The Calligrapher — Lù Jiǎnzhī 陆柬之

Tang calligrapher and nephew of Yu Shinan; his running-script 'Essay on Literature' survives

Tang calligrapher (), master of running script — known for 《文赋》. Tang dynasty

Cultural Story

鲚 pairs 鱼 with a phonetic of 齊 and is a slender, silvery fish—the anchovy—long eaten along China's rivers and coasts. Its name rides on the same root as fine, jagged things.

Common words & phrases

• 鲚鱼 anchovy · a fish
• 凤鲚 fringed anchovy

Read the story behind the character

鲚 is the anchovy: 鲚鱼 the fish, and 凤鲚 the fringed anchovy caught in shoals. Dried and salted, it flavors soups and porridge from the Yangtze to the sea. The character names a small fish that feeds many tables at little cost.

Why this character belongs on skin

Small, silver, and_swarming—the 鲚 is the anchovy of Chinese rivers, the knife-shaped fish that arrives each spring in such silver clouds the Yangtze seems to flash. It is the humblest character on this skin, and that is its glory. The ancients ate it fried whole, salted it for the lean months, named a sword after its shape. Not every mark on the body needs to be a tiger or a dragon. Some should be the anchovy: proof that you understand abundance lives in smallness, that a million modest lives outweigh one conspicuous one. Daoism is fond of water precisely because it takes the lowest place; the 鲚 lives even lower, in the shimmer, in the multitude. There is tenderness here too—these fish swim in schools so tight they seem one being, loneliness made impossible. The ink is fine-lined, almost a whisper along the ankle or wrist. It says: I am one of many, and that is not a diminishment. It is an army.