What is this Chinese character? (1 Viewer)

[ThomasC]

If it's Japanese as well, I'd like to know that too.

http://www.jenyo.com/tattoo.jpg

 

[Garrett Lundy]

Is it chinese for "tattoo"?

 

[Danny Tse]

One single Chinese character doesn't really make a "word". In Cantonese, the character sounds like "wai". This character is the first character in the Chinese "word" for regret, inheritence, or will (the document).

Doesn't sound positive, does it?

 

[ThomasC]

Well, some characters make a word. I'm Chinese, I'm just not that good with the language.

 

[Danny Tse]

You're right, Thomas. I should've re-word my sentence above.

 

[MarkHastings]

I saw a comedian who did a joke about those chinese tattoos. He said:

...what if the chinese are screwing with us and telling us improper meanings of these symbols. Some guy is walking down the street with what he thinks is "Power" and "Strength" on each arm, but the truth is, it really says "Peanut Butter' and "Jelly"

(in a bad chinese accent): "You see that guy? He wearing a sandwich."

 

[Danny Tse]

I see that on T-shirts already. Consider it payback for unleashing William Hung on us.

 

[ThomasC]

The only t-shirt with a Chinese character that I've been able to recognize is "ai" in Mandarin, which means love in English.

 

[Eric_E]

Hi Thomas,

In Japanese, that particular kanji (or hanzi if you prefer) by itself doesn't mean much of anything. When it's used as part of a compound, it can mean a wide variety of things, but it's not really a frequently used character. Was there any more to the tattoo that might be a clue?

Eric

 

[ThomasC]

That's all I know of, and I'm only asking because a friend asked me.

 

[Ted Lee]

i definitely have no clue, but i'll ask my aunt...

 

[Garrett Lundy]

There is one in the BME (www.bmezine.com) archives that translates to "Ignorant round-eye bitch". thought it was pretty funny.

 

[Chris Derby]

I read an article a few years ago about an asian tatoo artist that actually did this. He said that he was sick and tired of non-asians coming in to get tatoos of symbols that have no meaning to them. I'll see if I can locate the article.

 

[Michael Caicedo]

I read that Yao Ming looks at some of the NBA players with tatoos with curiosity because the chinese characters or words often mean something that doesn't make sense. For instance, he said Kenyan Martin sports one that means "hesitant" which he says that's not how Kenyan plays at all.

 

[MarkHastings]

It does look similar to "regret":
http://chineseculture.about.com/libr...lcc_regret.htm

Maybe that's the joke? You "regret" trusting someones translation of what you REALLY wanted?

 

[Ted Lee]

my aunt says it may mean "send", but she's not sure...

 

[ThomasC]

Oh man, I remember back in August, I saw this custom painted car with a Chinese character on it. I wrote it down, and asked my dad later what it meant. "Urine." Ooh.

 

[Danny Tse]

Go to http://world.altavista.com/

Type in "regret" and translate from English into traditional Chinese

 

[SteveBro]

"Regret" would be the best start, but without the second character ("hum" in Cantonese, "han" in Mandarin), it doesn't mean much on its own. This would be a strange choice for a tattoo, to be sure.

 

[Gregg Shiu]

Hey all, here's the article Chris was probably talking about, though I'm not too sure if it's the original form I saw way back last year.

http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-chat/960753/posts

I'm not necessarily sure it's ethically right to do this to people ever, no matter what the circumstance. Seeing as how one pays you to do the job, you're effectively cheating them out of their money and not owning up to your part by being deceitful, and admittedly childish. However, for the sake of humor, some of the people do seem to be asking for trouble. I mean, for god sake's bring a goddamn Asian friend as a little insurance. Hell, I can't really read Chinese but I'm sure a tattoo artist wouldn't call the bluff of me being there.