“Dear Reader, It Meant ‘Concubine’”: 49 Tattoos That Don’t Mean What People Thought They Meant

Please understand that I am the whitest white girl that ever whited. I speak conversational Japanese and read better than I speak.

When I was in college, I went out on a first date with an edgy weeb type who droned on and on about how "Japan was the perfect country" and how he "belonged there." Then he rolls up his sleeve to show me his Kanji tattoo. I act impressed and ask what it means. He says some moderately racist stereotype about being "Japanese in heart, mind, and spirit" and getting the tattoo to "transform his body" and that it means like honored foreigner or some dumb thing.

It said "Low Sugar Green Tea". I am almost positive the artist copied it from a can of Arizona.

A coworker showed me his new tattoo super proudly. Said it meant "warrior spirit."

It was **"打折"**.

That's "on sale" in Chinese. As in, a discount. At a store.

He is a 6'4" former marine.

Funniest for me was "white people" on a black dude's shoulder at a restaurant.



I cant read it, but my chinese friend was wheezing for a good 30 - 40 seconds before he can finally tell us why. We then proceeded to wheez together for another minute or so.

Had to muffle my laughter when I saw a big white guy with water bottle (水瓶）tattooed on his leg. I'm pretty sure he was going for Aquarius （水瓶座) - so not fatal, he just needs to add an extra character, but amusing in the moment.

I remember standing in line behind a girl somewhere in rural Pennsylvania, and she had a Chinese character I wasn't familiar with on her neck. I looked it up in my Chinese dictionary app. She probably thought it meant "princess". Dear reader, it meant "concubine".

And just to show it can go the other way, when I lived in Taiwan I used to date a Taiwanese woman who didn't speak English. She came home one day with a T-shirt she thought was very cute and asked me what the English on it said. It was the FIFA rules for when referees should give red cards. The kicker was that all the English had awful spelling, which still gets me. It was one-to-one the rules from the FIFA website, but someone had added in spelling mistakes.

Had a friend who asked for "courage" and instead got "gall bladder".

When I was in the former Yugoslavia a bunch of us went on a trip to Budapest and got tattoos. One of the guys were with was Chinese so one of the guys in the group asked him to write him out some warrior ethos thing.

Fast forward a couple months after we get home and we’re at a restaurant in Chinatown. Our server kind of chuckles at my buddy and asks him the story. He, as tough as he can possibly sound, talks about the art of war and whatnot. The server is now laughing and goes “that says ‘where’s the bank machine’” or some iteration thereof.

I lived in Japan when Ariana Grande got her 七輪 (shichirin) tattoo. She thought it meant 7 rings but it means charcoal grill. All of my Japanese friends brought it up to me and were laughing at it. It even made the news in Japan. I remember going to meet with a friend at a cafe and she immediately pulled up the tattoo photo and started making fun.

Counting in Japanese is honestly kind of complex and nuanced. You need an active counter word like how we say "five sheets of paper" or "two pairs of jeans". You can't just say two jeans or five papers or you will look like an idiot. It just is not how their grammar works.

Then to fix it she added 指 (yubi) or finger. 指輪 (yubiwa) is the actual word for ring but she put it under the 七 (seven/shichi) and not before the 輪 (rin/wa) like she should have. So at that point it just reads Charcoal Grill Finger. You could also translate it in the other direction as Ring, Seven, Finger but either way the whole thing is butchered.

In uni i met this girl who had 平 in the middle of her chest. she said it means peace (calm), and that it meant she would have a peaceful heart/life. which, yes, but 平 also means flat.

I worked at a MEPS for processing people into the military. Part of it was making sure people came in without indecent tattoos so occasionally I would have to use Google translate to make sure they didn't have a foreign offensive saying tattooed on them.


One applicant came in with the usual "it means something deep" Chinese tattoo. I'm not sure how well Google translate always worked but it came out as "big head, little feet." Told him "yep, nothing offensive here".

I was out and about a few summers ago and saw a guy showing off a tattoo on his right bicep to some people. He was proudly telling them that it meant warrior.

He was probably thinking of 侍 (pronounced ji) which can mean Samurai, but also waiter or to serve. The problem is that he had a different character, 痔 . While it is pronounced the same, and looks similar, it means hemorrhoid.

I went in the opposite direction, he was so happy about it, and he was a stranger. No need to burst his bubble.

My favourite one I've seen is someone with a tattoo on the back of their head that just said 足. It means leg.

Saw a guy with a tattoo at work. Asked him what he thought it meant. He thought "Capricorn".

Kinda. It was sheep.

A cashier at a grocery store I used to go to got 無料 tattooed on her wrist. She thought it meant she was free. I told her, yes, but not the way you think.

nyITguy:

"Free of charge."

allticknotock:

Could also mean useless or incapable in Chinese

I knew a girl in highschool who thought she tattooed "friendship" on her wrist but it translated to something like "digging a ditch." .

Years ago at the gym we used to go to, guy had 愛神 on his bicep. Characters for “love” and “god”. I suspect he thought it meant something like “the love god” as in great prowess in the bedroom.

Wife is Japanese and used to chuckle whenever we saw him. Said it suggested “those Valentine’s Day angel babies” (i.e. Cupid).

In a similar vein I met a guy at a water park with a tattoo in Punjabi on his chest. Since my partner is Sikh, we asked about it. He thought it was in Arabic. There's getting a translation wrong, and then there's not even having the writing system correct.

A few days ago I saw a women had „癌症“ tattooed

It means cancer the disease. I think she thought it meant the star sign….

Welp I hope I’m wrong, maybe she defeated cancer or something like that, then I’m happy for her.

I grew up speaking Mandarin. One time a woman at the grocery store asked me to translate her tattoo because it "meant strength and courage."

It said **"chicken noodle soup"** (鸡汤面).

I told her it meant "inner peace." I'm not proud of this.

It’s on me. In college I thought I was getting “integrity”. Months later a girl from Japan started laughing and told me it translates to picnic table. I haven’t bothered to confirm if she was messing with me.