The Calligrapher — Zhào Mèngfǔ 赵孟頫

Yuan master whose elegant regular and running script revived classical tradition.

Yuan calligrapher (1254–1322), master of regular script/running script/cursive script — Yuan reviver of classical elegance who could write any script beautifully and did. Yuan dynasty

Cultural Story

改 is the self remade. The Analects has the gentleman 改 his errors as soon as he sees them; 改过 is repentance made active. The Zhou reformers 改革 the rites. The word is old as conscience — the crooked turned straight, the fault owned. A bronze vessel bears an inscription of a king who 改 the old law.

Common words & phrases

• 改变 change · alter · transform
• 改革 reform · restructure
• 改进 improve · better · refine
• 修改 revise · amend · modify
• 改正 correct · rectify · mend
• 改造 transform · reform · rebuild

Read the story behind the character

You 改变 the plan, 改进 the recipe, 修改 the draft at 2 a.m. 改革 is the word on the five-year banner; 改造 the old flat into two. The app 改 your password. From the confession to the renovation, 改 is the verb of fixing what is, and of deciding it should be otherwise. Nothing stays as the first draft wrote it.

Why this character belongs on skin

The river does not ask permission to find a new course. 改 is change — the hand that crosses out the old character and writes the new, the self that decides the story is not finished yet. The sages taught that to 改 is the beginning of virtue; Confucius said the man who can correct himself once is worth ten who never erred. The Daoist watches the seasons 改 without grief, knowing the leaf must fall for the branch to breathe. We are afraid of change because we think it erases us, but it is the only proof we are alive. To carry 改 is to refuse the grave of the fixed self. Let it burn on your skin as a promise that you are not what happened to you — you are what you become next. The ink is the first stroke of the new name.