"Abusive Husband Pimps Me Out"

Shannon Larratt from BMEzine.com emails me this photo submitted by one of his readers. It is a tattoo on the wrist of someone's wife.

I am very confused about why would anyone tattoo "my abusive husband pimps me out". Is this some sort of advertisement? If so, where is the price list? Perhaps on her lower back?

The Chinese word for "pimp" is 拉皮條者.

拉 = pull, drag; seize, hold; lengthen
夫 = man, male adult, husband
勢 = power, force; tendency
賤 = low; cheap, worthless
人 = man; people; mankind

Badges of Misknowledge

A student from Columbia University has written a term paper based on Hanzi Smatter.

Jon Brilliant is a sophomore at Columbia University where he studies Art History, Chinese and Linguistics.

He can be contacted at this email address:

jonbrilliant at gmail dot com

PDF: badgesofmisknowledge.pdf

Holding Lives

From reader "Nic T.":

"Hey there mate, I think I got to your site via Big White Guy, it's a great read! I got a tattoo of the Chinese phrase 'Jup Sang' several years ago - just the characters - but recently got some color added to it. This was the day after so it looks a bit crusty. I had seen the characters in a TIME magazine article on Hong Kong gambling, where it said it meant 'to take a chance' in life or 'live with the path you have chosen'. I lived on Hong Kong for 20 yrs and always wanted a tattoo with Chinese characters that meant something to me. I was hoping you knew the literal and true translation of the tattoo - as I have often had strange looks from local Chinese when they see it - which can't be a good thing!! Many thanks"

The literal translation is "holding lives", but it actually means "controlling destiny".

執 = hold in hand; keep; carry out
生 = life, living, lifetime; birth

Respect the Weak Authority

From reader "Shay S.":

"Dear Tian, the attached photo is that of a the characters on the front of a shirt I bought at Walmart some years ago. I can't say I've worn it much, since it was soon after I really thought about the fact that it could say anything. Living in a city with a tiny Asian population, I have never had the event to find out what it means. I hope the picture is clear enough to be read."

I really have no idea what the second character supposed to be. In order to make the phrase to be somewhat meaningful, I thought it might be 叭. Therefore the phrase would be something like "respect the weak authority".

This phrase also reminded me of Cartman from South Park yelling about "respect my authority" and recently my friend Eric got beaten up by two off-duty police officers in Mesa, Arizona.

淡 = weak, watery; insipid, tasteless
叭 = denote a sound or sharp noise
整 = orderly, neat, tidy; whole
儼 = grave, respectful, majestic

"Melanie" or "Plum Orchid Maid"

An email tip lead me to this "uber-macho" tattoo at Hezeleid.com. It belongs to user "strange_tag". Since he refused to tell eveyone what his tattoo meants, I guess I will do that here.

Phonetically pronounced in Mandarin Chinese, it should sound like "mei lan ni" or "melanie". The problem is that although Japanese and Chinese share kanji/hanzi characters, their pronounciations are different.

If the characters are literally translated, they are:

梅 = plums
兰 (traditional version: 蘭) = orchid
妮 = maid

Plum and Prune

From reader "Laura M.":

"Hi there, Congratulations for your blog. I just happened to come across it by means of www.elastico.net, which provides interesting links to readers from all over on a daily basis. I was wondering if you could tell me what this tattoo means. It's my sister's, but it was me who paid for it because our parents wouldn't. I've always wondered what it means, and I'm dying to tell her. Whatever the meaning is, we're ready. Thanks a lot."

It is a common Chinese surname. According to Wikipedia, about 7.9 percent of the Chinese population is surnamed 李. As of 2002, there were approximately 103 million people in China and 108 million worldwide with this surname. To date, this remains the world's most common surname.

It also means "plum" or "prune". I am curious about why Laura's sister got this tattoo without fully understand what it meant.

李 = plum; judge; surname

"Loves the Pain"

From reader "Rae S.":

"Hi, great site! You probably get a ton of email requests... but I was wondering if you would take a look at this tattoo. My little sister got it this summer and she says it means "love hurts" I tried to look it up but haven't found any results. Thank you."

First of all, the extra strokes on the right side is not needed.

Secondly, the two characters are indeed "love" and "pain". Except the context is wrong. Instead of saying "love hurts", it says "loves the pain", as in sadism and masochism context.

Lastly, the character for "love" is simplified version. It would be much better if it was done in Traditional version, which would add more elegance:

恋 (traditional version: 戀) = love; long for, yearn for; love
痛 = pain, ache; sorry, sad; bitter

On the good side, it does not say "donkey butt".

