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Tattoo UL? (Tattoo Doesn't Mean What The Wearer Thought)

I have a tattoo on my inner thigh which my ex-girlfriend paid for as a Valentine present way back when I was 17. I lied about my age and he didn't even ask to see any ID. I chose a Chinese symbol for Male or Man and years later was told the same symbol stands for Husband too!! :shock:

It's got no colour in the middle because I picked off the scab one day in the bath.
 
A friend of mine recently got a phrase tattooed in Arabic on his forearm. It says something like "He who walks the path shall arrive" (allegedly). As it was his ex-girlfriend he got the phrase from, I wonder if it doesn't actually say "He who gets tattoos in languages he can't speak is rubbish in bed" or something.
 
Once when getting a tattoo done I joked with the tattooist about the popularity of oriental phrases. I asked him how they didn't know whether what was being tattooed didn't say 'sweet & sour chicken' instead of what they think it said. He laughed and said that they check the meanings with a local take-away employee. :shock: I think if I was to get one (I highly doubt it) then I would research the words myself and that way all I have to blame if it goes wrong is myself.
 
The problem in researching the words yourself (not to be too earnest about all this) is that it's not just the words themselves that need to be accurate.

One of the spice girls had 'girl power' tattooed in chinese characters. In japanese a reading could be 'onna chikara' or 'jyo ryoku' which is literally correct but in fact largely meaningless (suppose we changed it to 'woman strength' - the words would mean exactly the same thing, but then again it wouldn't mean the same thing), literarily awkward to say the least, and really quite ugly - two very basic, 2-stroke characters.

If I were going to get a tattoo in a foreign language, I'd find someone completely trustworthy and completely fluent to do a translation. If I could find such a person!
 
I read this thread a few days ago, and got very worried about a tattoo that i have. It is supposed to mean lion, but then yesterday at my new job, one of the managers there asked about it. I was especially worried when he asked what i think it means, but then he confirmed it does say lion (my horoscope symbol).
 
I once knew a stripper who had the work 'Spunk' tattoed on her behind in Chinese. She only found out after a kindly Chinese business man pointed it out... again, she thought it was 'strength'. She used to be a debt collector too. Interesting scars...
 
I know a few kanji and have seen a number of big men with 'women power' tatooed on their arms.
I've never felt inclined to point it out though.
 
ProfessorF said:
I once knew a stripper who had the work 'Spunk' tattoed on her behind in Chinese. She only found out after a kindly Chinese business man pointed it out... again, she thought it was 'strength'. She used to be a debt collector too. Interesting scars...
Click to expand...

"Spunk" meaning semen? At least that's a vaguely appropriate thing to be tattooed on the arse of a stripper. But if it's spunk meaning courage, that's pretty similar to strength.
 
I was never too clear on whichever was actually meant, kind of neat it cuts both ways!
 
Perhaps the Chinese man meant courage, and the girl misunderstood and thought he meant the other kind of spunk.
 
I'm sure there are a lot of English words which have no direct translation in Chinese, Japanese etc. I wonder how many people choose tattoos based on a pleasing shape, without regard for possible meanings.
 
I think probably there are people who do that. Although the perceptions of an alphabet culture person would be very different from those of a character culture person. What looks cool to one might look clumsy and inelegant to the other. Also calligraphy is such a very important art in chinese and japanese culture, which is one reason why chinese character tattoos often seem hilarious even if they're 'correct'.

Imagine say a tattoo of 'Carpe Diem' in clumsy mis-shapen letters that look like they've been done in felt-tip by a five-year-old.

I've got a bit into this recently, this blog is interesting if slightly smug
www.hanzismatter.com
but he links to http://www.bsudailynews.com/media/stora ... lynews.com
which I think is soo soo wrong on so many levels that I can't even begin to phrase a comment to it.
 
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