The Calligrapher — Wáng Xīzhī 王羲之

The 'Sage of Calligraphy'; his running script has set the standard for 1,700 years.

Eastern Jin calligrapher (303–361), master of running script/cursive script/regular script — the Sage of Calligraphy; his Orchid Pavilion Preface is the most celebrated work in the tradition, and nearly every later master traces lineage to his hand. Eastern Jin dynasty

Cultural Story

東 pictures a sun wedged in a wooden bag, the sun rising, bundled at the horizon, the east. 東風, the spring wind from the east, opened the willows in a thousand Tang poems. 红樓夢's 贾宝玉 is told 东风不与周郎便, fortune's wind. The host at a feast sat facing 东, which is why 房东 and 股东 still carry master of the house.

Common words & phrases

• 东西 thing · stuff · goods · east-west
• 东方 east · the East · orient
• 房东 landlord · house owner · lessor
• 山东 Shandong · Shantung · Shandong province
• 东风 east wind · spring wind · east breeze
• 东边 eastern side · the east · eastern part

Read the story behind the character

东西 means a thing, 什么东西, what is this thing, and also stuff you carry home. 房东 is the person who raises the rent; 山东 the province of Confucius and beer. 东风 is the car brand and the wind that brings rain. 东边 is the side of the building with morning light. The sun-in-a-bag has become a direction, a landlord, and the most ordinary word for an object.

Why this character belongs on skin

The east is where the light begins. 东 is the character the ancients drew as the sun tangled in the branches of a tree, the first gold caught in wood before the day announced itself. To face east is to be a person of mornings, of second chances, of the belief that darkness is only ever temporary. Pilgrims in every faith turn toward it; the Christian church lifts its altar to it; the Taoist seeks the dawn breath. To wear 东 is to tattoo hope onto your body in its oldest form—a small sun behind a tree, always about to rise. It is for the ones who have been flattened and still got up facing the light. Carry it where the sun will first find your skin, and let it be the promise you made to yourself in the worst night: this is not the end. The east is coming.