Let the Laughter Begin

Not only this is a tattoo with terrible penmanship, but all the characters are mixed between Simplified and Traditional version. The second character from the right 量 is upside down, and last character 功 is wrongly written. Here is what critiques say about this "artwork":



Randall: "Yikes!"



Angela: "Wah! Do I really need to count? This is such a horrible tattoo! I don't know why this 'phrase' is made up with both traditional and simplified characters. Second, the second and third last characters are up-side-down, and the second and last characters are actually the same character. I have no idea what the hell this tatto is supposed to tell people "Speed something something smart power?'."

Brendan: "Oh, man. I can't even tell what a couple of those are supposed to be. Also, it looks like it was colored in using a marker or something."



Eden: "Man, there's just too many errors. I feel sorry for that guy..."



速度 = speed, velocity

权力 (權力) = power, right, authority

宗 = lineage, ancestry; ancestor, clan

智识 (智識) = wisdom, knowledge, intelligence

量 = measure, quantity, capacity

功 = achievement, merit, good result

Oversimplified "Dragon"

The tattoo above suppose to be the simplified version of the character "dragon". Except the tattoo artist has decide to put the "dragon" on another level of cultural diet, oversimplified it by neglecting an important dot.



Here is the correct "dragon":



Simplifed version: 龙

Traditional version: 龍



ps. thanks to tattoo artist (or parlors) like this, this site will never run out of material...

Mystery Coffin Carrier

I came across ths tattoo and it is obviously that he wanted "coffin carrier" or "the undertaker" to be tattooed. but I have never seen the middle character before. Wondering if I have missed something, I contacted John Pasden for a second opinion.



John checked his big fat Chinese dictionary, but it didn't have that character. His first impression was that it was supposed to be 榭, but that doesn't make sense either. He then looked up "coffin" in a Japanese dictionary. It's written 棺 or 柩.



To conclude, neither John nor I recognize the middle character, especially when the correct way to write is:



棺材佬

"Sacrificed for a Righteous Cause"

From reader "Daniel S.":

"Hey, how you doing? Came across your site,which is very interesting. Wondered if you could do me a favour and translate the characters on my fore arm. A few Chinese lads have told me it means roughly what its supposed to, just hoped you could give me your translation? Thanks"

All the characters are correct and the Chinese translation is "sacrificed for a righteous cause", or the Japanese equivalent of "even if it was unsuccessful, it was for a good cause".

As a word of caution, this phrase does have some negative meaning as well. It is often used to describe Japanese kamikaze pilots go into their suicidal battle.

不 = no, not
成 = accomplish
功 = task, merit, achievement
便 = ordinary, plain, convenient, handy, easy, then, so, thus, to relieve oneself
仁 = humane, righteous

"I Strive for a Non-Existent Ethnic Group"

From reader "Angela S.":

"Hey Tian, I come across with a photo of Marcus Camby. I'm sure he means well when he gets that tattoo. But for me as a native Chinese speaker, I feel I wouldn’t be able to understand the tattoo without some explanation. I think non-native Chinese speakers have to understand that some English phases just don't translate well into Chinese."

I agree with Angela S. on this issue. Usually the character 族 is used in Chinese referring to a certain ethnic group. In this case, without any detailed explanation, Camby's tattoo means he is a member of the 勉 ethnic group, which is nonexistent.

"Did you know 'gullible' is not in the dictionary?"

Often I receive emails from fans giving me tips about hanzi/kanji related news. I really appreciate all the fans for their support. What were really interesting are email correspondents I had with “William D.” this afternoon:



William D.: “Hey, I just saw your website and thought your might appreciate this news story about a disgruntled tattoo artist. Which just goes to show you that if you're going to have something permanently marked on your body you better know what its. Even though it's pretty funny... doing it intentionally is pretty damn mean. Check out the story here: http://www.soufoaklin.com/tattooartist.html”



Me: “Dear William, Did you know "Souf Oaklin fo' Life" is a fake spoof site? All the articles in there are FAKE. They are like the popular spoof site, The Onion.”



William D.: “By the way, I forgot to mention, you can Google for the guys name, Andy Sakai, and there's a few more news articles about him. In particular: He got 5 years and apparently still hasn't learned his lesson."



Me: *silence*



William D.: “Hey, I looked around a little bit more and noticed this: Souf Oaklin fo' Life! is a satirical newspaper published by Wooo Media. Oh well, another urban legend. Sorry about that, still kind of funny though :)”



Me: “No problem. I enjoyed the stories. Thanks for sending them in.”

Did I get what I paid for?

From reader "cloverleaf315w":

"I have three characters down my spine, they are supposed to mean 'wild, powerful, and fearless'. Can you tell me that's what I really paid for. I got these done in Tennessee by a local guy everyone goes to. It wasn't my best choice of tattoos I've put on my body, (slightly intoxicated)"

After I done some research, here is what I found:



The top one 野 means "wild", the second one 恐 means "afraid", and the last one 強 means "strength".