Sima Xiangru's names Chinese name Personal names in Chinese culture follow a number of conventions different from those of personal names in Western cultures. Most noticeably, a Chinese name is written with the family name first and the given name next, therefore "John-Paul Smith" as a Chinese name would be "Smith John-Paul"...
	Given name Chinese name Personal names in Chinese culture follow a number of conventions different from those of personal names in Western cultures. Most noticeably, a Chinese name is written with the family name first and the given name next, therefore "John-Paul Smith" as a Chinese name would be "Smith John-Paul"...	Style name Chinese style name A Chinese style name, sometimes also known as a courtesy name , is a given name to be used later in life. After 20 years of age, the zì is assigned in place of one's given name as a symbol of adulthood and respect...
Traditional	司馬相如	長卿
Simplified	司马相如	长卿
Pinyin Pinyin Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into...	Sīmǎ Xiāngrú	Chángqīng
Wade-Giles Wade-Giles Wade–Giles , sometimes abbreviated Wade, is a romanization system for the Mandarin Chinese language. It developed from a system produced by Thomas Wade during the mid-19th century , and was given completed form with Herbert Giles' Chinese–English dictionary of 1892.Wade–Giles was the most...	Ssu1-ma3 Hsiang1-ju2	Chang2-ch'ing1

Sima Xiangru, also known as Ssu-ma Hsiang-ju (179–117 BC) was a Chinese

Chinese people

The term Chinese people may refer to any of the following:*People with Han Chinese ethnicity ....

 writer

Writer

A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

. He was a minor official of the Western Han Dynasty

Han Dynasty

The Han Dynasty was the second imperial dynasty of China, preceded by the Qin Dynasty and succeeded by the Three Kingdoms . It was founded by the rebel leader Liu Bang, known posthumously as Emperor Gaozu of Han. It was briefly interrupted by the Xin Dynasty of the former regent Wang Mang...

, but was better known for his poetic

Chinese poetry

Chinese poetry is poetry written, spoken, or chanted in the Chinese language, which includes various versions of Chinese language, including Classical Chinese, Standard Chinese, Mandarin Chinese, Cantonese, Yue Chinese, as well as many other historical and vernacular varieties of the Chinese language...

 skills, jiu

Chinese wine

Jiu is the Chinese word that refers to all alcoholic beverages. This word has often been mistranslated into English as "wine"; the meaning is closer to "alcoholic beverage" or "liquor"...

business, and controversial marriage to the widow Zhuo Wenjun

Zhuo Wenjun

Zhuo Wenjun, or Wen Jun, 卓文君 was a Chinese poet of the Western Han dynasty. As a young widow, Zhuo Wenjun eloped with the poet Sima Xiangru. The poem Baitou Yin which complains at the inconstancy of male love, is attributed to her....

 after both elope

Elope

To elope, most literally, merely means to run away with a girl and to not come back to the point of origination. More specifically, elopement is often used to refer to a marriage conducted in sudden and secretive fashion, usually involving hurried flight away from one's place of residence together...

d. One of his most famous works is the "Chang Men Fu" (literally "Ode of the Wide Gate"), written in the style fu, of rhymed prose

Rhymed prose

Rhymed prose is a literary form and literary genre, written in unmetrical rhymes. This form has been known in many different cultures. In some cases the rhymed prose is a distinctive, well-defined style of writing...

 under commission from a former Empress. In fact, Sima was largely responsible for establishing fu as a literary genre. He was also a guqin

Guqin

The guqin is the modern name for a plucked seven-string Chinese musical instrument of the zither family...

 player.

Much is known about Sima Xiangru through Sima Qian

Sima Qian

Sima Qian was a Prefect of the Grand Scribes of the Han Dynasty. He is regarded as the father of Chinese historiography for his highly praised work, Records of the Grand Historian , a "Jizhuanti"-style general history of China, covering more than two thousand years from the Yellow Emperor to...

's biography of him, Shij ji 117.