The Calligrapher — Xī Yīn 郗愔

Jin official famed for his mastery of clerical-cursive script.

Jin calligrapher (), master of clerical cursive — known for 郗鉴之子. Jin dynasty

Cultural Story

桥 is the timber crossing — the 木 over the water — and the 詩經 already speaks of bridges of wood. The 二十四桥 of Yangzhou became a poem and a ruin; the 浮桥 is the pontoon an army throws across a river. The character is the span that joins what water parts, the plank laid down so the wet can be crossed.

Common words & phrases

• 桥梁 bridge
• 大桥 bridge · large bridge
• 天桥 overpass
• 桥洞 bridge arch
• 浮桥 floating bridge

Read the story behind the character

桥 is the crossing you use: 大桥 the cable-stayed span over a river, 天桥 the footbridge over a highway, 桥洞 the arch a busker sings under. 桥梁 is also the bridge person between two groups. The character is concrete and metaphor, the structure and the go-between who introduces the strangers to each other.

Why this character belongs on skin

A bridge is a promise built over water, saying you can cross though the current would take you. 桥 is timber laid between two shores, the oldest courtesy of the road — I built this so you would not drown. There is Buddhism in it, the middle way spanning the river of suffering; there is love in it, the span a father builds home at dusk. To tattoo 桥 is to admit you are the passage, not the destination — the one others walk over to reach somewhere warmer. It is humility with a railing. Let it run along your collarbone or your wrist, the arc that holds two sides apart and together. You are the crossing. Someone, somewhere, is still walking safely because of the wood you laid down, and never learned your name.