little. yellow. different. A weblog by Ernie Hsiung

vegetable, love, same difference

Lost in Translation: What those cool Japanese tattoos really say.

This reminds me of a story.

Back in the eighth grade, my friends sister got a tattoo. As the rebel in the family, this was to be expected. (Then again, we were all a bunch of God-fearing Christians back then, so getting a tattoo was the equivalent of fucking the football team with a heroin needle stuck in your jugular vein.)

“Wanna see my tattoo?” she asks. She turns around and lifts the back of her tank top. Smack dab in the middle of her back, there is a Chinese character:

菜

(To see this character in Chinese, you must enable CJK support on your web browser. Otherwise, just click on the numbers for a link to a graphic image of the character.)

Ernie: Why does your tattoo say “vegetable?”
Tattoo girl: It does not say “vegetable.” It says “love.”
Ernie: No, it says “vegetable.” It looks kind of like the character for love, but it says “vegetable.”
Tattoo girl: ohmygod I’m going to throw up

In hindsight, it turns out that the tattoo on the girls back was the simplied version of “love” and not the character I was used to seeing. Nonetheless, the look on her face was one that I will cherish forever. It also makes for an easy joke at parties:

Frat boy: Duuuude! I just got my fuckin’ tat, man. It took four hours and hurt like a bitch, but it’s fuckin’ SWEET! It means “STRENGTH,” man! Checkit!
Ernie: Uhm, it says “herpes.”

When i was in grade 8 my asian hairdresser shaved a symbol into my nearly bald head that he told me meant “punk.” The next day I was kicked out of school as it apparantly had a rather vulgar meaning instead. Lying bastard got me a free week’s vacation

There was a rather obnoxious girl at college last year who thought her fairly noticeable tattoo meant ‘hope’.

It was either ‘cow’ or ‘pig’. Kept me amused for the rest of the year.

Ernie, I just know you’d never do that to a (studly) frat boy. That would be horribly mean. That’s my job.

Ya know, I see so many miscellaneou “white people” with Chinese and Japanese characters on their bodies, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen any Asian with english letters.

What’s up with that?

Oh dear…too damn funny.

You won’t see a Chinese person sporting a big letter ‘E”! or “C” on their lower back because it’s, well, stupid.

And Ernie - herpies? Vegatable? You bastard

*giggle* You rock, Ernie!

What’s the Chinese symbol for “Stupid white people think it’s cool to use our language to mark up their bodies so we’re going to put funny words on them so we can gawk and laugh at them when they go out in public feeling cool for having a big ink mark on their body!”?

There was an article not too long ago about a disgruntled asian tattoo artist that was tired of white kids getting chinese/japanese characters they had no clue about, so he tweaked the meanings and they were clueless. Power & Strength became Short Penis, Princess became Prostitute. I wish I remembered the link.

This from the guy who has “bear” tattooed on his arm.

This dumbfuck guy I work with got 4 Chinese symbols tattooed on his forearms–2 on each. One means courage, another strength or some shit and one is the symbol for Taoism and the other means PLAYER.

When I asked this clueless fuck to explain why he got the Taoism symbol he told me he read the “Tao of Pooh” and it changed his life.

This guy’s name is Goat, by the way.

Geez people, lighten up a bit. First, in English the individual letters (except for I maybe) are meaningless. Japanese/Chinese characters on the other hand can stand for a whole word. And let’s face it, the characters look cool. What’s wrong with people appreciating that?

My boyfriend, by the way, thought it would be funny to get a tattoo of the character Cheese (we are in WI) because people would always assume it was something profound like courage.

Gotta agree with Carol.. I don’t have any tattoos, but I’m one of those “stupid white people” who looks at chinese and japaneses characters and think they’re fascinating.

People get tattoos of stars, fire, hearts, all the way up to elaborate designs.. to represent feelings, thoughts, practices, beliefs, etc. Images represent things. Well, chinese and japanese characters can do both. They’re intricate designs and represent a word.

If you don’t know the language, then research it and make sure you understand what you’re doing. Yeah there’s some stupid people out there, but not everyone is.

As a stupid white girl who just got a tattoo I seriously contemplated adding a Chinese character such as warrior, strength or courage. After much research I just stuck with the image figuring I could add something more later. It was primarily for the fact that I didn’t want to inadvertantly get something offensive or strange imprinted on my body.

Here’s the link for the English guys who got: “At the end of the day he is still and ugly boy” written in Chinese on his arm.

http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/essays/tattoos.htm

For Naladhac:
http://www.engrish.com/category_index.php?category=Clothing

They’re not tattoos (so probably wiser because they’re easy to remove), but same basic idea.