Update: I have got an email from Jim Simpson, a Japan-Born-American, which offered his service to be in the "translator pool". Jim has also posted his debut comment under this posting stating that the tattoo above translates "love hurts" in Japanese.

I would also like to re-emphasize on the fact that one thing many people don't realize the Japanese share same Kanji (or Hanzi, Chinese characters) with Chinese, except with slightly different meanings.

Often someone would get a Kanji tattoo with Japanese translation would have complete different meaning if it was read as Chinese. Vice versa.

"Healthy Catch Empty Achievement"

From reader "Christina S.":

"Hello, I’ve been to your site many times and I have a tattoo on my lower back in Chinese. I know there is not such thing as letters in Chinese NOW, but these characters are supposed to represent MIKE. Now I’m am really curious to what I have inked on my back. Can you help me? Thanks."

I feel really bad about this one, because it is no where near "MIKE". Especially the second character does not even exist in Hanzi or Kanji vocabulary. The closest one is "弋" which means "catch", but there is an extra dot in the tattoo.

康 = peaceful, quiet; happy, healthy
弋 = catch, arrest; shoot with bow
空 = empty, hollow, bare, deserted
功 = achievement, merit, good result

"Watersports"

From reader "Joanne L.":

"Hi Tian! My friend is planning to have this T-shirt printed for him before he goes on a vacation in Japan next Spring. He wants the shirt to say "I'm a fan of watersports", since he's real keen on all that watersport-stuff. He had a friend of his design the text, but since I have had some bad experiences of texts in Asian characters (another friend of mine got "slap me harder" tattooed on her lower back in Chinese, and the poor girl thought it said "I'm a cutie" for 2 years before learning the truth), I decided to check if it was right before he got the shirt printed... so, here's the text. Does it really say "I'm a fan of watersports" or not? Thanks!"

Since I am only familiar with Kanji and Hanzi, not with Japanese Hiragana, I needed help from my friend Ken Nishimura.

He replied with: "although the sentence is a bit awkward, but its grammar is okay. I just do not understand what the sentence is trying to express. My wild guess is 'gambling'?"

I don't know if Joanne or her friend knows this, but "watersports" is slang for urolagnia (or urophilia), sexual fetish characterized by the use of urine.

An annoymous reader commented that if the sentence is Romanized, it says "Watashi ha bukkake no aikousha". "Bukkake" is even worse than "watersports", it is a group sex practice wherein a series of men takes turns ejaculating on a kneeling woman or man.

私 = private, personal; secret
打 = strike, hit, beat; fight; attack
掛 = hang, suspend; suspense
愛 = love, be fond of, like
好 = good, excellent, fine; well
者 = that which; he who; those who

Master of Stupidity

Roddy from Chinese Forums tipped me about an user "insanejester" on his forum wanting to get a Chinese tattoo for his 18th birthday.

The photo shown above is what the young man finally got.

It means "idiot".

呆 = dull; dull-minded, simple, stupid
子 = offspring, child; fruit, seed of; 1st terrestrial branch

Erik "Everlast" Schrody

From reader "Vince Y.":

"Hey, going through my CD collection, I decided to pop in Everlast's 'Eat at Whitey's' on a whim. I didn't notice before that he has a tattoo on the right side of his neck. Enclosed are some scans I took. My Chinese actually kinda licks, so I had to get my mom to help me out. We kinda figured that the best translation would be "-ism" as in socialism ("shi hui-zhu-yi") or communism ("gong-chan-zhu-yi"). Otherwise, can the characters make sense on their own?"

Don't worry, Everlast's tattoo are correctly done, but I am not sure if Mr. Everlast actually knows what his tattoo really meant. I did a search via Google, and found this from Everlastworld.com:

"According to an interview he gave on a radio station the tattoos can have more than one meaning and for him they stand for love and disciplin."

主義 = -ism, ideology, principle

主 = master, chief owner; host; lord
義 = right conduct, righteousness

Chicken Fried Rice & Marvelous Wild Female

From reader "Melissa D.":

"I've always enjoyed stories of botched character tattoos, but I do like the way they look. Call me a dork if you like. But I also think most of what people have tattooed is stupid. Like zodiac symbols, words of love and harmony and character traits they wish they had.

I, being a big fan of satire, would love to have the phrase "chicken fried rice" tattooed on my back in chinese (visible only to my friends so people who do know what it says can't laugh at me for being a stupid american).

