www.hanzismatter.com
From reader Burak I: Dear Friend, My name is Burak and I saw your website by chance when surf ing. I have a Chinese tattoo too and I'm very curious what it means in r eal. As I know, it means "desire" or pronounced as Arzu which means de sire in Turkish. Sometime I feel bad for the ones gotten Chinese tattoos from phonetic tra nslations.
I'm a westerner, and despite my trying to look up the top character on t he fake mustached guy, I couldn't find it and gave up." I am actually impressed by these two yahoos and their hanzi effort. Even though, they did it for Halloween, but the characters written on their a rms are much better than some of the tattoo photos I have been receiving .
Many of t hem are in the category of: I know/seen someone that is Chinese/Japanese/Korean descend that has/had tattoo/shirt that has Hanzi/Kanji on them, therefore I would like to reemphasize that Hanzi Smatter is dedicated to the misus e of Chinese characters (hanzi or kanji) in Western culture. Having that said, certainly Asians would have Hanzi/Kanji tattoo on them, even though they are not popular in Asia. Especially considering it is their language, and a native Chinese/Japanese person would probably know Hanzi/Kanji better than any Westerner. The problem is NOT that people are getting characters tattooed on them; i t's that people who don't understand the characters are getting characte rs tattooed on them by other people who don't understand the characters. To those of us who do, it's a cause for mirth and head-shaking.
Brendan) Another phenomenon I have encountered is: I have seen this character in a movie and it meant THIS, and your websit e says it meant THAT, therefore Well, just because Hollywood says that is so doesn't mean it's true. Thanks to a tattoo artist and fellow reader Devin, that question has been answered: A kanji is the cheapest thing that you can get at the tattoo parlor. For the most part they require no thought and are chosen on impulse right b efore getting tattooed. Most of the people who get these tattoos dont c are what it is; Anyone serious about doing nice Japanese style tattoos either A) dont ge t kanjis, or B) do some research first.
are from people who should have never gotten ta ttooed period. The tattoo artists dont care what the kanji means because they dont car e what you put on your body, especially when you are getting the cheapes t tattoo in the shop. Most tattoo artists cant read Japanese so how do they know what that stuff says, all they know is that youre sure that t his is what you want on your body for the rest of your life.
BMEZine (Body Modific ation Extreme Magazine) along with the following comment: "I wonder why you never see native Chinese or Japanese with character tat toos? Maybe these misguided Westerners should ask themselves this first. But many of them obviously don't have a strong enough interest in the c ultures to learn about them before putting a permanent mark of something they don't understand on their bodies."
I do enjoy looking at some tattoos, even though majority of them are poorly done. Tattoos in Chinese (or Asi an) culture have negative meanings attached to them. Tattoo started in China thousands of years ago as punishment for criminal s Instead of modern day's local police to notify residents that a sex o ffender is moving into their neighborhood, the Chinese have tattooed the ir criminals on their faces with information such as name, crime committ ed, etc... Asian organized crime groups such as Japanese Yakusa and Chinese Triad, r equire their members to have large tattoo done to prove their loyalty. S ome Japanese businesses have signs posted to refuse service to anyone wi th such tattoos. I can categorize the people who gets Hanzi or Kanji tattoos in following groups: 1 "To Be Cool" These are mostly people that have very little knowledge of outside world, especially about the Far East. They got the tattoo because it was somet hing new to them, and they liked how Hanzi or Kanji looked, without full y understand what they meant. Therefore, they would borrow something for another culture and ide ntify themselves with the new one. They could careless what it said, but it makes them stand out from a crowd. Any att ention is better than no-attention, regardless if it is positive or nega tive.
I have seen some companies that print tattoo templates with a horizontal bar on top of t he character to indicate "this way up". Obviously the tattooist thought the horizontal bar suppose to be there.
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