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

饭 (fàn) pairs 食 with the phonetic 反. 《説文解字》 says 食也, specifically cooked rice eaten as a meal. From the Han onward it named the staple grain that fills the bowl at every ordinary sitting.

Common words & phrases

• 吃饭 eat
• 米饭 cooked rice
• 饭店 hotel · restaurant
• 做饭 cook
• 午饭 lunch
• 早饭 breakfast

Read the story behind the character

饭 is daily life. We 吃饭 (eat), steam 米饭 (cooked rice), run a 饭店 (restaurant or hotel), 做饭 (cook), and eat 午饭 (lunch) or 早饭 (breakfast). For most people, 饭 simply means a meal at home.

Why this character belongs on skin

There is a hunger that is older than any appetite, and the small bowl set before you at the low table answers it. Fàn is not merely food; it is the daily covenant between the living and the day — the steam that rises, the chopsticks lifted in thanks, the rice that holds a family in one warm circle. Confucius said the rites begin at the table, and so they do: to share a meal is to acknowledge that we are creatures who must be fed, and who feed one another. In war and in exile the single bowl of fàn has been a home carried in the hand. To wear this character is to honor the ordinary sacrament of being nourished, to remember that survival is a kind of grace. Let it rest near your wrist, where you lift and where you give, a quiet mark that you were fed, and that you feed.