The tear mole

泣きぼくろ · 泪痣 · nốt ruồi lệ

You have a tiny mark just under your eye. When I drew you as Komachi, I made sure to put it in, very small. Here's why.

It has a name in almost every language around you

Japanese · 泣きぼくろ nakibokuro

"Crying mole." A mole under the eye is called this because it sits exactly where a tear would fall. In Japan it's one of the most loved marks a face can have: it's said to belong to someone warm and tender, who draws people in without trying. Artists give it to characters on purpose, as a charm point.

Chinese · 泪痣 lèizhì

"Tear mole." In Chinese face reading, the soft place under the eye is called the "tear hall" (泪堂). And this is where the most beautiful story comes from.

Vietnamese · nốt ruồi lệ

Also nốt ruồi giọt lệ, "the tear-drop mole." It's read as a heart that feels everything (đa sầu đa cảm). Vietnamese has a word for what the legend is about: duyên nợ, the bond between two people that carries over from another life.

The legend

1. The bridge. When you die, you cross a bridge in the underworld (奈何桥, cầu Nại Hà). An old woman there, Mèng Pó (Mạnh Bà), gives every soul a bowl of soup that makes you forget the life you just lived, so you can be born again fresh.
2. The tear. But as you were dying, someone who loved you held you and cried, and one of their tears fell on your face, just under your eye.
3. The mark. The soup takes every memory. It can't wash away that tear. You're born again with a small dark mark where it fell.
4. The finding. Neither of you remembers. The mark is how they can find you again.

Is it really old?

The legend as people tell it today is modern folklore. But its pieces are very old.

• Year 668, China. A Buddhist book tells of a dying boy who says he'll be born again into another family. His mother doesn't believe him, so she draws a black dot on him with ink. The baby born into that family has a black mole in the same place.
• In old Chinese, the word for a mole could also mean "a record" (誌): a note left on the body, so someone can find you.
• The same custom was recorded in Japan and Vietnam too: marking someone you lost, hoping to recognise them when they come back.
• People even painted tears on purpose. In China 1,800 years ago, a make-up trend called "weeping make-up" (啼妆) drew light marks under the eyes, "as if one had cried." It was a beauty look.

And Komachi

Ono no Komachi was a poet and the most famous beauty of old Japan, about 1,100 years ago. In Japanese her name became a word: a komachi simply means a beautiful girl. The poem I sent you is hers:

思ひつつ　寝ればや人の　見えつらむ
夢と知りせば　覚めざらましを

I fell asleep thinking of you, maybe that's why you came to me.
If I had known it was a dream, I would never have woken up.

In her time, people believed that if you saw someone in a dream, it was because one of you was missing the other so much that your soul travelled.

She wrote about tears too. A man once sent her a poem saying his tears turned into white jewels on his sleeve. She answered: only weak tears turn into jewels. Hers couldn't be held back. They were a whole river.

Why I'm telling you

It's just a story. It isn't saying anything about who you are. I just love that a tiny mark on a face has a name in Japanese, Chinese and Vietnamese, and that in all of them, it's a story about someone finding someone again.

koto 🌙