孝
Symbols Virtues
filial piety
ㄒㄧㄠˋ xiào
Two versions of the same picture, and both are free with no account and no watermark. The first has no background at all, which is the one to send your artist — but a phone or computer photo viewer set to dark will show black strokes on dark grey and it can look like nothing downloaded. If that happens, use the second one: identical characters on a plain white background. Either way you get the characters on their own — the square and the faint guide lines you see above are not in the file. Each character is 1000px, so a two-character download is 2000×1000, and the script and layout are the ones you picked.
Script
Characters
Same in both
Layout
Rubbing mode: white on black, as a stone rubbing. The download is unaffected.
The duty of care and respect owed to parents, which in Chinese culture is a lifelong obligation rather than a feeling.
Before you commit
Choose with care孝 is not warm affection. It is duty, including duty you may not feel, and it extends to funerals and to ancestors. Chinese readers will take it as an obligation you accept, which is exactly its dignity.
At small sizesSeven strokes, open and balanced. It works small and on curved placements, and it is a common and well-received tattoo.
Cultural note孝 is the first of the classical virtues and the subject of the Twenty-Four Filial Exemplars. It is also worn in mourning contexts, so it can read as a memorial for a parent.
Meaning
Filial piety; devoted care and respect towards one's parents.
One character, universally understood, with no real substitute.
Other characters for “filial piety”
What to do next
Pick the script and layout you want above, download the PNG, and send that file to your artist. Ask them to work from the file rather than redrawing the character freehand — that is where strokes go missing.
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