I’m just glad that a tattoo has never been one of mine. Â Via Radley comes this site that will translate various Asian character tattoos for people who don’t know what they really have inked on their skin. Â It was only mildly amusing until I came across this one that made me laugh out loud:
A coworker of mine has a tattoo he got while he was out partying a couple a years ago and has absolutely no idea what it means. Can you tell us?
Thanks,
Tim
Why would anyone be proud of tattoo that says: “to commit any imaginable evil”?
Some of the other examples include a woman who thought her tattoo meant beauty, but found out it means sheep, and a girl who thought her tattoo said Princess, but it wasn’t quite accurate – more like palace. Â It makes me very happy that even in my drunkest moments, having someone stab me with a needle never fell on my “list of things to do tonight.”
Drunken tattoos alone typically don’t tend to be too embarrassing down the road (unless it’s someone’s name). But when you combine tattoos with a fetish for all things Asian, you have the recipe for disaster.
It’s especially sad that people get things like this with the internet around. It’s not that hard to research the kanji yourself beforehand.
You want proof that Americans are too bloody rich? Look at the number of kids who are 19, 20, 21, with full sleeves of tattoos, or vast amounts of “body modification.” Even if you don’t find the whole thing repugnant, the amount of money that has been wasted on this practice is shocking. As far as I’m concerned, anyone who pleads that he needs the government to help him modify his mortgage, or feed his kids, or extend unemployment, better not have $500 or $1000 worth of “body art.” Unlike a big screen TV, or a fancy cell phone, it’s a bit hard to pawn or sell.
I forget what show it was (quite forgetable) but there was a scene I saw where one of the stars was bragging about his new tattoo, which he thought was the idio(t)gram for “strong warrior” or somesuch….
An elderly Chinese gent in the store told him “Thats not strong warrior…it means ….” and he thinks for a bit…”two men who love each other? The one who’s the woman”.
Good reason not to get any tattoo you can’t read.
I see LOTS of tattoos on LOTS of people, and they never look very good… Which is a good reason not to get any tattoos at all, I guess.
It’s funny though: Some person all body-modded up, full sleeve tattoos, piercings, etc whining about the pain of an injection…
This was really good for a laugh.
My favorite tattoo story involves a friend’s ex-husband. Before they got together, he had been engaged to another woman. They both had their respective initials tattooed on their inner thighs. Given his name was Michael Edward N**son, I always wondered what future boyfriends thought of her tattoo.
I always wondered what future boyfriends thought of her tattoo.
Disappointment that the other thigh didn’t say WOMEN?
Inner thigh??
Not to exclude the issue of placement, but as a graphics-guy there’s no way I’d ever be able to finalize on some illustration art that was so permanent, so no ink here.
No ink for me… ever. Heck I won’t even wear a T-shirt if it has “information” I don’t understand. The SO brought home a T shirt depicting an organic molecule. I refused to wear it until the molecule was identified. I wouldn’t want to be wearing something depicting some illegal or controlled substance.
(Turns out it was caffeine)
They both had their respective initials tattooed on their inner thighs.
What is it with getting a tattoo of someone else’s name? I had an ex-girlfriend who had her ex-fiance’s name as a tattoo– a permanent visual indicator of relationship choices…
When I was young, and had nothing better to do, I would spend my spare time reading through the case law associated with the California Penal Code. (It can be quite interesting, in a “I can’t stop watching the train wreck” way.) I remember reading a decision concerning whether tattooing qualified as “mayhem.” In this case, a bunch of motorcycle gang members had kidnapped and gang raped a woman, then to add to the insult, tattooed crude remarks all over her body, including in some intimate spots.
The courts decided that because this was effectively a permanent, uncorrectable problem, it met the standard created by Parliament with respect to nose splitting. (An MP had said something uncomplimentary about the king, and some of his thugs grabbed hold of the MP in an alley, and split his nose–a problem not repairable in those days.)
These days, many women would probably pay to have this done.
Singer Jimmy Buffett refers to tattoos as “a permanent reminder of a temporary feeling.”
@ Danno – that reminds me of travelling in Asia – lots of English expressions on t-shirts which really don’t make much sense, bad grammer, etc and occasionally double entendres, something borderline obscene or otherwise inappropriate. Not unusual to see children wearing these shirts too.
Another problem is linguistic drift. Your collection of Asian characters can mean one thing in Chinese, and something quite different in Japanese.
I had a girlfriend who had her previous (abusive) boyfriend’s name tattooed in the possessive below the belt. She’d been in love and went all in.
It’s the tattoos on expanding body parts that confuse me. Some 25 years ago, when tattoos weren’t so common, I was in a club in San Francisco when a dancing young woman tied up her shirt to reveal a coiled snake on her stomach. It looked good then but I sometimes wonder if it doesn’t look like an anaconda on a woman in her mid-forties.
I admit to having a few “drunken regrets” from back in the day … but getting a tattoo isn’t one of them.
I seriously contemplated a tattoo (my own design) back when I was 21 or 22 … but knowing it was “permanent”, I just thought about it for a while. Several months later, the appeal of the tattoo just diminished.
Let me add that I have no problem whatsoever with tattoos, piercings, etc. For better or for worse, they are simply the result of individual choices stemming from individual freedom.
I do recall once, however, seeing a shirtless guy in eastern KY with a huge tattoo on his back. It said “FUCK THE POLICE.” Wow, I thought. I happened to be open carrying a 1911. While talking on the phone outside a C-store, I noticed that he noticed me. He kept looking at me, shaking his head, and just generally acting like an ass. I suppose he thought I was a cop. He was one seriously rough customer …
Carl, I agree: People have the right to be stupid. In fact, my livelihood depends on it.
And I have seen that guy (or people just like him) several times. Usually after the police discover his animus towards them.
“Let me add that I have no problem whatsoever with tattoos, piercings, etc. For better or for worse, they are simply the result of individual choices stemming from individual freedom.”
There are some body modifications that make me suddenly partial to the idea of a “cooling off” period. Of course, some people are too stupid for it to help.
Girl I went to college with stopped by my dorm room. She had gotten a tattoo that night and wanted to show me. I’ll just say her name started with “A” and her tattoo supposedly a “Japanese A”
She knew I was taking Japanese that semester so she thought I’d be impressed. I pulled down my text books and we went over Katakana, and Hirigana (I doubt Kanji would be appropriate with single-letters) and pointed out that a “Japanese A” looks nothing like the tattoo she had. Furthermore as far as I could tell what she had inked didn’t look even remotely Japanese. I wonder if she ever figured out what was on her skin….