This blog is a random collection of information, partly in support of my quotations web site. Other topics include wine, military news, economics, history, libertarianism, and other random things which happen to strike my fancy. Backup site is at http://quotulatiousness.blogspot.com/ (if there are no posts showing, hit the backup blog for explanation). Comments have been turned off, as the spam was getting too much to handle. Comments can be emailed to me for posting.

June 15, 2005

Chinese characters in tattoos

Victor got a henna tattoo at the Brooklin Spring Fair a couple of weeks ago. It's long gone now, but it was a set of Chinese characters on the back of his hand. He assured me that it meant something like "Strength and Courage", but he was just taking the word of the girl operating the booth. If you wonder what some Chinese or Japanese characters might actually mean, you'll want to bookmark Hansi Smatter, subtitled "Dedicated to the misuse of Chinese characters (Hanzi or Kanji) in Western Culture".

I especially recommend visiting that blog before you pay the tattooist for your full-torso tattoo full of cool oriental symbols. . .

Posted by Nicholas at June 15, 2005 03:15 PM
Comments
I'm learning to read and write Chinese right now. It's a devilishly difficult undertaking. Posted by: Andrew at June 15, 2005 06:39 PM
It's a much more difficult task than learning the 26 letters and 10 numbers required for English, that's certain. I find it interesting that there always seem to be multiple possible transliterations of the Hansi characters at that site. Shades of meaning must be a tough deal for translation either to or from Hansi. Posted by: Nicholas at June 16, 2005 08:28 AM


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