The Calligrapher — Yán Zhēnqīng 颜真卿

Tang master of robust regular script; co-creator of the enduring 'Yan style'.

Tang calligrapher (709–784), master of regular script/running script — the Tang moral paragon whose upright, muscular regular script became the model of Chinese integrity in writing. Tang dynasty

Cultural Story

Chen She, who would lead the first great uprising against Qin, began as a 佣耕 — a hired hand who farmed another's field for wages. The "Records of the Historian" opens his tale with that labor: a man paid by the day who, weary of the yoke, lifted it. The word 傭 was the wage of the landless.

Common words & phrases

• 雇佣 employ
• 傭工 hired laborer
• 傭金 commission

Read the story behind the character

A firm 雇佣 a hundred workers for the season; the 傭工 carries the bricks up the scaffold. The agent takes a 傭金 on the sale, and the app logs the 雇佣 contract in minutes. The word still means paid labor — a hire, a fee — the everyday exchange of work for wages that builds the city from the ground up.