The Calligrapher — Sū Shì 苏轼

Song literatus whose spontaneous running script shaped the literati ideal.

Song calligrapher (1037–1101), master of running script/regular script — Song poet-statesman and polymath whose expressive running script made personality, not rules, the point. Song dynasty

Cultural Story

A crab banquet in chapter thirty-eight of Dream of the Red Chamber is the great set piece for the crab claw. Around the Pavilion of Sweet Osmanthus the Jia women steam baskets of crabs, and the first prize is always the ao, the pincer, cracked and picked while the girls compose their teasing poems. The ao carries the sweetest meat, and the scene turns a humble crustacean into high literary play.

Common words & phrases

• 蟹螯 crab claw
• 螯足 chela · pincers
• 钳螯 pincers · claws

Read the story behind the character

At a riverside restaurant a diner cracks the crab's ao with a small hammer, scooping the chela meat onto a spoon. A child watches fascinated as the pincer opens and closes. In the fish market the seller points out the plump qiaoao of a hairy crab, and a cook trims the claws before steaming. The word names the very tool the animal eats and defends with.