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

The oldest sense is petal: Peach Blossom Spring begins with falling petals in bewitching confusion on the stream that leads the fisherman in. From blossom the word branched into brilliance in people, so a hero is a flower of the age, and a handsome youth or a valiant soldier is praised in exactly the same breath.

Common words & phrases

• 英雄 hero
• 英语 English · English language
• 英才 talent · gifted person
• 英俊 handsome · smart
• 英勇 brave · heroic
• 英国 England · Britain

Read the story behind the character

A blockbuster credits its heroic firefighter leads, a seventh-grader memorizes English vocabulary for Friday's quiz, a talent program scouts outstanding young chess players, a dating profile lists handsome and tall among the requirements, and a tour group flies to the United Kingdom. An obituary calls the engineer a flower of her generation.

Why this character belongs on skin

The fallen petals on the path after rain—yīng is the blossom, and also the hero, because the ancients saw the flower's brief courage as the soul of greatness. To be yīng is to bloom and to be brave, often at the cost of lasting. The character is grass and a central brilliance, the elite among ten thousand. We want the hero without the falling; yīng teaches they are one motion. The petal and the warrior both give their best and are spent. Ink it where you have been brave—the sternum, the shoulder—a mark that your blossoming was real even if it ended, that heroism is not survival but the full opening. You flowered. The ground is richer for it. Wear the petal like armor.