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 Book of Rites notes in the eighth moon the chai sacrifices its prey, chai nai ji shou, the jackal laying the catch before the cold as a sign of the season's turn. The character chai is that lean wild dog, the beast whose offering marked autumn in the old calendar. From the ritual page it passed into chai lang, the jackals and wolves that stand for cruel men who hunt the weak together.

Common words & phrases

• 豺狼 jackals and wolves · cruel people
• 豺狗 jackal
• 豺虎 beasts of prey

Read the story behind the character

A nature documentary films chai lang working a herd on the plain, and a headline calls the racket a pack of chai hu preying on small firms. The old sign of autumn is gone, but the metaphor remains, the cruel and the colluding named for the wild dog. The character chai still bares its teeth in speech.

Why this character belongs on skin

The jackal walks the edge of the firelight, neither tame nor wholly wild. The character 豺 names that lean beast of the Chinese hills, and paired with the wolf it became a curse for cruel men, 豺狼, the jackals and wolves who feast on the fallen. Yet the jackal is only honest: it eats what death leaves, asking no pardon. The Daoist knows nature keeps no courtroom; the warrior respects the scavenger who outlasts the lion. To be called 豺 is an insult only to those who pretend to be lambs. There is a freedom in the creature that owes nothing to the herd, that survives by wit where the strong starve. Ink this as the mark of the lone one, the survivor who feeds by his own cunning. Let it sit like a tooth beneath your skin, a quiet pledge to endure when the noble beasts have gone soft.