The Calligrapher — Yáng Xīn 羊欣

Liu Song calligrapher, student of Wang Xianzhi; famed in the saying 'buy Wang, get Yang'

南朝宋 calligrapher (), master of running script — known for 《采古来能书人名》. Liu Song dynasty (Southern Dynasties)

Cultural Story

臭 is 自 (nose) over 犬 (dog): the dog that tracks by scent, as the 说文 explains. It first meant smell of any kind — the 易经 says two minds in accord are sharp as orchid fragrance, 其臭如兰 — before narrowing to stench. Bedbugs became 臭虫, scolding became 臭骂, and a ruined name became 臭名, infamy that clings like a bad odor.

Common words & phrases

• 臭味 smell · stench
• 臭虫 bedbug
• 臭骂 scold roundly
• 臭名 bad name · infamy
• 发臭 stink · smell foul

Read the story behind the character

The 臭虫, the bedbug, forces you to bag every book and wash everything hot; your sneakers 发臭, stinking up the hallway until you deodorize them. Your brother 臭骂 — scolds roundly — the delivery company on the phone, and the restaurant you once loved now has a 臭名, a bad name, for soggy dumplings. Even the 臭味 of the trash chute seems worse in summer.

Why this character belongs on skin

The old word held the nose of a dog at a scent, and meant simply smell — any smell, the rose and the rot alike, before the world decided one was holy and the other shameful. The character is the nose itself bending to what rises, the honest acknowledgment that everything emits, that nothing is odorless if you are close enough. We spend fortunes masking our scent, our grief, our fear, as if to be perceived were a disgrace. But the dog trusts his nose; the lover learns the beloved by smell before speech. To wear this is to refuse the perfume of denial, to admit you are a creature that emits — sweat, sorrow, the particular weather of a life. Let it sit as a small defiance of the sanitized age, a mark that you would rather be known by your true scent than by a borrowed one, that the foul and the fragrant are both yours, and both are honest.