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Chinese and Japanese character tattoos have been sweeping the West for a decade or more now, to the extent that most of our readers probably know someone who has one. Perhaps it’s just a single discreet Chinese hanzi tucked into the inside of a lady’s wrist — or it could be several huge Japanese kanji blazed across a man’s back. They may tell you they know what their tattoo means. But do they really?
The blog Hanzismatter has been translating odd tattoos, tee-shirts and other misused Chinese, Japanese and Korean characters in the West since 2004, and over the years has exposed some truly ridiculous body inkings. (The site was overwhelmed with traffic the last time I checked it; I had to use the Wayback Machine to find these great examples.)
“Crazy diarrhea”
Chinese translation:
狂 = crazy
瀉 = to flow out, diarrhea
My hypothesis is that either the tattoo artist had a wicked sense of humor, or the customer picked out a few random characters from a book that he or she thought looked pretty. (This is why all your Chinese friends snicker at you, btw.) Also, this tattoo appears to be located just above the waistline on the lower back; its proximity to aforementioned crazy outflow can only add credence to the translation.
“I support a non-existent ethnic group”
The NBA’s Marcus Camby sports these Chinese characters on his right shoulder and bicep. Big and bold, they’re hard to miss and certainly make a statement on the court: a statement which says “I support a non-existent ethnic group.” Hanzi explains: “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.”
“Whipped husband”
A husband and wife got these matching tattoos. The wife’s tattoo means “wife” in Chinese, and the husband’s means “husband” or “son-in-law.” But in Japanese, the same character means “man who takes his wife’s name,” the English equivalent of saying someone is “whipped bigtime.” Gotta watch those double-meanings!
“Abusive husband pimps me out”
Unless this is a cry for help, this woman got majorly punked by her local tattoo artist. Submitted by a reader of BMEzine.com.
“I crave male genitals”
An eBay seller claims that this shirt means Fu** in Cantonese, but that’s not quite true.
Any readers have mistranslated tattoo stories they’d like to share?
Thanks to Chellis Ying for pointing out Hanzismatter to me.
We’re giving away five $10,000 scholarships. All you have to do is tell us, in 750 words or less, why you should win. But you have to tell us by 11:59pm on Saturday, January 31st. We look forward to reading your entries!
Comments (22)
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The character meaning“man who takes his wife’s name,”means adopted groom (”muko”), not “whipped bigtime” in Japanese. It is a common practice in Japan in (usually rural) households that wish to preserve their family name but have no sons. It has no shame attached to it. It also means simply “groom” or “son-in-law.”
Let’s be careful when correcting something that we don’t replace mistakes with more misinformation.
posted by Over 20 Years Living in Japan on 1-30-2009 at 11:55 am
I saw something interesting similar to this post about a year ago, only it was reversed. There were Chinese and Japanese people getting tattoos of English letters that either didn’t make any sense, or said a bad word.
posted by Ryiah on 1-30-2009 at 11:58 am
Any inkling I had for getting Chinese-character tattoos has been successfully killed off, ha.
I wonder what these people were told it meant when they were getting it done….
posted by Sarah in CA on 1-30-2009 at 12:16 pm
i have several tattoos (and plan to get more) but i have never had the desire to put foreign languages all over my body.
reCaptcha: multitudes quarrel
kind of poetic, no?
posted by the creature on 1-30-2009 at 12:21 pm
The other day I saw a Japanese teenager with the word ‘Sandwich’ tattooed across his back. He told me it was an English symbol that meant ‘warrior king’.
posted by EV on 1-30-2009 at 12:29 pm
At one point I heard a story from a tattoo artist about a guy that thought he got his name tattooed on his arm. He was a tall guy (this will be important later). His name had 4 letters and he got 4 characters… he thought all was good.
Unfortunately, all the Chinese international students laughed at him whenever they saw it. Finally he got up the courage to ask one of them what it meant. Apparently (/supposedly) it actually read something along the lines of “Tall as tree, dumb as log”.
posted by Troy in TX on 1-30-2009 at 12:31 pm
I have a tattoo of a purple squid on the back of my leg as a memorial to a friend of mine wo died of cancer. Everyone tells me it looks like a condom on hot of a medusa head because they just glance at it and don’t bother to actually LOOK at it.
posted by Kate on 1-30-2009 at 12:36 pm
I got a Chinese character tattoo when I was in college (forgive me, I was in COLLEGE! we all did dumb things). Anyway, it supposedly says “spirit” although when I thought about it later I realized it could say anything and I wouldn’t know the difference. I thought maybe it said something like “stupid American” or “short brunette”. My friends made fun of me, not because of what it could me but because they started chanting, “we’ve got SPIRIT, how ’bout you?” I’m definitely NOT a cheerleader type.
