"Dare not to Accept"

www.porkdisco.com/g2/v/badtattoos/skanktatoos/s640x480-1.jpeg.htmlReader Johan L. forwarded this photo to me from another site. Someone has already commented about the tattoo:"Wow. It almost seems like this is the biggest cliche female tattoo I've seen. It's a lower back tattoo, it's got a dragon, tribal, random water splashes, roses, AND kanji!...

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"Knife Through Loss"

http://www.bmezine.com/tattoo/A60123/high/bmepb211706.jpgThis untitled submission to BMEzine.com's kanji tattoo gallery only had caption of "Tattoo done on Ian. by Tracie at MARKED FOR LIFE. Ossett. West Yorkshire."The first character appears to be 刀 (knife). The next two 通过 means "pass through". The last two 损失 is "loss".The faux-brush calligraphy...

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"Freedom Fighter"

An U. S. Navy recruiter from Raleigh, North Carolina, emailed me this photo and says the young recruit (tattoo's owner) claimed it meant "freedom fighter".The closest character would even resemble the bottom one would be 埋, which means "[to] bury". The top two characters 他 and 斯 only mean "he/him" and "this/thus". The bottom character 娌 means "brother's...

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"SCK"

I got this photo along with an email from a young lady in Canada a few days ago. She said when she was 16 years old; she had her grandfather’s initials “SCK” to be tattooed in “Chinese lettering”. Although the two lower characters 安 and 空 are recognizable, the first character is only a partial of 流 (flow). The three characters do not pronounce...

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The Republic of Tea

Joel Martinsen of Danwei.org (a fantastic website about media, advertising, and urban life in China) has emailed me this canister label from The Republic of Tea, a beverage company based in Novato, California. This is just another example of mistakes made by American companies while trying to cashing in on the trend of "Asian cool".普 of 普洱 is missing...

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Interview with NPR

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5150077This afternoon I was interviewed by Robert Siegel of NPR’s program - All Things Considered.Audio from the interview can be downloaded via NPR’s website or below:npr_20060111_atc_hanzismatter.mp3npr_20060111_atc_hanzismatter.wmaRelated media exposure:Associated Press - Lost in TranslationSTUFF...

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"Peace, Happiness, Love, Chaos"

http://www.bmezine.com/tattoo/A51216/high/bmepb183810.jpgThis tattoo was submitted to BMEzine's tattoo gallery by Scott of S & J Tattoos in Lancaster, CA.The photo's caption said the four characters are "Japanese text for Peace, Happiness, Love, and Chaos".I have never seen any "happiness" character is written as the second character shown here...

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"Grasping Fate"

攬, "grasp, take hold of; monopolize",緣, "hem, margin; reason, cause; karma, fate",Note to self: I really should start charging U. S. Navy recruiting office for all the work I have done for th...

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"Forever Lost"

http://www.bmezine.com/tattoo/A51216/high/bmepb183813.jpg If this tattooed phrase would be translated into English as "character-per-word", it would say "Forever Lost" or "Eternally Lost". Aside from the terrible calligraphy, the phrase is grammatically incorrect when it is read as Chinese....

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"Bad Yob"

Reader Nicolas emailed me this photo of his friend's tattoo. It suppose to be "bad boy" in Chinese (壞男孩), except the order of last two characters has been revers...

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