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

To 撞 is to meet by force, the bell 撞ed at the monastery hour, the traveler who 撞s the closed gate in the dark. The character is the collision that is also a chance, the body arriving where it was not meant to, and the bell that struck the hour was really only the gate, hit from the other side by a monk who valued punctuality over the traveller's nose.

Common words & phrases

• 撞击 collide · strike
• 撞见 meet by chance · catch unawares
• 撞车 collision · clash
• 撞钟 strike a bell

Read the story behind the character

Two cars 撞擊; a man 撞見s his wife's lover; a 撞車 jams the junction; a monk 撞鐘. The gate is a lover now. The forced meeting is the same, whether it rings the hour, blocks the road, or merely delivers the unwelcome sight a person would have paid to avoid, and the lover is only the gate, opened at the worst possible moment.

Why this character belongs on skin

The hand radical and the sound of impact: this character is the moment two masses disagree. To collide — a shoulder in a doorway, a ship against the pier, the bell struck so the whole valley hears. Chinese temple bells are hit dead center, once, and the sound rolls out honest. There's a saying about bumping into fortune, and its dark twin about walking into disaster; the character is loyal to both. Life is largely collision anyway — we meet each other by striking, love begins as a small crash of worlds, fate announces itself with a jolt you'll later call luck. What matters is what rings afterward. Ink it over the sternum, where the body takes its hits. Let it say the thing bruised people learn to say proudly: struck, yes — and still sounding.