More Bad Chinese Tattoos Than I Can Count
Reader Yan has emailed me her collection of bad Chinese tattoos. I almost had a heart attack seeing such large collection. To make things simple, I have overlooked all the badly needled "love (愛)", "strong or healthy (健)", and "peaceful or serenity (安)". But some eye sores deserve to be picked at and made fun of.
Many bad tattoos,
yet so little time,
woe is I.
posted by tian at
1:51 AM
20 Comments:
Hi, I was pointed to your site from a reader named Lisa. I remember back in the mid-nineties, a tattoo parlour in Fremantle, Western Australia, had lots of flash on the walls. One piece of flash purported to be the English alphabet in Chinese characters. So, for instance, a heng2 would be considered 'a', a pie3 would be 'b', and so on. I pitied the poor sucker who'd get a tattoo they thought was cool, but was actually gibberish.
(my website: http://www.serialdeviant.org/weblog/)
I look forward to the day you slowly dissect each horrific mistake. Does peace upside down mean you're a war monger? Do you think that guy is really gay, or he just wanted Sex and Love? Don't these people have Chinese friends to check it over with? no. Why are they tattooing words they don't understand on?
Yan (http://www.glutter.org
To all you folks out there considering getting a tattoo of Chinese characters, here's another word of advice: Do NOT choose Chinese characters just because they sound like your English name! Not unless you plan to spend your life at least a mile away from anyone who speaks Chinese.
Good point!
A friend of mine had her name translated to Japanese Katakana (phonetic translation) and had it tattoo on her lower back.
Every time I see it, I still think it says "exit only".
Designwise, some of those are just UGLY. I know I can't be the only one that was trying to even sound these out, not making any kind of sense with them in meaning (just what the hell is 止安氣康 supposed to mean, anyways??).
However, some of these shouldn't be so easily dismissed as nonsense (ergo bad) Chinese tattoos. Example : 知恵, which can be interpreted as a beautiful Japanese woman's name (Chie -- it's actually quite common). It wouldn't be so big of a jump in logic to guess that, perhaps, someone could have tattooed this girl's name on him (it's not like it'd be the first time). Mind you, I'm not saying that doing so'd be a smart course of action, but rather that there's nothing wrong with the characters, at least in this particular case ...
(I was going to include 平和 in this but, the more that I think of it ... while, yes, the characters make sense (and can even be a historical reference), I'm not really getting why someone would decide on these characters to tattoo on themselves ...)
I'm looking forward to seeing your interpretation of some of these tattoos!
-Roger
I once saw a man in my store with the chinese tattoo for the month of October on his arm. Out of curiousity I asked him why he had October tattooed on his arm. He told me it was the name of his girlfriend "August". When I told him that it was actually October, he started to get angry at ME because he thought I was lying. I had my Chinese friend at the next store confirm it. He left the store looking like a total MORON.
平和 is what I'd guess was へいわ (heiwa), Japanese for "peace" or "harmony".
I'm sure that some of the tattoos are meant to be Japanese, not Chinese. Peace in Japanese is 平和 not 和平 and 知恵 COULD be a girl's name but also means "knowledge". 清水 and 木原 are fairly common(by Japanese standards) surnames or could be direct translations of Western names.(Clearwater? Woodfield?)
Try as I might, there's just no way to explain away the others
the last one in the 2nd row seems to read: USER, ie not chinese at all just arty english
Okay, well... I was gonna get a Chinese Character tattoo that read Serenity, and I am not Chinese, nor do I have Chinese friends. Lol. Do you think someone could honestly tell me what the characters are for it?? Please??
I'm Looking for a Translation for Serena or Serenity. My Daughter's name is Serena and i'd like a Tattoo in Jap or Chinese
PLEASE send suggestions to
Justin760619@hotmail.com
I've been doing research and from my understanding Serena is Usagi If this is true Please let me know
Justin760619@hotmail.com
Justin: Usagi is "rabbit" in Japanese. Not "serenity".
My friend and I wanted to get matching tattoos, but couldn't decide exactly what to get. So, she had the idea to get the symbol for 'friends.' Does the symbol on the site below really mean 'friends?'
http://boards.weddingbells.ca/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Number=636384&page=&view=&sb=5&o=&vc=1
I have a question about the Chinese translation/character/symbol for "peace"? Can someone help me locate it to be sure it is correct?
Sorry to jump in, and take off in a semi-different direction, but I am thinking about getting a tattoo. It would be a series of chinese characters, and I have found all the words that I want. But I do not want to be a person that ends up on this site as a bad example. Is there an address that I could send a picture to that could confirm their meaning? Or should I just avoid the whole idea completely? -D
I would like to use Clint Eastwood's quote: "Do you feel lucky, punk?"
Your odds of getting a messed up tattoo on you is much higher than not remember to brush your teeth.
Dear Justin above: I think you people are watching too much anime. "Serena" is the English dubbed named for Sailor Moon, the Japanese cartoon, whose Japanese name is "Usagi". Do us a favor and don't get a tattoo.
As far as the "平和" goes, this is probably Japanese characters "heiwa", meaning "peace".
安 <-- so does this mean serenity?? just wondering...
tian said...
Good point!
A friend of mine had her name translated to Japanese Katakana (phonetic translation) and had it tattoo on her lower back.
Every time I see it, I still think it says "exit only".
Is her boyfriend named Deguchi? It just might say exit only ;)
And, just as one of those notes of how different readings of *hem* kanji can be... Amanda should note that 安 may be "peaceful or serenity (安)" but to me, with a Japanese-literacy bias, it just reads as "cheap"b
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