June 12, 2008

your tattoo, I do not think it means what you think it means

Sort of a strange Chinese into English translations in reverse: a lot of people who have Chinese characters inked onto their bodies come to find their special characters don’t mean exactly they think they mean. Britney Spears, for instance, had a tattoo she thought meant mysterious that actually meant strange. The result is a booming business in tattoo removal.

James Morel, the chief executive officer of Dr. Tattoff, tattoo removal specialists in Beverly Hills, Calif., says his clinics sign up five or six new patients a week who, like Mr. Magness and Ms. Norton, have discovered that their Chinese tattoos mean something drastically different from what they intended.

posted by Deron Bauman in branding, language | * | 8 comments 

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comments

  1. Daryl Scroggins on June 12th, 2008 at 12:21 pm

    You think there’s a Chinese character for “up for hot donkey action”? Do they even have donkeys over there? I bet they do. I bet the character would look something like this: ~/%/*==&

  2. Deron Bauman on June 12th, 2008 at 12:22 pm

    I’m having one removed as we speak.

  3. TJ McFisty on June 12th, 2008 at 12:30 pm

    I sure hope the “Put Man Snake In Me Now” tattoo above my coin slot doesn’t say something all Confucius-y. That would explain why I didn’t get any at last month’s Chinese orgy.

  4. Kris on June 12th, 2008 at 4:47 pm

    My brother once took part in a ‘work for the dole’ program with a guy who had “Get fucked” tattooed on his forehead. He claimed that “a mate” in prison said that he was writing the names of his two kids. (Why you would want your kids’ names on your forehead is beyond me.)

    I think that they had difficulty shifting him into paid work.

  5. Sheila Ryan on June 12th, 2008 at 7:22 pm

    For all of the times I have said, “Do I look like I have FUCK tattooed on my forehead?”, it never occurred to me that anyone might actually have GET FUCKED tattooed on his forehead.

  6. Derek on June 13th, 2008 at 10:17 am

    I know what my tattoo is:
    (http://www.5cense.com/images/Time_being_tattoo.jpg) but when people ask what it means, like yesterday when I was in an elevator, I say “it’s just a design with lines in it”.

  7. david on June 13th, 2008 at 1:38 pm

    Was this post written in 2006? Or is it just coincidence that both links point to content from that year?

  8. Michael Smith on June 13th, 2008 at 1:45 pm

    We operate outside the constraints of time.

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