The Calligrapher — Sòng Lián 宋濂

Ming founding-era scholar of upright regular script.

Ming calligrapher (), master of regular script — known for 明初文臣. Ming dynasty

Cultural Story

馆 (guǎn) joins 食 with the phonetic 官. 《説文解字》 gives 客舍也, “a lodging house,” a place where travelers were fed and sheltered. From hostel it widened to any public hall or building.

Common words & phrases

• 宾馆 hotel · guesthouse
• 图书馆 library
• 博物馆 museum
• 餐馆 restaurant · eatery
• 茶馆 teahouse
• 体育馆 gymnasium · stadium

Read the story behind the character

馆 names public buildings. We sleep in a 宾馆 (hotel), read in a 图书馆 (library), wander a 博物馆 (museum), eat at a 餐馆 (restaurant), rest in a 茶馆 (teahouse), and exercise in a 体育馆 (gymnasium).

Why this character belongs on skin

Every city keeps one room that is not yours but welcomes you anyway. 馆 joins the food radical with the word for official, and once meant the lodge where a traveler ate and rested under the state's care—a kindness built into the architecture. Now it names the teahouse, the library, the museum where strangers share a roof with the dead and the brilliant. To tattoo 馆 is to claim yourself as a waystation: a person others replenish themselves at, a warm room in someone's hard year. The Buddhists built monasteries as 馆 for the weary soul. Let this character rest near your shoulder or your chest as a quiet vow of hospitality—that your skin, your time, your attention remain a door that opens. You are the inn. Whoever arrives, you feed.