The Calligrapher — Ōuyáng Tōng 欧阳通

Tang regular-script master known for powerful, square strokes.

Tang calligrapher (?–691), master of regular script — known for 《道因法师碑》. Tang dynasty

Cultural Story

In southwestern Sichuan the 邛崃 mountains separate the Chengdu plain from the Tibetan edge, and 邛都 was an ancient district of the same region, home to the Qiong peoples recorded in the Han histories. The Records of the Grand Historian notes the 邛 among the southwestern tribes the court sought to reach. The character 邛 thus maps a real, far corner of the early Chinese world.

Common words & phrases

• 邛崃 Qionglai · mountain in Sichuan
• 邛都 Qiongdu · ancient place

Read the story behind the character

A hiker books a guesthouse in 邛崃 to walk the terraced tea slopes below the snow line, and a guidebook chapter on 邛都 explains the old kingdom that once ruled these valleys. At the mountain inn the menu lists 邛崃 wine made from local grapes. The character appears on trail signs and bus tickets, pinning visitors to one particular green corner of Sichuan.

Why this character belongs on skin

Far west of the Chengdu plain, the 邛崃 mountains stand in ranks—the snow range behind the mist, where the old trade trails turned upward toward Tibet and the tea went out on men's backs. 邛 was the name of an ancient kingdom in those foothills, a people the Han empire folded into its maps, remembered now mostly in place-names and in a single famous garden scene: the poet Sima Xiangru wooing the widowed Zhuo Wenjun by the light of the Qiongcheng wine market, eloping with her in the night, and later returning so famous that her merchant father, who had disowned them, bought them a house in shame and joy. Mountains, wine, defiance, reconciliation—邛 carries all of it in one syllable. It suits the person drawn to high cold country and to love stories that start as scandal. Ink it at the ankle, the traveler's joint, and let it point west.