Chinese Character Tattoos: Lost in Translation (Audio)

NPR ^ | January 11, 2006

[Dr. Marten]

All Things Considered, January 11, 2006 · Robert Siegel talks with Tian Tang, author of a Web site dedicated to the misuse of Chinese characters in Western culture. Tang posts photos of Chinese character tattoos that either contain errors or carry no meaning.

Tang says as a Chinese American, he felt it was his "duty and honor to educate the public about the misusage of Chinese characters."

 

A reader e-mailed Tang this photo of a friend's tattoo. It's supposed to read "bad boy" in Chinese, except the order of last two characters has been reversed. Courtesy Tian Tang

 

Listen to the audio here.

[InsensitiveConservative]

That's hirrarious!

The following is from an email I received out lining 'new rules' for 06..

New Rule: Just because your tattoo has Chinese characters in it doesn't make you spiritual. It's right above the crack of your azz. And it translates to "beef with broccoli." The last time you did anything spiritual, you were praying to God you weren't pregnant. You're not spiritual. You're just high.

LOL!

[jas3]

In Pinyin "English" would be written as: Yingguowen and pronounced more like Yin-gow-wen, which roughly translates to Hero Land Talk. So if you want an equivalent to "Engrish" try "Yingruowen".

jas3

p.s. America is Meiguo aka "Pretty Land", and France is Faguo...draw your own conclusions on France.....it certainly is easy to remember.

[Mr. Jazzy]

Reminds me of the story my son in Afghanistan told me of a Marine who paid one of the locals to stitch the Marines name in the Pashtoon language on the outside of his knit cover, worn in cold weather. One of the sergeants got to the local and paid the guy $20 to stitch the equivalent of "Alpha Hotel" on the cover.

The Marine wore the cap all over the place for about a week, getting all kinds of confused looks until finally he was asked by an Afghani why he had that written on his cover? The Marine said that it was his name. The Afghani told him the truth and finally the secret was out. Lots of laughs and it was taken with no hard feelings.

[Buzwardo]

I've always hoped that some of the strings of character I've seen translate to "I just separated this round eyed fool from a bunch of cash."

[Ignatz]

I usually kid the tramp-stampers I meet by telling them that their lower-back tat translates to "target acquired", lol!

[RVN Airplane Driver]

you said: Almost as funny as Kennedy's "Ich bin ein Berliner" - literal translation "I'm a jelly donut!"

You, my friend are incorrect...and have swallowed hook, line and sinker an urban legend. The President said it correctly.

[bk1000]

I read a story on a site dedicated to people who mess with Nigerian scammers and such, about a guy who teased a female co-worker about this very thing. He even quickly photoshopped a Chinese take-out menu to include a character that closely resembled hers to show her. He claims to have totally distressed the girl but later apologized.

[twigs]

Actually, I'm thinking about taking a local Chinese class. One of my close friends is Chinese and I'd love to be able to talk--what little I could learn in my old age--with her. But I think I'll leave tattooing to others. And art I never did understand.

[Yo-Yo]

[AppyPappy]

I convinced a guy one time that the Chinese word for "chicken" (ji) is the same word for "cat".

[r9etb]

LOL! And if you follow the line of sight of the camera, you'll end up at the right back ah chew....

[reagan_fanatic]

[timsbella]

Sorry darlin' - I speak it and although it's one of those niggly thangs, he did blow the personal emphasis. "ein" would have been fine in reference to a country, but not to a city.

No matter, they cheered and did not chuckle. Just be glad he didn't get a tattoo ;)

[Steel Wolf]

I see incorrect Chinese tattoos every now and then, which is usually just Chinese looking squiggles, but occasionally real words that aren't what the owners think they are. My all time favorite was when a waitress brough me and my friends at a bar some drinks. One of them pointed out that I spoke Chinese, and asked her to show me her tattoo (which was half concealed by her sleeve).

She smiled and said, 'Sure thing! This one on top means 'pretty' and the one below it means 'girl'. I nodded, with a blank look on my face. As soon as she departed, I turned to the guy on my left and said, "I didn't have the heart to tell her, but she got screwed by whoever did her tattoo. Her tattoo didn't say 'pretty girl'. It said 'ancient horse'."

[John O]

Almost as funny as Kennedy's "Ich bin ein Berliner" - literal translation "I'm a jelly donut!"

You, my friend are incorrect...and have swallowed hook, line and sinker an urban legend. The President said it correctly

From what I understand, everywhere else in Germany a berliner IS a jelly donut. So while he may have been correct in Berlin the rest of the country heard "I am a jelly donut"

(But then I could be wrong. It's happend before. I think)

[timsbella]

You've right. It's roughly the equivalent of saying "I'm a Hamburger" rather than "I'm of Hamburg".

[RikaStrom]

This is why you don't have words or names tattooed on your person.

I go back under the needle on Sat to get bolding and shading done on my new one.

[Bon mots]

Here is a cool page that deciphers a whole bunch of Chinese tatoos among other things.ZhongWen.com

[Dr. Marten]

"In Pinyin "English" would be written as: Yingguowen and pronounced more like Yin-gow-wen, which roughly translates to Hero Land Talk. So if you want an equivalent to "Engrish" try "Yingruowen". "

 

It looks like you need to brush up on your Chinese a bit more.

 

English in Pinyin is "Yingwen", not "Yingguowen" (英文). Also, it's pronounced pretty much just like it looks, "Ying-wen".

 

"Yingguo", means England. "Wen", means, in this instance, language.

 

As for saying, "Engrish", I'm not sure exactly what that would be since it's an "English" word. You could probably ask the owner of the website featured above as he is Chinese and obviously has a superb command the English language as well, while I am only a 3rd year student of Chinese(well, 4.5 if you count the year and a half I spent living in China).

[Dr. Marten]

Yep, I have a character display on my site that links to them.

It is a pretty neat site.