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

Rain on plantain leaves became the sound of insomnia in Tang and Song poetry, each drop tolling on the broad leaves outside a scholar's window while he counted sorrows. Li Qingzhao planted a banana tree by her study and answered critics who complained it spoiled the view with a string of moods it was blamed for.

Common words & phrases

• 芭蕉 banana plant · plantain
• 芭蕾 ballet

Read the story behind the character

A landscape designer tucks plantain leaves into a courtyard corner precisely for the rainy-day soundtrack, a ballet studio in Chengdu runs its Saturday class behind fogged glass, and a lo-fi playlist is titled Rain on Banana Leaves. A luthier jokes that plantain fiber bindings would work better than her current strings.

Why this character belongs on skin

The bā is the broad leaf that catches the rain and lets it run off in long silver lines — the plantain, the banana of the old courtyards, enormous and green and a little absurd. In a classical garden it is planted where a sleepless man can lie and listen to the drops strike its surface, each one a small percussion of the night. There is something tender about a thing so large and so useless for anything but shade and sound. To carry bā is to honor the useless beautiful — the leaf that does nothing but exist and drip and rustle. Not every part of a life must be productive. Some of it should just be wide and green and raining. The tattoo becomes that leaf: a patch of skin given over to the pleasure of being, and to the music of whatever falls.