The Calligrapher — Ōuyáng Xún 欧阳询

Tang regular-script master whose 'Ouyang style' is a basic learning model.

Tang calligrapher (557–641), master of regular script/running script — Tang codifier of regular script; crisp, architectural strokes you could measure with a ruler. Tang dynasty

Cultural Story

怕 is the fear that speaks — a word that came up in the Tang tongue, plain and domestic, never the bronze's awe. It names the small dread: the dark, the stranger, the thing under the bed. The character is the everyday fright, the one a child says aloud and a grown man pretends he does not.

Common words & phrases

• 害怕 afraid · fear
• 可怕 terrible · frightening
• 生怕 fear · be afraid of
• 不怕 not afraid
• 恐怕 I'm afraid · perhaps
• 怕生 shy · afraid of strangers

Read the story behind the character

害怕 is the truth a kid tells, 可怕 the clip you warn a friend off, 恐怕 the softener before bad news, 怕生 the shyness a visitor draws out. The dark is a screen now; the dread is real. We still name the small fear constantly, and call the grown version caution, which the child's word already covered.

Why this character belongs on skin

A child hides behind a leg; a general hesitates at the river; the lover checks the phone and feels the small cold stone. 怕 is fear in its common, human dress, not the grand terror but the everyday dread of loss. The word is plain and so is the feeling; we are ashamed of it and we should not be. To fear is to have something to lose, and that is its own kind of wealth. To wear 怕 is to stop pretending at invincibility, to let the soft animal truth show. Put it where only a lover would find it. You are afraid. You are still here. The ink stays, gentle as the feeling that placed it. And every morning it asks the only question worth answering: what is left that is precious enough to terrify you?