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

撵 is a late, colloquial verb little loved by the classics, built from 辶 'to go' and a phonetic. It names the act of shooing — a servant 撵 from the hall, a dog from the kitchen. It carries no grand allusion, only the household gesture. Where older texts wanted 'expel' they reached for 逐 or 驱; 撵 is the word of the courtyard and the doorway.

Common words & phrases

• 撵走 drive away
• 撵出 oust

Read the story behind the character

In a Beijing hutong a grandmother 撵 her grandson out to play; a shopkeeper 撵 a loiterer from the doorway. 撵走 is what the street sweeper does to the parked bike, 撵出 what the landlord does at month's end. It is the small, daily power of the broom and the pointed finger, never the decree.

Why this character belongs on skin

Every house learns this verb eventually. 撵 is to chase out, to drive away—the landlord's word, the exorcist's word, the word of the farmer shooing the fox from the henhouse at midnight with a lantern and no patience left. And yet notice how much love the gesture can carry. Mothers 撵 children out to play, out to live, out from under the wing. Every exorcism is really a boundary drawn in defense of something warm inside the walls. What needs driving from you? The shame that moved in rent-free years ago. The voice that narrates your failures at 3 a.m. Take the broom, take the lantern. Some nights you are the house. Some nights you are the one holding the door, saying: out. Now.