"Do Nothing Hero" or "No Fear Warrior"
From reader "David P.":
"Dear Tian,
A friend of mine passed along your Hanzi Smatter link. It's a pretty good gig; a bit of a much needed public service.
I live in Shanghai and after five years have come up with what I see at the perfect Chinese character tattoo that embodies philosophy toward life. I've hesitated to do it because it just feels like the whole Asian character tattoos thing is just played out, though the idea
behind it was a bit of a goof on all those 'strength', 'wisdom', 'fearless' and name tattoos.
Anyway, I just wanted to share it with you to get your impression. When I show it to my Chinese friends, they have a good laugh.
Keep up the good work.
-D"
I had to admit after seeing so many bad examples of Chinese characters in media and tattoo designs, I first thought David has made a mistake of choosing two characters that sounded same with complete different meanings.
The tattoo design above is pronounced in Mandarin Chinese as:
無 (wu)
為 (wei)
俠 (xia)
Matter of fact, I even emailed him back suggesting that the middle character should be 畏 (also pronouced as "wei"), which means "fear", and his tattoo design would be:
無畏俠
which means "No Fear Warrior".
After a few more correspondence, I finally realized that the meaning of David's tattoo design was based on a Taoist concept of "when you do nothing, you have done everything".
posted by tian at
11:45 PM
11 Comments:
actually that 'do nothing' idea is pretty cool
definitely better than people tattoing tiger or dragon etc. Esp, if he is that kinda of guy - free and careless.
Er, not to take away from Tian's excellent mojo as a Hanzi/Kanji sage, but he didn't exactly 'realize' that the meaning of my tattoo design was based on the highly paradoxical Taoist principle of "Wu Wei" ('do nothing'; 'no purposive action'; or to put a western spin on it, 'the activity of inaction' or 'I do nothing; but the thing is done'), I explained it to him.
What's more, according to my translator here in Shanghai, the "Xia" ('hero') in "Wu Wei Xia", is a kind of black hero, like Robin Hood.
Oh, and one more thing, the ring around the verticle characters is a coffee cup stain. Because when you when you embody "Wu Wei Xia", you should chill with good cup of coffee.
David P.
This is indeed a good tatto, phrasewise and designwise.
Tian, you previously also posted a 勢勉性精 which at a glance was a random collection of characters, as you said, but a closer examination could lead to something like "striving in posture/form and sharp in (mental) disposition," which sounds like some taoist teaching, not easy to interpret but probably not a bad tattoo.
I was about to post that that 無為俠 sounded like a Bruce Lee reference, but I just remembered, his comment was 以無法為有法. As you were, gentlemen.
無為 is the teaching of a great chinese philosopher, 莊子.
to the person that's going to tatoo this: regardless of how cool the tattoo may sound, as a native speaker, i will find it funny for someone to have it as a tattoo. just to let you know ;)
To add a note, "侠" isn't a black hero, but one that's very righteous and moral. They're often compared to 'darker' heroes like Robin Hood due to lack of other Western examples, but it's a very good thing to be a "侠/xia;" rich and poor alike will recognize and admire them.
You know in cantonese that means "Meaningless Hero", or "Hero without a purpose". Hope he didn't actually get that tattoo....
I know this post is a million years old. But I really liked this one. I don't think the circle is a coffee stain. It looks like an Enso circle to me. It's a Zen symbol that signifies interconnection, the circular nature of life, and that sort of thing.
Hey Folks, I got that image and characters tatted on my right shoulder blade, and it looks great. I have definitely studied and been greatly influenced by Taoist philosophy, amongst other lines of thunking. Its a wonderful tattoo......just thought someone would be interested!
I got the "No Fear Warrior" Tattoo on my right shoulderblade..and it looks really, really good. Other meanings could be "actionless warrior," "warrior without need for action," etc. I am curious what a native will have to say about the Tat. Well, i'll be in China soon...so it should be interesting!!
Thanks so much to whoever came up with the Tattoo design..it was just what I was looking for.
Whoa, am I relieved or not. I almost didn't have the guts to search your site afraiding that my tattoo would, in fact, say: "home delivery". But, right it is. A little styled version of wu wei, here you go.
Maybe I'll add the coffeestain someday, but no warrior stuff for me. I like the Taoistic concept as it is (actually missing additional wei in the beginning).
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