The Calligrapher — Shěn Càn 沈粲

Ming calligrapher of the Two Shen known for elegant, flowing cursive script.

Ming calligrapher (), master of cursive script — known for 沈度之弟. Ming dynasty

Cultural Story

徇 is to follow a pull past the rule — 徇私 the official who favors his kin, 徇情 the judge who listens to the heart instead of the statute. The character is loyalty bent the wrong way, the man who serves a person when he swore to serve the law.

Common words & phrases

• 徇私 practice favoritism
• 徇情 act from personal feelings
• 徇难 die for a cause

Read the story behind the character

徇私 is the charge a discipline committee files, 徇情 the favor a relative extracts, 徇难 the old phrase for dying at one's post. The pull is a cousin and a bribe now; the bending is the same. We still name the wrong following, mostly when someone else does it, rarely ourselves.

Why this character belongs on skin

The character draws a person leaning into a course, and history loaded it with its heaviest meaning: to follow a cause all the way—xun guo, to die for one's country or one's principles, to give the body to the road the mind already chose. It can mean to fall in battle, or to devote oneself so completely that the self becomes the cause's shadow. The warrior codes of every civilization kept this word in some form—the samurai's decision made in the morning, the Christian martyr's calm before the arena, the loyal minister of old China who remonstrated knowing he would not survive the remonstrance. There is darkness in it too; the ancients also used it for followers swept along by others' deaths. That double edge is its honesty. Inked on the skin, it is not a promise of martyrdom. It is a question worn as an emblem: what, exactly, are you willing to follow to the end? The person wearing it is answering daily, in small irreversible ways, with their whole leaning weight.