If I ever got a Chinese or Japanese symbol tattoo and people asked me what it meant, I’d just say “cow” or “pig” or “gerbil” or something like that, figuring it probably meant something much more prosaic than the “chaos” or “power” symbol the tattoo parlor had promised. Then people would correct me: “Oh, you’re wrong, it means “super-fly shiksa.” And then I’d go pale and squeak, “Shiksa?! Oh, that damn cheap Gentile tattoo parlor…”

Maybe she has a distant relative who is, for lack of a better term, a “vegetable”? Just a thought. I’m sick, I know.

ern–you remember the birthmark on the back of greggie’s leg that looks kinda like a 5? he’d considered covering it with a tattoo that says “bigmac fries coke” in mandarin. what do you think?

Roger- is this what you were referring to?

http://www.angelfire.com/pa3/toplesscarwashdoc/tattooartist.html

I enjoy the decals on car rear windows - usually Hondas. Expecially when they’re applied upside down!

don’t have much to add except that the link brought up madonna using fake japanese on an album cover…. it reminded me of her video for “die another day” where she rips off jewish ritual & ends up looking pretty dumb.

that tattoo in hebrew letters she has on her arm, that later burns into the chair when she escapes spells “lav”. now this sounds kind of like “love” i guess, but the only thing it means is “no” in ancient aramaic.

heh. i always wonder if people know what their tattoos mean.

Lav, eh? In english, that could be short for ‘lavatory’. I wouldn’t put it past Madonna to be playing with that, either.
Ernie, I linked your blog awhile back just cos I like to check up on what lunacy you’ve found in the world lately. You never disappoint, either. And now I’ve learnt that the simple character for love is very close to that for vegetable. Pondering that can last me a week, easily.

Hey Ernie:

Q: What’s the hardest part of a vegetable to eat?

A: Whe wheelchair!

Love,

J.

For those of you who read Chinese — whenever someone asks me for something that’d be a cool tattoo, I suggest 小小的鸡巴. I tell them it means “virtue and strength.”

…Unfortunately, I always have an attack of conscience before they go to the tattoo parlour, and tell them what it really means.

(It means “tiny cock.”)

haha that’s funny man !

Sire, that word does mean “vegetable”, and is no where near the simplified version for “love”. See the horizontal line with two dashes on top of that character? Most Chinese characters with that part symbolizes some kind of plant. Moreover, “vegetable” has the character for “wood” embedded in it on the bottom. The simplified character for “love” has a different top and has the character “friendship” embedded in it.

Further still, the word “ai”, love, is not exactly used the same way as the English word “love”. Sole characters in Chinese have weird meanings if used by themselves. Most Chinese “words” involve a combination of two or more characters.

A very white friend of mine has a shirt that says “I am a stupid American” in Japanese. He knows what it says, though, since he actually does speak Japanese.

Apparently he got lots of laughs and made lots of friends when he wore it in Japan though.

See, it’s nice to know that I’m smarter than the average white girl and would never put any language permanent on her skin that I wasn’t fluent in.

I always remember the character for “love” because it looks like a flute player, you know, wooing…is that what it’s supposed to be?

and apparently I’m not even fluent in my own language. I meant “my skin” not “her skin”

SEE???

There’s a Sprite ad here where cool kids are showing off their tattoos, which they claim are the signs for “strenght”, “courage”, and what have you. And at the end of the ad there’s an old Chinese dude in a restaurant, who’s laughing, because he just tattooed the specials on them. That’ll teach ‘em.

Actually, the tattoo/marking on Madonna’s arm in the “Die another day” video are one of the 72 names of God that come from a branch of the Jewish faith called Kaballah. Madonna has been studying Kabbalah. Anyways, lamed aleph heh, the symbol on her arm supposedly gives you the power to conquer your ego and also stand for something like “great escape”. 72.com has more information if you are interested.

It’s impossible to tell what the symbol sounds like as in Hebrew there may be vowel sounds that are not written. So it could be pronounced lav, love, laoh, laoo, and many more. But if you wanted to write love in Hebrew in could be written like that. It’s the first thing I thought of when I saw it in the video.

ooops, sorry it is lamed aleph vav!!!

Unfortunately I know that story all too well.
I have a number of tattoos that I always do research on, and usually design myself, however while living in Las Vegas, and being under the influence, of something, I got the Chinese character for “water” on my back. It is of pretty good size. After moving to Vancouver and making Chinese friends, I have found out it really means “wood.” So, now I am making plans to get it covered. Never trust someone who isn’t chinese!!

I had a grey and red jersey fabric tank top at one point, with a large Chinese symbol emblazoned across the entirety of its’ front. Went to a Chinese restaurant in town one day with some friends, and on the way out, the cashier (tiny, rather old, pleasant woman…I think the owner’s mother, or something) stopped me and asked if I knew what it meant.

“No…” I replied sheepishly.
“American girl pays too much for shirt!” she answered with a big smile, and I almost died. I KNOW I turned bright red, and stammered a bit; she took pity on me, though, and laughed only a little bit before she told me that it actually was just the character for “Lucky.”

