The Calligrapher — Wáng Xīzhī 王羲之

The 'Sage of Calligraphy'; his running script has set the standard for 1,700 years.

Eastern Jin calligrapher (303–361), master of running script/cursive script/regular script — the Sage of Calligraphy; his Orchid Pavilion Preface is the most celebrated work in the tradition, and nearly every later master traces lineage to his hand. Eastern Jin dynasty

Cultural Story

間 sets the sun 日 between two doors 門, the slash of light in the gap, hence a space, an interval, or the room between. 《説文解字》 reads it as the空隙, the empty place. From a literal crack in a gate it widened to mean any betweenness, of time, place, or people, the pause that separates and connects things at once.

Common words & phrases

• 时间 time
• 空间 space
• 房间 room
• 中间 middle · between
• 人间 human world · the world
• 间隔 interval · spacing

Read the story behind the character

We mark 時間, time itself, as the space between moments, and 空間, the room we move through. A 房間 is the private room behind a door, 中間 the middle between two points, 人間 the human world we inhabit, and 間隔 the spacing of seats or events. 间 quietly structures modern life, the gaps and rooms that give shape to everything we measure and enter.