The Calligrapher — Mǐ Fú 米芾

Song eccentric genius of dynamic, 'flying' running script.

Song calligrapher (1051–1107), master of running script — Song eccentric genius ('crazy Zhang, idiot Mi') whose running script alternates discipline with glee. Song dynasty

Cultural Story

Bian Zhuangzi, a warrior of Lu, waited for two tigers to tire each other and then killed both — the 卞 that history remembers for a fierce, hasty courage. The same surname marks Bian He, who lost his feet for a rough stone that proved jade. 卞急 is the temper that burns before it thinks.

Common words & phrases

• 卞急 hasty · irritable
• 卞庄子 Bian Zhuangzi · a warrior

Read the story behind the character

The name 卞 turns up on a few ID cards and in the history clip about the tiger-killer; 卞急 is a word almost no one says aloud, surviving in a dictionary note. The character meets most readers only as a surname or a classical allusion, a spark of old anger with no place in the daily text.

Why this character belongs on skin

Some names burn. 卞 began as a place and a lineage, but it caught fire through one man: Bian He, who found an uncut jade at the foot of Mount Chu and offered it to two successive kings. Both called the treasure a stone and had his feet cut off for the insult. He wept blood at the mountain, and when the third king asked why, he answered: I weep not for my feet but for a jewel called false. The third king cut open the stone, and the He clan's jade became the most sacred object in the land. The character also means quick-tempered, abrupt—卞急, the man who cannot wait. Both stories are the same story: passion that pays for the truth it sees. If your heat has cost you and you would pay again, this is your character. Ink it near the pulse. The jade was real. The fire was always the proof.