The Calligrapher — Yǔ Jiānwú 庾肩吾

Liang scholar-critic who authored Shupin, the first systematic graded ranking of calligraphers.

南朝梁 calligrapher (), master of regular script — known for 《书品》. Liang dynasty (Southern Dynasties)

Cultural Story

乖 is two north figures back to back, to depart, to go against, originally the opposite of harmony. The 說文 reads it as to leave, to oppose. Only later did it flip to mean a child who does not oppose you: obedient, docile. 乖张 kept the old sense, eccentric, contrary, the person who faces the wrong way. The character turned around, literally, over the centuries.

Common words & phrases

• 乖巧 clever and obedient
• 乖乖 obediently
• 乖张 eccentric · perverse

Read the story behind the character

乖巧 is the niece who says please; 乖乖 is what you call the dog and the toddler, 乖乖坐下. 乖张 is the colleague nobody can read. The character now mainly praises tractable children and pets, the obedient ones who do not face the wrong way. Its ancient meaning of to diverge survives only in 乖张, the eccentric who still, etymologically, turns his back on the crowd.

Why this character belongs on skin

There is a child who obeys without question, and there is the fracture that splits a thing from itself, and the same character holds both. 乖 is modern for the good, docile child, the one who listens; but in the old books it meant the opposite, 乖戾 the contrary spirit, 乖离 the separation of those who should be one. The character is a knot of obedience and rebellion, the well-behaved and the willful sharing one skin. To wear 乖 is to own that contradiction, the part of you that pleases and the part that refuses, the child and the stranger. It is honesty about the double heart. Let it mark you small and a little crooked, a character that says you were both the one who listened and the one who broke away, and that the breaking and the belonging were never really separate, only the same ink drawn once, then drawn again.