The Calligrapher — Hándān Chún 邯郸淳

Cao Wei calligrapher; author of the Zhengshi Three-Script Stone Classics in seal and clerical script.

三国魏 calligrapher (), master of seal script/clerical script — known for 《魏受禅表》. Wei kingdom (Three Kingdoms)

Cultural Story

豬 was domesticated early in China; the 說文 calls it '豕而三毛丛居.' Pigs meant wealth, a 家 (home) is a roof over a 豕. 莊子 and folk tales use the pig for earthy humor, and the 豬八戒 of 西遊記 is the greedy, lovable everyman we laugh at and with.

Common words & phrases

• 猪肉 pork
• 猪圈 pigsty
• 野猪 wild boar
• 猪排 pork chop
• 母猪 sow
• 小猪 piglet

Read the story behind the character

Dinner might be 猪肉 (pork), the staple meat, or a 猪排 (pork chop) on the grill. A 母猪 (sow) feeds her 小猪 (piglet) on a farm, while a 野猪 (wild boar) raids mountain fields. The backyard 猪圈 (pigsty) smells, but the pig still feeds the family table.

Why this character belongs on skin

The pig gets a bad mythology and deserves none of it. 猪 is the domestic beast that turned rooting into survival and survival into feast; in the oldest villages its fat meant the difference between winter and the grave. The character pairs the beast radical with a word for the person who tends, as if to say: this is the animal we chose to live beside. Christians scrubbed it clean of honor; the Chinese kept it at the center of the table and the New Year. To tattoo 猪 is to claim the earthy, unashamed appetite for life—the willingness to be full, to be loud, to be content in the mud that poets call holy. There is a warrior's honesty in wanting. Let this character curl at your side as a blessing on your hungers, the ones you stopped apologizing for. Eat. Rest. Begin again, unrepentant.