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

莉 rides almost always in 茉莉, jasmine — a flower that reached China from the western seaborne trade and conquered it completely. Song poets planted it in courtyards; tea merchants layered blossoms over dried leaves until the tea drank like perfume. Its white, unshowy flowers blooming into the humid night made it the scent of summer evenings, and the folk song 'Mo Li Hua' carried that fragrance around the world.

Common words & phrases

• 茉莉 jasmine
• 莉花 jasmine flower

Read the story behind the character

The bubble tea shop's jasmine green tea base perfumes the whole counter, 茉莉 blossoms scenting the ice. A potted 莉花 on the balcony opens at dusk, the grandmother next door pinching blooms for her evening tea. A choir rehearses '茉莉花', the folk melody drifting from a school window, and a homesick engineer in Shenzhen orders jasmine tea online, taste-memory arriving before the courier.

Why this character belongs on skin

She is named for the night-blooming flower whose scent does the speaking. Lì lives only inside茉莉, the jasmine — a character borrowed for its sound, carrying no weight of its own but the perfume of the vine it serves. Yet the jasmine is the humble queen of Chinese nights, small white stars that perfume a whole courtyard while the peony sleeps. To wear lì is to honor the quiet flower, the scent that arrives unannounced and lingers on the sleeve. The Daoist loves what gives fragrance without showing pride; the lover remembers a single blossom on a pillow. Ink it near the wrist or the throat, where scent would rise. Let it say you have been marked by something delicate and persistent, a sweetness that asked nothing and stayed, the small white flower you could not quite wash off.