The Calligrapher — Wáng Xīzhī 王羲之

The 'Sage of Calligraphy'; his running script has set the standard for 1,700 years.

Eastern Jin calligrapher (303–361), master of running script/cursive script/regular script — the Sage of Calligraphy; his Orchid Pavilion Preface is the most celebrated work in the tradition, and nearly every later master traces lineage to his hand. Eastern Jin dynasty

Cultural Story

Zhuge Liang's Chu Shi Biao, the Memorial on Dispatching the Army, is the model of the loyal minister's address to his prince, written before the northern campaign he would not survive. The biao was the formal memorial laid before the throne, a document of surface and appeal at once. The name outlived the office.

Common words & phrases

• 表示 express · show · indicate
• 表现 show · display · performance
• 表格 form · table · sheet
• 手表 watch · wristwatch
• 表情 expression · facial expression
• 表哥 older male cousin

Read the story behind the character

On his wrist the commuter glances at the biao to catch a train, then types a biaoge for expenses on his laptop. He biaoshi thanks to a colleague, watches a child's biaoqing crumple, and greets an older male cousin, his biaoge, at dinner. The character spans the watch, the form, and the face we show.

Why this character belongs on skin

What shows is not always what is — and yet the surface is the only face the world is given. The word means the outer garment, the expressed, the outward form that stands for the inward thing. To 表 is to make visible, to let the inside take a shape others can meet. The Confucian prized the cultivated exterior as the honest mirror of the self; hypocrisy is when the two split. To wear it is to accept that you are read at your edges, that your bearing is a kind of truth whether you intend it or not. It is a mark for the one who would rather show than hide, who trusts the manifest over the concealed. Let it lie on your skin as a declaration: this is what you see, and it is not false. The depth, if there is any, will have to prove itself through the surface. Begin there. Be the form that means.