One of the 扬州八怪, the eccentric painters of Yangzhou, who painted ink bamboo and wrote in a quirky script of his own. His motto 难得糊涂, 'it is hard to be muddle-headed', hangs in many Chinese homes.
Zhèng Bǎnqiáo xiě de " nándé hútu " sì ge zì, jīntiān hái chángcháng bèi rén guà zài qiáng shàng.
The four characters 'it is hard to be muddle-headed' that Zheng Banqiao wrote are still often hung on walls today.
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culture
His poem 竹石, 'Bamboo and Rock', opens 咬定青山不放松, 'it bites into the green mountain and won't let go', and ends 任尔东西南北风, 'let the wind blow from any quarter'. Both lines are quoted for steadfastness.
usage
燮, his given name, is a rare character meaning 'harmonize'; 板桥, 'plank bridge', is a pen name. He called his script 六分半书, 'six-and-a-half-parts script', a name usually explained as a play on 八分, a term for Han clerical script.
