from: Roxanne P.
to: tiangotlost@gmail.com
date: Tue, Apr 19, 2011 at 9:11 PM
subject: please help me asap

so my boyfriend got this tattoo the other day and was told it ment loyalty in japanese kanji and just so happens my friend has loyalty also in jap kanji and they dont look anything alike please helppppp me asap



I sure hope Roxanne's boyfriend really enjoys eating noodles.

麺 [めん] noodles

from: Kate D.
to: tiangotlost@gmail.com
date: Sat, Apr 16, 2011 at 8:19 AM
subject Some Terrible Tattoos

I thought I'd send you some pictures I found from www.checkoutmyink.com of truly terrible Chinese tattoos. There's so many awful mistakes, I don't even know where to begin!

Cheers,
Kate


http://www.checkoutmyink.com/tattoos/kheemo/tattoo-3

First character of 性感 (sexy) has been split into two!


http://www.checkoutmyink.com/tattoos/josch/tattoo-2

Why would anyone tattoo "golden pig" on his back, and why is the character for pig, 豬, upside down?!

from: JAMES H.
to: tiangotlost@gmail.com
date: Thu, Mar 10, 2011 at 8:15 AM
subject: Young & Dumb

A friend got me this tattoo years ago and I was told it meant "fear no man". Being young and dumb as most 18 year olds are, I didn't bother to make sure. Now after looking into it a little more, I'm not sure what it is. Please help!!



棺材佬 means "coffin man".

However, the middle character of 木見才 or 木貝才 does not exist in Chinese character list.

Tattoos with exact same error can be seen here & here.

from: Nick
to: tiangotlost@gmail.com
date: Mon, Feb 14, 2011 at 10:56 AM
subject: unknown calf

Hi there,

My brother got this tattoo on his calf many years ago, has no idea what it means.

Can you help????

Thanks, Love the blog.

Nick



First of all, the character is not correct. It is either missing a stroke in the left radical or having one extra. The intended character could be:

枠 means "frame; spindle, spool, reel".

or,

粋 means "pure".

This was posted in Checkoutmyink.com:


http://www.checkoutmyink.com/tattoos/inkdazfukaz/tattoo-3

Too bad 愛 is mirrored.

from: Pat B.
to: tiangotlost@gmail.com
date: Thu, Feb 10, 2011 at 6:34 PM
subject: Brad the Art Guy : Business is steady.

I'm in Hong Kong now and in my class we're looking at Chinese folk religion at the moment, so I went looking for a picture of Laozi and found this ... thought you might enjoy it.

Blog: Brad the Art Guy
Post: Business is steady.
Link: http://bradtheartguy.blogspot.com/2010/10/business-is-steady.html

"There was a man in North Carolina who got me to draw a portrait of Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu, which he had transferred to his arm by a talented tattoo artist."

Brad the Art Guy's rendition of 道德經 looks nothing like the real thing.

from: P. McKown
to: tiangotlost@gmail.com
date: Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 7:32 PM
subject: Academic citation

Hi Tian, I'm an undergraduate at an American university and was so inspired by your website that I decided to write a research paper about Chinese textual tattoos. As I was combing through an article looking for additional sources for my paper I noticed that your website was mentioned. It's an article called "The Blood-Stained Text in Translation: Tattooing, Bodily Writing, and Performance of Chinese Virtue" by Daphne Lei, which I've included as an attachment. Your website is mentioned in the second entry in the end notes.

Keep up the great work!

-----

Daphne P. Lei, University of California, Irvine - The Blood-Stained Text in Translation: Tattooing, Bodily Writing, and Performance of Chinese Virtue (PDF) Anthropological Quarterly, Vol. 82, No. 1, pp. 99–128, ISSN 0003-549. © 2009 by the Institute for Ethnographic Research (IFER) a part of the George Washington University. All rights reserved.