Friday, October 15, 2004

"White Wrist" or "Naughtiness"



I am a bit confused about this tattoo. If the characters are translated individually, one means "wrist" and the other means "white". Except, if they are translated as a phrase, in Chinese, it would mean "wrist is white", and "naughtiness" in Japanese.

= wrist (Chinese); arm (Japanese)
= white, snowy, empty, blank, bright, clear, plain, pure, gratuitous (Chinese); white (Japanese)

3 Comments:

Blogger morifuku said...

腕白=a naughty [mischievous] boy (Japanese)

6:02 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This phrase is discussed at length here:

http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/phorum/read.php?3,21262,21344#msg-21344

8:55 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This may be a little late to post this but. . .

Mormon missionaries who serve in Japan develop their own sort of lingo; and "wanpaku" is altered from the original Japanese (naughty) and used to describe someone who doesn't exactly follow the strict rules of being a missionary. Since tattoos and earrings are frowned upon by the church, this individual would definitely be "wanpaku".

8:31 PM  

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