…I never wore that shirt again.

I have an extremely life-like tatoo of a face on the front of my head. It was extremely expensive, and without going into too much detail, I got ripped off.

ROFL!

I bet she’s never lived it down! Poor girl. That’ll teach her to try shock tactics again

i wish people weren’t so mean to each other.

by this i mean calling people stupid. and also someone spitefully affecting someone’s life by tattooing something the person didn’t want on them.

it is unfortunate that it is now stupid to trust people.

i always wonder what about themselves people are defending when they call a tattooed person stupid? as for languages, they are flexible, and i believe even in one’s native language, more care should be taken with the words we use, especially when they are so powerful and can hurt.

instead of looking at a person and sneering or thinking negative thoughts, why can’t we try to appreciate something good about them, at the very least their fragility.

would an asian person tattooing a derogatory thing on a white person (for the rest of their life) be akin to a ‘white’ person mistranslating english for a non-speaker with such consequences to seriously affect them for as long? deportation, jail, humilitation?

or are we hypocrites?

actually water and wood can look VERY similar if you write water badly.

Tattooed mothers rawk.

Dave,
That was it, but the more I look at it, the more it looks bogus, but it was still entertaining.

I have a shirt with a background pattern of repeating chinese characters, and I don’t have a CLUE wat it says. I keep meaning to wear it to work and ask my Chinese colleagues, but it’s really more of a summer outdoor type of shirt. And I’m afraid it means something silly.
I saw an Asian girl in the subway in Paris wearing a T-shirt that said “Let’s go downtown, have friends!” accompanied by a picture of a dancing squirrel who had a thought bubble over its head with the word “Daily” in it, and I’m afraid I have a similarly nonsensical Chinese shirt…

so the aramaic word for “no” is actually a magic name of god that will give you superpowers.

sure… that’s what they told MADONNA.
it’s my own personal gripe, but if she really respected judaism that much, would she use a “name of god” to look butch in a music video?

Of course she would, because she’s Madonna and she thinks it’s paying a lot of respect to feature something in one of her music videos.
PS - I want to get a tattoo of the word “fat” in some other language on me… it’s funny because I’m super skinny… and if I ever GET fat, then it’ll be fitting as well.

I know a not-so-stupid but still dumb white girl who had the word “shalom” tatooed onto her body in Arabic. Only the word “shalom” doesn’t exist in Arabic, so it was a representation of direct translation from the English spelling of the word “Shalom.” Essentially, it meant nothing. And damn was it funny when we told her
BTW- i am a white girl who thinks that it’s a bit appropriationist to tattoo words, symbols and other culturally meaningful things onto ones body without making an effort to unerstand the culture, let alone the word or symbol, you’re “borrowing” from. It kind of wreaks of privilege. AND you look like a poser.

I thought I had researched well enough when I got the symbols for “harmony” “love” and “tranquility” tattooed a couple of years ago. My Japanese aunt helped me out a little. Turns out, it says “harmony” “love” and “cheap.” She thinks it’s hilarious. Lucky me.

Hahahahaahaha..
You made me spray coffee all over my monitor..

Me:
uhm.. it says *splurt* “HAHAHA” .. … ”

Still got coffee in the corners.. need more napkins.. brb.

Hehe.. my brother has a tattoo of the kanji symbol for “strength”.. or so he thinks. He doesn’t know chinese or japanese, nor is he even Asian. I’m so tempted to look up what it really means for him.

And he had the nerve to tell me to make sure I got a tattoo that meant something to me… HA!

I wonder if a tattoo artist would think it funny if a customer came back with a lawsuit and/or a serious beating followed by tattooing a derogatory word on the artist’s face? Perhaps someone could go a little more low-tech and simply break the artist’s hand or cut off their fingers for their insolence.

I, for one, think all of those options would be very funny. Very funny, indeed.

ok, just a comment that its not just stupid white people getting meaningless tatoos on them, my ex-room mate (korean american) got “water” tattooed on her right wrist even though she was kinda clueless to what chinese chracters meant or how they were read… so its not just “stupid white people” its anyone who dosent clue into cultures yo

Hi,

I hope you can answer a question for me.
If I would like to tattoo the word “escape” in hebrew, what would that look like?

Grateful for an answer
// Nonni

Fantastic story.

I have started a blog in beginning of 2004 October to keep track of the misuse of Chinese/Japanese characters in Western culture. Feel free to take a peak:

Hanzi Smatter

My Indian friend sees the term ‘wanker’ as integral to his identity, so had the appropriate Chinese characters tattooed on his shoulderblade. Problem is, he got them from one of those microscopic pocket dictionaries, so when he photocopied and enlarged them, they became one mass on the page. He was none the wiser, neither was the artist who copied the characters verbatim. IT looks like someone carelessly splooged it across its skin. Which adds to the meaning, I suppose