So basically I was wondering if you and the people who decipher characters on your site could help me out so I don't end up with a tattoo that says "marvelous wild female." Although that's not too bad.

Thanks - Melissa D."

Oh well, I present here 雞肉炒飯 (chicken fried rice)

雞 = chicken
肉 = meat
炒 = stir-fried
飯 = rice

and

美妙狂女 (marvelous wild female)

美 = beautiful
妙 = exquisite
狂 = wild
女 = female

Site News: Shannon Larratt from BMEzine

Shannon Larratt, founder of the largest body modification magazine BMEzine, has emailed me with the following:

"I liked your Kanji page. I did a similar article some time ago:

http://www.bmezine.com/news/pubring/20031006.html

I have a gallery of kanji tattoos here:

http://www.bmezine.com/tattoo/kanji001.html

If you would ever like to write an article for my zine using the photos from my galleries, I'd love to publish it.

Shannon"

Botched Female, Dog, Tiger

From reader "Jan I.":

"The picture is just a random encounter during a shopping afternoon - a cap with some random looking letters .. I wonder if they carry any meaning at all? Cheers."

The first character looks like a botched "female".

女 = female, woman, girl; feminine

The second one can be either "dog" or "to protect" depends on it is a dot or stroke in the center.

戌 = eleventh sign of Chinese zodiac (The Dog, 7pm-9pm, west-northwest, September)

戍 = defend borders, guard frontiers

The last one is correct and it means "tiger"

寅 = third sign of Chinese zodiac (The Tiger, 3am-5am, east-northeast, January); to respect, reverence; respectfully

Tony Halme's Neck Tattoo

Reader "Jan I." has sent in this undated photo of Tony Halme's neck tattoo. It is a part of a two word tattoo, unfortunatelly the rest of the tattoo is hidden under a collar. According to the owner of the tattoo (Tony Halme; an ex-boxer/wrestler, now a Finnish politician) it stands for "White Samurai".

White Samurai should be written as 白人の武士.

If anyone has a better photo of Tony Halme's neck tattoo, please feel free to sent it to me. In the mean time, the character shown means "evil" or "wickedness".

悪 = evil, wickedness

"Giant Coral"

From reader "Darren Z.":

"Hi Tian, Love your Hanzi Smatter blog; BS tattoo characters must be for readers of Chinese what engrish instruction manuals are to readers of English... except more personally damning. On that note, I submit this stamp my ex-girlfriend had made for me when she went to HK. Is it bullshit or not? I haven't the foggiest. For the sake of comedy, I actually kinda hope it's something super-lame. Thanks, and keep up the good work."

The stamp Darren has is indeed hard to understand. Since it also has his initals, therefore I assume the characters represent his name.

If the characters are read from left to right, they are:

珊 = coral
高 = high, tall; lofty, elevated

Phonetically in Cantonese they sounded like:

"SAAN1" "GOU1"

and in Mandarin Chinese, they sounded like:

"SHAN1" "GAO1"

Like Darren said, for the sake of comedy, if he ever decides to become a Westerner superstar in China, he should use "Great Coral" as his stage name. Just like Da Shan.

"Desire"

From reader “Burak I.”:

“Dear Friend, My name is Burak and I saw your website by chance when surfing. I have a Chinese tattoo too and I'm very curious what it means in real. As I know, it means "desire" or pronounced as ‘Arzu’ which means desire in Turkish. I hope you can help me.”

Sometime I feel bad for the ones gotten Chinese tattoos from phonetic translations. Granted, Burak’s tattoo phonetically is correct, but it was still a struggle for me and my associates to decipher the true translation.

Jeremy replied with: “Men门? Ming 明天? Er, burritos?”

Brendan replied with: “Well - since we know that he's going for the pronunciation 'Arzu’, the first one could just be 阿. That'd be my guess, anyway -- but it looks like 'er' and 'zhu' have been reversed.”

John replied with: “At first I thought the right half looked like it could be a squashed right half of 阿. But the left side didn't work. Then I thought the left half could be the left half of 所. But the right side didn't work. The right side looks like a backwards 巨. In conclusion: I think Jeremy's guess (門) is good...”

阿 = prefix for people's names; used in transliteration
尔 (traditional version: 爾) = you; that, those; final particle
助 = help, aid, assist

"Green Rice"

This guy might thought it was a great idea to tattoo "essence" (精) on his elbows. But by spliting the character into two halves, he got "Green Rice".

米 = hulled or husked uncooked rice; meter
青 = blue-green; young