The Calligrapher — Mò Shìlóng 莫是龙

Ming literati calligrapher of vigorous running script.

Ming calligrapher (), master of running script — known for 《画说》. Ming dynasty

Cultural Story

发 sent out and it grew. The archer Yang Youji, in the Zhan Guo Ce, could "loose a hundred shots and hit a hundred" -- 百发百中. 头发 was the hair on the head, kept long and bound. A general 发 a signal; a seed 发 in the ground. The word held the arrow's leave and the sprout's first push together.

Common words & phrases

• 发展 develop · development · grow
• 发现 discover · find · detect
• 发生 happen · occur · take place
• 头发 hair · head hair
• 发明 invent · invention
• 出发 set out · depart · start

Read the story behind the character

A teenager with 头发 dyed blue waits for the bus; a team 发现 a bug at midnight. The economy 发展 quarter by quarter; a traveler 出发 from the airport before dawn. Someone 发明 a small tool and files for the patent. The word spans the body and the project -- the hair, the finding, the growth, the leaving -- and meets the day in the mirror and at the gate.

Why this character belongs on skin

There is a moment before sound, before light, when something inside you simply decides to leave. That is fā. It is the arrow leaving the bow, the seed cracking the dark, the first word of a sentence you didn't know you were speaking. In its oldest bones the character means to send forth — to issue, to grow, to let what was coiled inside become motion in the world. To be alive is to emit. We mark ourselves to remember we are not static things, not finished statues. To carry fā on your skin is to keep a small promise to begin: again, and again, once more. Not the loud launch but the quiet one, the breath before the dive. A life is mostly the courage to let what is inside become outside. Let this mark be the place where you chose to let it out.