From Finland with Love

Jukka from Finland has emailed these two photos to me from a shop called Tattoo Heka.

The first one is a couple’s tattoo. They had tattoos that say 猴愛狗 (Monkey loves Dog) and vice versa. Assuming Dog and Monkey are their zodiac signs respectively.


http://www.tattooheka.com/kuvia/tribal74.jpg

Unfortunately nobody in the shop, including the clients and the tattooist, has realized that the character for “love” 愛 has been placed upside down.

I have seen the exact same Asian gibberish font used in tattoos twice before, and one of them was in Finland. But, it was too late for this Finnish young man.


http://www.tattooheka.com/kuvia/tribal50.jpg

Evil Angel

This person has posted two tattoos done by Melissa Mesimer of Ghetto Inks in BMEzine’s gallery (June 26th, 2006).

One is called “Evil Angel” and the other is titled “Burning Rain”.


http://www.bmezine.com/tattoo/A60626/high/bmepb293004.jpg

Somehow the first character 邪 of 邪惡天使 has been separated into two characters, which are 牙 (tooth) and 阝 (a partial that means looks like an “ear”).

For those who are curious about the striations below the hands in the photo, those are stretch marks. I am not sure if the photos linked above were from a female tattooer or a very large man with gynecomastia.

Te Koop - I Evol You

Jonathan from Toronto has sent in this photo of Te Koop's window.



The red character 愛 is reversed.

Ironic part of this: Te Koop (Dutch phrase means "For Sale"), located on Queen street just east of Spadina, is less than a block away from Toronto's Chinatown.

For those of you think the sign would be correct when viewed from inside of the store.

It reads "愛 I UOY".

Aggressively Smooth

http://www.bmezine.com/tattoo/A60612/high/bmepb286196.jpg
http://www.bmezine.com/tattoo/A60612/high/bmepb286194.jpg

This photo dated Jun 12, 2006 in BMEzine’s gallery by ViciousVen (aka. Jimbo according to his stats on BMEzine and MySpace) had this caption:

My Friend Joe
Secong Victim (top tattoo only)
(by ViciousVen)

First of all, I think ViciousVen really meant to say was “second victim” instead of “secong”.

Secondly, why are the orientations of these two characters 猛 and 俐 rotated?

German Teapot with "Asian-Inspired" Gibberish

Reader Lester B. has sent me this photo of a teapot from Germany.



The red text in German says "enjoy your first tea", yet the four "Chinese-looking" or "Asian-inspired" characters are complete gibberish, even when they are read upside down.

Neglectful Svetlyo?

A tattooist named Svetlyo of Eclipse Tattoo in Ruse, Bulgaria, did these two tattoos.


http://www.bmezine.com/tattoo/A60612/high/bmepb285141.jpg


http://www.bmezine.com/tattoo/A60612/high/bmepb285140.jpg

In both cases, the characters circled in red, 運, 權 and 惑, are missing strokes. I wonder if they were done incorrectly due to tattoo template flaws or a neglectful tattooist.

Advice from Seth MacFarlane

videos: DevilDucky, Google, YouTube, or Windows Media 1.73 MB

At recently 2006 Harvard Class day, the creator of Family Guy and American Dad, Seth MacFarlane, had some simple tips for the new graduates:

Number 1, Don’t get a tattoo of a Chinese character on your fanny if you don’t understand the language. Tattoo removal services are making a killing off people’s stupidity. It’s because little “Miss. Individuality” walks into a tattoo parlor and gets an Asian symbol she thinks it means “spiritual woman”, but then she later finds out it means “sugar substitute”.

Or worse, “crazy diarrhea”.

Videos of Seth MacFarlane's speech in full length can be found on DevilDucky, Google Video and YouTube. Thanks to Jon Rahoi and Gaijin Biker for the tips.

Karma

Since most tattooists in the West are not fluent in Chinese, one would think getting Chinese character tattoo done in Hong Kong would minimize the probability of screwing up.

That logic would be true only if the tattooist has passed primary education level.

It seems at least one tattooist (Gabe of Ace Dragon Tattoo) in Hong Kong can’t be trusted with Chinese character tattoos.


http://www.bmezine.com/tattoo/A60605/high/bmepb284466.jpg
http://www.bmezine.com/tattoo/A60605/high/bmepb284465.jpg
http://www.bmezine.com/tattoo/A60605/high/bmepb284464.jpg
http://www.bmezine.com/tattoo/A60605/high/bmepb284463.jpg
http://www.bmezine.com/tattoo/A60605/high/bmepb284462.jpg

因果 and 報應 are redundant phrases for “karma”. In the tattoo, left partial of 報 has two extra dots added to 幸, and 應 is missing one or two 亻depending on the font style.

In the karmic fashion, Erika H. has sent in an Engrish tattoo from Japan.


http://www.nicetattoo.co.jp/gallery.html

Update: June 18, 2006 - The owner of the "karma" tattoo, Jessica Lelovic, is upset about seeing her tattoo been commented on this site. She also claims that the two extra dots are added due to the font style (yea, right) and I have violated copyrights of these photos.

Since I have never claimed ownerships of these photos, plus all the photos are linked to their original sources, Lelovic's claim is so pathetic that it would not hold up in any court.

EFF, Electronic Frontier Foundation, has this to say:

Web Linking Need Not Cause Copyright Liability

So, I would like to make the following clear to Jessica:

1. Don't be stupid and get an incorrect tattoo.
2. Don't post photos of your stupid tattoo on the web to show off, especially third party sites (i.e. MySpace, Friendster, or BMEzine). Depending on these sites' terms and conditions, you may have already waived all your copyrights away once the photos are posted.
3. Don't be a bitch when someone else is mocking your stupid tattoo. Keep a low profile. The bitchier you get, more entertaining it is for everyone else.

Inked Magazine - Mistaken Identity

Earlier this year I was interviewed by Janet Tzou for Inked magazine. The articled titled "Mistaken Identity" is in the Spring 2006 issue.

The ironic part of this article is even the Editor-in-Chief himself of Inked magazine, Mike Salman, has botched Asian-inspired tattoos.

It took me 27 years to get my first tattoo. I had been going to acupuncture for a little over a year and I developed a great relationship with Dr. Chan, to the point where I started to study Qi Gong with him.

My wife and I have always been into jade and had pieces for our Chinese birth years, so I decided to tattoo the symbol of the Ox and my birth date written out in Chinese characters. Who better to write it out than Dr. Chan?

He wrote two lines in beautiful characters and it was to read "July 10 Ninteen Hundred Seventy Three" with the symbol of the Ox in between.

I didn't like how it looked with all of the characters so I decided to abbreviate it and make it read "7 10 73."

Thing is, I don't know how to read Chinese.

So I attempted to change it to what I thought was correct by just taking the number characters and rearrangeing them. I was wrong.

Moral of the story, always do your research and get a second opinion just in case.

Kai Yu of Asian Media Watch has pretty much summed up the whole trend with this quote:

I think it's natural for any individual to be interested in things that are different.

But as much as I want to believe that people get Asian calligraphy tattoos out of cultural admiration, I don't think it usually reaches that level.

There has to be some earnest understanding of what you are getting, otherwise it's nothing but a trinket.

TShirt - Tattoo Trend Tragedy

http://www.threadless.com/submission/76949/TATTOO_TREND_TRAGEDY

I have been getting many emails from readers about this shirt created by Mathias Hovet of Norway for Threadless.com.

Technically speaking, 油煎的雞和麵條 means "pan seared/fried chicken and noodles".

Don't worry, the Chinese on the steroidjunkie's arm does translate as "fried chicken and noodles".