The Calligrapher — Sū Língzhī 苏灵芝

Tang running-script master and prolific stele-writer, ranked with Li Yong and Yan Zhenqing.

Tang calligrapher (), master of running script — known for 《易州铁像颂》. Tang dynasty

Cultural Story

饱 (bǎo) pairs 食 with the phonetic 包. 《説文解字》 says 猒也, “to be sated,” a full belly after eating one’s fill. Its opposite, hunger, makes 饱 a baseline wish across Chinese literature and folk saying.

Common words & phrases

• 饱满 full · plump · rounded
• 饱和 saturation · saturated
• 温饱 food and clothing · subsistence
• 饱含 full of · brimming with
• 吃饱 eat one's fill · be full
• 饱受 suffer greatly · endure much

Read the story behind the character

饱 means full and plenty. Grain stands 饱满 (plump), a solution reaches 饱和 (saturation), and 温饱 (subsistence) is the first goal of livelihood. We say 饱含 (brimming with) feeling, 吃饱 (eat one’s fill), and 饱受 (endure much) hardship.

Why this character belongs on skin

The meal is finished and you lean back, hand on the worn table, eyes half-closed. 饱 is the full belly—eaten enough, satisfied, the rare hour when wanting stops. The character pairs food with a shield, as if satiety were its own protection against a hard world. The Daoists prized 饱 not as gluttony but as the natural pause, the moment the body says enough and the mind grows quiet. To wear 饱 is to honor the simple victory of having had enough—of love, of rest, of bread—and not needing more to prove anything. It is the cat in the sun, the child asleep mid-laugh, the traveler who found the inn before snow. Let it rest low on your body, near the place hunger lives and is answered. Some chase the empty promise of more; this mark is the seal of enough. Wear fullness and you carry the quiet pride of one whose cup was filled.