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

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

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

"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