IT was not until I revisited the Xiling Seal Engraving Society two years ago that I began to understand the reason my father gave me the seal "Xie Zhai Zhu Ren."

By then, I had learned about Chinese painting, calligraphy, history and literature.

I had realized that the picture book and movie about the emperor were both biased. Rather than the stupid wastrel described by the film and book, the emperor was one of the most talented connoisseurs in Chinese history and his artistic achievements spanned almost all sections of Chinese culture °?- painting, calligraphy, engraving, music and writing. He created his own style of calligraphy, which has almost been totally lost today because it is so difficult to learn and imitate. He is still considered one of the best traditional Chinese painters and musicians.

Yes, he was stupid about politics. But can you imagine putting America under the control of Andy Warhol or giving Britain to Mick Jagger?

I also learned, from books, that personal seals are almost 3,000 years old and were first exclusive to royal families just like coats of arms or the heraldic symbols of the West. Over the years, they became more common and practical °?- used daily to show the ownership of belongings.

Old Chinese intellectuals, especially from the Song Dynasty (960-1279), were particularly fond of using seals on paintings and calligraphy. They then slowly evolved into a form of art as the artist had to consider the total work before he decided which seal to use and where to put it.

This art form is a concentration of Chinese culture and art on a small scale °?- often a space of around 2 or 3 centimeters. People say the seal is "a tiny space that contains the whole world."

A seal engraving master has to have a thorough understanding of all sorts of subjects from painting to natural science, from philosophy to music, and from how to use a calligraphy brush to how to use an "iron pen," the nickname for a craftsman's knives.

Like other art forms, there are no standard answers as to how one should appreciate the beauty of a seal although books draft long lists about the rules of layout, color and style.

With all this book knowledge, I was determined to re-explore my childhood playground and to find the real meaning of the "owner of a study called crab." I brought a dictionary of Zhuan-style Chinese characters, an ancient font used especially in engravings.

The garden seemed not to be much more popular than I remembered it from my childhood. Only a dozen visitors could be seen scattered about the huge garden.

I skipped past the beautiful scenes and headed straight to the engravings - the stones that I used to give nicknames to for fun when I was a child. I checked my dictionary and read the explanation beside the engravings carefully. As well as the date and owner, the explanation gave the meaning of the characters on the engravings, the name of the layout, where it had been used - all more terms that I never encountered.

I became bored and frustrated.

"Didn't you have fun with the engravings from the society before? You gave them rather cute nicknames. You don't have to understand to appreciate." My father's words came back to me as I tried to rest my weary mind in a small cabin.

It was an elegant setting, in the style of a typical Chinese garden with the classic layout of buildings, trees and flowers as well as dozens of cultural relics. The garden, stretching horizontally along the Solitary Mountain, contained all kinds of cabins, sculptures, towers and halls. The oldest engraving displayed dated back more than 1,900 years.

The West Lake looked much smaller but calmer from above the mountain. The simple Huayan Tower, just a few steps away, seemed royal and sophisticated with Buddhist texts and pictures carved all over it. All the other towers, cabins, halls, scattered here and there, made me feel as if I was in a classic Chinese landscape painting, with more things hidden than visible. Somehow, everything looked simple but beautiful, a challenge for a confused mind.

I left the dictionary in the cabin and began walking through the garden again, deciding to adopt a simpler approach.

The complicated characters looked like pictures again and I even remembered some of the nicknames I made up for them when I was little.

That small black stone next to the cabin was the "coward horse" because all the characters looked as if they were running away from something. I took a quick glance at the commentary - a copy of texts from some writers' private seals of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period (907-979 AD). It was a short period marked by wars and killing everywhere.

I had called a thin and long stone hidden on a small path to the upper mountain the "garden of 100 flowers" because of the twisting and expensive-looking flowers. The official explanation says it was from early Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD), one of the richest periods in Chinese history, economically and culturally.

I started looking at everything differently as I walked °?- all the stones looked like stages and texts and paintings were the actors on the stages. The content was the script, the shadows were lighting, the patterns the mis-en-scene. All of a sudden, they started telling me intriguing stories I had not understood before. I was so mesmerized by all the dramas that I almost had to be dragged out when the garden closed at 4:30pm. But I managed to buy a set of playing cards, with a seal imprint on each, as I rushed out of the society.

I hurried home to find my 15th birthday pictures, one of which contained the seal imprint describing "owner of the crab study." Dad had done this before giving me the seal and it was the only time the seal was used.

The four characters all looked like crabs, trying to expand their chubby bodies outside the tiny square. Some ambiguous flowers could also be found on the side of the imprint, extending blossoms to an imaginary space outside the square.

The meaning, obscure for eight years, came to me all of a sudden.

"Challenge the common rules and think out of the box."

The organization that lets the art and history flourish

The Xiling Seal Engraving Society is the oldest, largest and most famous non-governmental organization of its kind. It hosts regular exhibitions, publishes books and material and holds seminars. Members of the society, all seal engraving fans and experts, also collect engravings and copies of seal engravings for exhibition.

Books collecting seal imprints are rare and are popular items in Chinese auction houses. An original book of imprints from the 17th to 19th century would fetch around 50,000 yuan (US$7,315). They are valued not just as antiques but also as art. Some books from the 1960s have sold for nearly 10,000 yuan.

The study of ancient seal engravings also helps assess the authenticity of ancient Chinese paintings.

There are three common types of seals:

Name Seals - the most common sort which bears the name of the owner, and is usually used along with a signature on documents. It's not required in China anymore, but is compulsory when signing contracts in Japan.

Studio Seals - mostly owned by artists or intellectuals who give themselves pen names. The design of the seal often reflects or explains the name, usually illustrating a life style that the artist or intellectual hopes to follow.

Casual Seals - the most innovative and least restrictive as they are only for fun, as the name suggests. The texts and paintings of these seals are often based on random inspirations.