The Calligrapher — Yán Zhēnqīng 颜真卿

Tang master of robust regular script; co-creator of the enduring 'Yan style'.

Tang calligrapher (709–784), master of regular script/running script — the Tang moral paragon whose upright, muscular regular script became the model of Chinese integrity in writing. Tang dynasty

Cultural Story

The "Liezi" tells of Yan Shi, who presented King Mu of Zhou with a 傀儡 — a lifelike figure of wood and leather that sang, moved, and winked at the court ladies. When the king, alarmed, ordered it cut open, it proved mere mechanism. The word 傀 named the articulated puppet long before it named a ruler pulled by hidden strings.

Common words & phrases

• 傀儡 puppet
• 傀儡戏 puppet show

Read the story behind the character

A 傀儡 on the variety stage kicks its legs to laughter; a 傀儡戏 troupe tours the market square. The word also tags a figurehead mayor, a 傀儡 with no real hand on the lever. It still means a body moved by another — a carved dancer, a staged leader — the performance where the will belongs to someone offstage.

Why this character belongs on skin

傀儡 — the puppet, jerked by strings it cannot see, dancing with terrible skill to a script it never read. Zhuangzi loved the image and pressed it gently against every chest: are we not all marionettes of habit, appetite, ambition, other people's opinions of us? The puppeteer's hands never appear on stage; that is precisely what makes the performance convincing, and the audience applauds the dancer. But the character holds a second, older meaning — towering, grand, colossal — as if the puppet, standing life-size in the dark theater, might suddenly wake mid-dance and look up at the strings glinting above it. Awareness, the Buddhists say, is the first snip; you cannot cut what you have not seen. Watch yourself for one honest day: who is moving your arms, whose voice chooses your words? Then decide whose hands, if any, you will finally permit.