Nobody wants "demon bird mothballs" permanently carved on their hand. People had better opt for ink scribbles like “inspiration,” “my journey,” or “live life to the fullest.”
But in some cases, this is the price you pay for one, lack of research; two, impulsive decision making; and three, poor translation. There’s also an aspect of cultural appropriation with Westerners tattooing Hanzi and Kanji (the Chinese and Japanese character sets) that cannot be overlooked.
It doesn't, however, deter people from getting one. You probably still remember Britney Spears’ infamous bikini tattoo that was supposed to mean ‘mysterious,’ but turned out to be ‘strange.’ With numerous examples way worse than Britney's surfing around online, we were wondering what people fluent in Japanese and Chinese have to say about such a trend.
“To me getting a tattoo should be a personal decision. Clients often seek out the opinions of others around them when it comes to the design and placement etc. and listen to their opinions over themselves or the artist.”
The professional tattoo artist added that clients should also be ready to listen to their artists “as we are the ones that know how to make a design fit the body and have it look good for decades to come. Sometimes this means that a tattoo should be bigger or should be in a different spot as the skin loses elasticity and can massively change how the tattoo looks over the years,” Orsolya concluded.
#22
I saw a picture once of a huge back piece that just said "vegetables".
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95points
#23
As a tattoo artist, I've seen many. I myself, can't read Kanji but I explain to my client that it's probably most likely not the word they want. Most clients realize that and for some reason still get it. Google can't possibly be right all the time, that's my stance on it.
Worst one I've seen though, one that was translated to picnic table.
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93points
#24
I saw a girl with 水炎 tattooed which means 'Water' and 'Inflammation'.
She must have wanted 水火 which means 'Water' and 'Fire'.
炎, Inflammation is two 火 Fires, one on top of the other
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93points
#26
Not me, but my father once met a woman who wanted to have “bad girl,” like as in “badass,” tattooed on her in Chinese.
The characters didn’t really mean that, though. It, uh, meant something more along the lines of a woman who would cheat on her husband and take advantage of men.
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88points
#27
My friends mum had what she thought was her name on her chest, her friend at work asked why she had 'population of China' tatted on her
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87points
#29
I knew an English girl in Japan who had kanji for woman on her arm. It is also the sign for ladies toilets. Suddenly gets less sexy.
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78points
#30
I know a girl who had "壊疽" ("gangrene") tattooed on her side and it quickly became her nickname ([sic] name-call). Even her family began calling her that. She was a very mean person, simply put, and I can only guess the tattoo artist was getting back at her. This was about five years ago and nobody hears much from her nowadays.
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76points
