as a "people's art," an art at which peasants and workers could excel.  One model peasant-calligrapher was Wu Yukun, shown below farming. 

Described as too poor to have time for calligraphy before the founding of the PRC, as his life improved afterwards, Wu took up the brush. He would use a board as his paper, wiping it clean after each use.  When out in the fields, he would write in the ground with his fingers.  Besides copying traditional masters like Wang Xizhi and Yan Zhenqing, he spent a lot of time copying Mao Zedong's calligraphy.  

Most amateur calligraphers, of course, are not peasants, but relatively well-educated individuals who find calligraphy an enjoyable pastime.  Many join calligraphy clubs which give them opportunities to get advice and display their work.  Many cities offer after-work calligraphy classes, often run by the local Workers' Cultural Palace.  Amateurs also enter their calligraphy in competitions-- some competitions have attracted entrants by the tens or hundreds of thousands, only a fraction of whom pass the first hurdle and get their work exhibited.  Many newspapers, including the China Daily and China Youth Daily, publish columns on calligraphy. 

The members of this calligraphy club appear mostly of retirement age, but many young people also pursue calligraphy as a hobby. For copying practice, book stores carry hundreds of booklets reproducing the works of well-known calligraphers. 

In 2001 a young man practiced calligraphy using only water at the highly public space of Tiananmen Square in Beijing.

The calligrapher above may not be a simple amateur, but an aspiring young artist drawing from calligraphic traditions to challenge traditional understandings of form and meaning.