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Cinnabar Ink

Find out what it means before the needle does.

Every entry here is checkable: where the character came from, whether the history books kept it, what the folk say about it, and what a stranger will read it as. Free, in full.

By theme

DefaultPowerLove & protectionStillnessAmbitionAuspicious wordsWealthZodiac

The misreadings

Why 福 is hung upside down. Where 力 and 雞 diverge. Whether 龍 should be simplified. What happens when one string mixes scripts. Nothing for sale in this section; it is the answer people actually came for.

What an entry holds

The character large, its pinyin and English gloss, how the glyph evolved, the classical source it comes from, current usage, where it sits on a body, the caveats, and a link to any design that uses it.

The meaning is yours whether you buy or not

道 · dàodàoThe Way — the path beneath all paths, and the oldest philosophical question in a single character. Not a road to somewhere; the study of how to walk.Stillness忍 · rěnrěnEndure — to bear, to hold under weight. The blade above the heart is the whole argument: the thing you are cutting is your own reaction, not the thing that happened.Power辰 · chénchénThe earthly branch for the dragon — and, standing alone, morning: the hour the sky is still half-dark.Zodiac麒麟 · qílínqílínThe benevolent beast — the single hooved creature said to arrive only where a good ruler governs. It never ate anything alive, and it would not cross living ground.Auspicious words貔貅 · píxiūpíxiūThe fortune swallower — a winged lion-like beast with no anus, so wealth that goes in does not come out. The most commercially tattooed creature in the language, and the one most often drawn wrong.Wealth鹤 · hèhèThe crane — long life, and the bird that carries the immortals. Longevity, fidelity, and a rank that outlived every dynasty that claimed it.Auspicious words鲤跃龙门 · lǐ yuè lóng ménlǐ yuè lóng ménThe carp leaping the Dragon Gate — the classical rise, and the one Chinese idiom where the whole sentence is the metaphor rather than a description of it.Ambition祥云 · xiáng yúnxiáng yúnThe auspicious cloud band — ornament lifted off vessels and ceilings, where it marks the sky a god is standing in rather than the weather.Auspicious words梅 · méiméiPlum blossom — the first flower of the year, which opens on bare wood before anything else has the nerve to. Resolute rather than hardy.Stillness精忠报国 · jīng zhōng bào guójīng zhōng bào guóServe the country with unwavering loyalty — the phrase that became Yue Fei's, and the most heavily state-sponsored sentiment in the language.Ambition关公 · guān gōngguān gōngDuke Guan — the god of loyalty, sinified from a historical general, and the most tattooed figure in China with the most rules attached.Power竹 · zhúzhúBamboo — hollow inside, straight, and the plant that bends and returns rather than breaking.Stillness兰 · lánlánOrchid — the flower of the scholar, which grows where nobody tends it and is fragrant without being shown.Stillness菊 · jújúChrysanthemum — the flower of autumn, of retirement, and of a certain unapologetic lateness.Stillness莲 · liánliánLotus — the flower that rises out of the mud and comes up clean. Untouchability by position rather than by nature.Stillness福 · fúfúGood fortune — the character most often painted upside down, which is a homophone joke: inverted 福 arrives.Auspicious words寿 · shòushòuLongevity — the character that got more elaborate the longer people lived, and the one word a birthday card in this language is not complete without.Auspicious words爱 · àiàiLove — and the reason this entry exists: the simplified character has no heart in it. The traditional 愛 keeps one. That is the whole story.Love & protection勇 · yǒngyǒngCourage — and specifically the part of it that carries a weapon, since the character puts 力 under 甬.Power力 · lìlìForce, strength — the plainest power word in the language. Two strokes and no mysticism: muscle, effort, the energy you actually spend.Power力/雞 · lì / jīlì / jīNot one entry but a pair: the two characters whose difference is one stroke, and what actually separates them on skin.Easily misread
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