The Calligrapher — Liǔ Gōngquán 柳公权

Tang regular-script master famed for 'bones' of strength; rival to Yan Zhenqing.

Tang calligrapher (778–865), master of regular script — Tang master of bone-strength regular script, paired forever with Yan Zhenqing as 'Yan sinew, Liu bone'. Tang dynasty

Cultural Story

The "Liezi" tells of Yan Shi, who presented King Mu of Zhou with a 傀儡 — a lifelike figure of wood and leather that sang, moved, and winked at the court ladies. When the king, alarmed, ordered it cut open, it proved mere mechanism. The word 傀 named the articulated puppet long before it named a ruler pulled by hidden strings.

Common words & phrases

• 傀儡 puppet
• 傀儡戏 puppet show

Read the story behind the character

A 傀儡 on the variety stage kicks its legs to laughter; a 傀儡戏 troupe tours the market square. The word also tags a figurehead mayor, a 傀儡 with no real hand on the lever. It still means a body moved by another — a carved dancer, a staged leader — the performance where the will belongs to someone offstage.

Why this character belongs on skin

傀儡 — the puppet, jerked by strings it cannot see, dancing with terrible skill to a script it never read. Zhuangzi loved the image and pressed it gently against every chest: are we not all marionettes of habit, appetite, ambition, other people's opinions of us? The puppeteer's hands never appear on stage; that is precisely what makes the performance convincing, and the audience applauds the dancer. But the character holds a second, older meaning — towering, grand, colossal — as if the puppet, standing life-size in the dark theater, might suddenly wake mid-dance and look up at the strings glinting above it. Awareness, the Buddhists say, is the first snip; you cannot cut what you have not seen. Watch yourself for one honest day: who is moving your arms, whose voice chooses your words? Then decide whose hands, if any, you will finally permit.