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

涔 means raining steadily, then flooded and tearful by turn. The Chu ci laments a land 涔 and a heart 涔 with grief; 涔涔 describes both unending rain and unending tears. The word gathers water that will not stop, from the sky, from the fields, and from the weeping eyes.

Common words & phrases

• 涔涔 streaming · raining
• 涔汗 sweating

Read the story behind the character

In old texts 涔涔 (streaming, raining) paints endless rain or tears; we echo it when saying someone 涔汗 (sweating) through a feverish night. Though rare in speech, the word survives in writing about a flooded season or a sorrow that will not dry, water claiming the body from within.

Why this character belongs on skin

There is a word in the oldest poems for the way grief actually looks — not dignified, not restrained, but streaming: lei lu cin-cin, tears falling in continuous lines down the face. Cen is that pouring sorrow, and also rain heavy enough to fill the courtyards, water in the earnest mode. We have been taught to apologize for crying, to treat tears as a failure of composure. The classical Chinese poets would have found that absurd; they wept in print, magnificently, at partings and tombs and autumn rivers, and considered it evidence of a properly working heart. Even the body testifies: salt water is what we are, inside, and grief is simply the tide expressing itself. Buddhism does not forbid the tears — it only asks that you watch them fall, know them fully, and let them be impermanent like everything else. You have griefs still dammed up, and you know their weight. This character, inked where the water goes when you finally let it, says: I consent to the rain. Flood the courtyard. The poems were written by people who did.