The Calligrapher — Yú Shìnán 虞世南

Tang court calligrapher revered for refined, restrained regular script.

Tang calligrapher (558–638), master of regular script — Tang master of quiet, inward regular script and teacher to the imperial academy. Tang dynasty

Cultural Story

洋 is the vast outer sea; the 說文 says ocean. Traders sailing the 海洋 met the 西洋 and returned with 洋 goods. The 太平洋 bounded the known world. “Ocean” came to mean anything grand, foreign, and stylishly, thrillingly new.

Common words & phrases

• 海洋 ocean · sea
• 洋气 foreign style · westernized · stylish
• 西洋 the West · Western world
• 洋房 western-style house · mansion
• 太平洋 Pacific Ocean

Read the story behind the character

She dreams of the 太平洋 (Pacific Ocean) cruise. The 海洋 (ocean) roars below the cliff road. His jacket looks very 洋气 (foreign style, stylish). They bought a 洋房 (western-style mansion) in the suburbs. Grandpa still calls imported chocolate 洋 (foreign) candy.

Why this character belongs on skin

There is a greatness that swallows the map. The character names the open sea, the water with no opposite shore, and the ancients used it for the foreign and the vast, the things too large for the small names of home. To stand at the ocean is to feel the border of your knowing, the edge where your language stops and the salt begins. The explorers called it the great outside; the mystics called it the self. We are all exiles of some smaller country, sailing toward a magnitude we cannot chart. To wear this word is to refuse the littleness of the fenced life. You were made for the wide water. Let the ink be the horizon line on your skin, the reminder that the deepest part of you has no coast. The ocean does not explain itself. It merely waits to be entered. You were born facing out.