The Calligrapher — Zhāng Jízhī 张即之

Song master of vigorous regular and running script.

Song calligrapher (), master of regular script/running script — known for 《佛遗教经》. Song dynasty

Cultural Story

络 was the netting that binds and the channels that connect: physicians of the Huangdi Neijing mapped 经络, meridians, threading the body like an underground river system, while silk workers 络, wound, fresh thread onto spindles. From veins in a leaf to roads around a city, anything that linked a living whole could be called its 络.

Common words & phrases

• 联络 contact · liaise · connect · communicate
• 网络 network · web · internet · net
• 络绎 continuous · uninterrupted · incessant · streaming
• 经络 meridians · channels · veins · vessels
• 脉络 veins · context · thread · skeleton

Read the story behind the character

Luò holds the digital world together. A teen wails that the 网络, internet, dropped mid-game; colleagues 联络, contact, each other in a group chat instead of walking ten steps. Doctors take pulses along 经络, meridians; a lecturer's argument is praised for clear 脉络, threads of reasoning; and holiday crowds 络绎, stream unbroken, through the station gates.

Why this character belongs on skin

Follow the vine and you find the lattice; follow the blood and you find the vessel; follow the thought and you find the mind's slow web. Luò is the network, the connecting thread that turns isolated things into a living whole — the meridians the healers traced, the reticulum that holds a thing together without a single nail. To be luò is to be linked, never alone, each node meaningless without the others yet essential to all. The Daoist saw the whole world as one luò, sorrow and rain and distant kin all threaded. To wear this character is to honor your connections, the invisible lattice that bears you when the single strand would snap. Ink it where the body branches — the inner arm, the thigh — a map of the net you are part of, a quiet pride that you are a knot in something vast, and that nothing, not even you, stands truly apart.