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

株 is the stump left when a tree falls — and the 韓非子 fable of the man who 守株待兔, watched one stump after a hare dashed itself on it, certain luck would repeat. 株连 is the brutal law that punished a whole family for one man's crime. The character is the stub and the snare set by hope.

Common words & phrases

• 植株 plant · vegetation · grown plant
• 株连 implicate · involve innocents · entangle
• 株距 plant spacing · spacing
• 一株 a plant · a tree · a stalk
• 守株待兔 wait by a stump for a hare · trust to luck

Read the story behind the character

株 is the counter of plants: 一株 a single tree in a pot, 植株 the specimen in a farm report, 株距 the spacing a planter sets. 株连 is historical, the terror of collective punishment you read about in a Ming memoir. The character is the living stem and the dead stump, and the foolish watcher between them.

Why this character belongs on skin

After the hare ran itself into the tree and died, the farmer kept his watch by the stump, certain fortune would repeat itself. 株 is that stump — the root, the single plant, the place where one thing ended and a man's foolish hope began. But there is another reading: a 株 is also what stands, what has roots, what endures after the leaves are gone. To wear this character is to honor both — the folly of waiting and the dignity of staying put. The Dao laughs at the farmer and loves the rooted tree. Ink it where you have weathered something, a mark of the spot you refused to leave. It says: I was a stump, and the world ran itself against me, and I am still here, ringed by every year I survived.