I’ve considered getting another tattoo but will be much more thoughtful in my choice next time.
posted by Liz on 1-30-2009 at 12:45 pm
I got chinese characters tattooed on the back of my next when I was 19. Luckily I was smart enough back then to do my research. I am happy to say that is has been confirmed many times by different people as being the correct translation.
Extra tidbit. I chose the back of my neck for two reason. 1. It’s easily hidden if I wear a shirt with a collar. 2. If I ever got tired of it I wouldn’t have to look at it on a daily basis.
posted by Nick on 1-30-2009 at 12:46 pm
That is funny! It is kind of like taking advantage of a passed out drunk at a college party. Writing all kinds of humiliating words, applying makeup etc.. At least that type of embarassment washes off in a couple of days. Think TWICE when choosing a symbol to have inked permanently on your body.
posted by mo on 1-30-2009 at 1:47 pm
This post just gave me a good idea for a Chinese character tattoo.
Is there a character for “inconceivable”?
posted by Zach on 1-30-2009 at 2:18 pm
I have never understood why non-Asian people want Asian tattoos.
posted by Carrie Burrows on 1-30-2009 at 4:47 pm
I speak a little Japanese and considered at one time getting my name as a tattoo…then it hit me: if I wouldn’t get my name tattooed onto my body in English why does the katakana make the difference?
Also…it really makes some people mad when you read their tattoos in kanji. I asked this guy once what his tat meant and he said it was a secret…I said Oh, and I thought it said ‘Full of Spirit’ (or whatever it was, can’t quite remember) and it made him SO mad!
posted by Amauriel on 1-30-2009 at 4:55 pm
After the untimely death of her brother a friend , and a number of the guys buddies, decided to honour his memory by copying a tattoo of which he had been very proud. Just one problem… The chinese characters translate to :”cheap and easy little brother”
posted by Petuniasweetpea on 1-31-2009 at 8:48 am
This so reminds me of a story my friend Little Dave has. This guy was over in Asia and got his name tattooed on his arm. He was so proud of it that when he got back to the states and opened a store he put the symbol right up on the sign. One day two Chinese tourists were found outside laughing their arses off. When he investigated they told him the symbol meant “Shiny head guy”.
posted by scott on 1-31-2009 at 11:29 am
I have the kanji symbols for courage on my back but I was born in Japan so it kindda means something to me and I checked the meaning with my japanese professor before I did it (yeah it was an 18th birthday compulsion too)
posted by Shawn on 1-31-2009 at 4:00 pm
The last one so isn’t “I crave male genitals.” It’s just “dick.”
hxxp://www.cojak.org/index.php?function=code_lookup&term=5C4C
And given the English translation on that page (”(Cant.) obscene exclamation”) I’m willing to give them a little leeway.
posted by Colin on 1-31-2009 at 4:16 pm
i had one done when I was young(er) and dumb(er) that they told me meant ’spirit’. come to find out, it meant warrior. Thankfully, it was easily covered up!
posted by Laura. on 1-31-2009 at 6:03 pm
My cousin bought be a purse with a Chinese character on it for my birthday. It was supposed to ethnic and cool I guess. Anyway, a friend of mine saw it and said that in context it meant one thing and by itself (as the design had it) it meant something obscene. Oh the joys of misguided globalism!
I saw a girl in the middle east wearing a shirt that said “TIME” in sparkles. She probably just thought “cool, western lettering” and didn’t realize that it made no sense. :)
posted by Yonit on 2-1-2009 at 5:05 am
I was living in Italy for a while, and once, during one of the Saturday markets, I saw this really cool jacket (at least, all the 12-year-old non-English-speakers thought so) that was black and sparkly and had the English words “FUCK BITCH” printed all over it. Yeah, I should have bought it.
posted by JenPo on 2-1-2009 at 6:18 pm
I have several kanji tattoos, 2 on my chest, and one on my back. I made sure to double and triple check all of them before I had them done. And I know for sure they’re correct, I walked into a store one day with my chest tatts showing, and the japanese dude behind the counter read them off, and said, “Life and Death? That is much too serious for a pretty young girl.”
Yay they’re right!
posted by Amdela on 2-2-2009 at 8:58 am
“Slumped” in Chinese means “more than the drastic devaluation of the meaning of” is meant more than diarrhea.
“Women” and “son-in-law” is a women and her husband meant.
What does it mean there is no rest, grammar barrier!
Thanks!
posted by usd6 on 2-4-2009 at 5:04 am