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

盅 is a small handleless cup, heir to the bronze goblets of antiquity. Hosts poured wine into 酒盅 for toasts, teahouses served 茶盅 of steeped leaves, and storytellers describe generals downing a 盅 before battle — the word carries the warmth of shared drinking at close quarters.

Common words & phrases

• 酒盅 wine cup · small cup
• 茶盅 teacup
• 盅子 small cup

Read the story behind the character

A modern table still reaches for it: relatives clink tiny 酒盅 of baijiu at banquets, Cantonese kitchens steam soup in covered 炖盅, and grandpa refills his 茶盅 all afternoon. Order a 盅 of soup at a diner and it arrives as your own little lidded pot.

Why this character belongs on skin

Small enough to hold in two fingers, 盅 is the humble handleless cup — the wine盅 of northern tables, the tea cup that travels from hand to hand at a low table while the night gets long. Daoists adore vessels like this. The usefulness of a cup is its emptiness; Laozi said it plainly — clay forms the pot, but the hollow inside is what you use. 盅 is that philosophy made holdable: a little carved space whose entire purpose is receiving, warming your palms, passing to the next person. Watch how friendship actually happens — not in declarations but in refills, in the ritual of again? one more? here. Confucius would approve of the etiquette; the Zen monk would lift the cup and call it the whole moon. To tattoo 盅 is to choose smallness on purpose. A life with room in it. A hand that pours as well as takes. Raise the word like a toast to everything you have been given — and drink slowly.