On the other end of the spectrum are the tattoo questions. Most of them email me because they don’t want to be ridiculed later on when their mistakes have been exposed. I try to help them as much as possible only to provide them with linguistic information. I am also very curious about why would someone choose to tattoo themselves with a language that they obviously do not understand.
Once the question of “why?” is presented to them, they would usually come to the realization that it might not be such great idea.
Recently my email exchange with one of the tattoo seekers did not go so well. All emails are in their original format (including spelling errors), except the recipient’s address has been blocked out.
Date: Sun, 27 Mar 2005
From: **********@aol.com
To: tian
Subject: chinese tatoos
I was guided by a friend to your site, and I was wondering if you could help us out?...With so many mistakes going on, I am seeking your expertise with a family project. My Mom, who has been fasinated with the Chinese & Japanese culture for many years, has agreed to have a family tatoo that my mom, sister, and myself can share and wear with respect to both cultures whenever seen. We weren't sure which characters to use because we like both Hanzi (Chinese Traditional), and Kanzi (Japanese Traditional) characters. Can you write both versions for us so we can choose from the following: God, Mother, Father, Love, Respect, Courage, Loyalty, Self- Respect, Family, Children, Peace, Judgement, Wisdom, Strength, Versatility, Life, Death, Resilience. Also, the following caption: No one saves us but ourselves. No one can, no one may. For we ourselves must walk the path. Please help!!!!! My mom is worried they won't be in the correct form and context, and we'll walk around" looking like freaking idiots",LOL. You can email me @ ***********@aol.com so we're able to print them. Your help will be SOOOOOOOOO GREATLY APPRECIATED;-) Thanks.
-----
Date: Sun, 27 Mar 2005
From: Tian
To: **********@aol.com
Subject: Re: chinese tatoos
I am very curious why you and your family members want tattoos in a language that you obviously don't understand?
-----
Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005
From: **********@aol.com
To: tian
Subject: Re: chinese tatoos
Because I have always felt it to be a beautiful, interesting, and exotic culture, and expression of words. No disrespect intended by the following remark.......But obviously others have sought out your knowledge and expertise on the matter concerning tatoos they have for a reason- that reason being they want to know if their tatoos are in the correct context, that is why I wrote you. I want to make sure I don't end up with the same mistake riddled tatoos as some of the unfortunate others.
-----
Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005
From: Tian
To: **********@aol.com
Subject: Re: chinese tatoos
What about your own culture [get tattoos in English instead], aren't you proud of your heritage? Why use a foreign culture to represent your own?
-----
Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005
From: **********@aol.com
To: tian
Subject: Re: chinese tatoos
I AM PROUD OF MY OWN CULTURE!!!!!!! What does that have to do with anything? You can be open-minded enough to love your own culture, and still embrace that of others, can you not?????! If you didn't want to assist in the matter, all you had to do was say so. The fact is, I can very well find someone with the same knowledge, if not more, as you to assist in the matter. THANKS FOR ALL OF YOUR HELP!!!! I'm just wondering........Do you question and try to offend ALL of you readers that try to seek your help? I thought your web site was for the purpose of helping others. I'm sure the the pics of the people you've showcased on your site wasn't of Chinese or Japanese people or desent..........WERE THEY???????? Don't bother replying, because it will remain unread, and immediately deleted!!!!! Enjoy your day!
Fortunately I am not the only one that is "close minded". Goodcharacters.com, one of the largest Chinese-English consulting firm, had the following to say:
"Because we love the Chinese language, we don't wish to contribute to the language's misuse for the sake of a fad. For people who don't know Chinese, flaring the characters across an arm may appear elegant, exotic, or intriguing. Yet what looks mystical and intelligent often has a nonsensical or embarrassing meaning. Probably neither the wearer nor the tattoo artist understand what the characters actually mean.
NBA player Marcus Camby is a popular example of the rave of tattooing Chinese characters. Neither Chinese nor Japanese people could understand his tattoos, however, until Camby gained millions of dollar's worth of publicity "explaining" what his tattoos are suppose to mean. Of course, the average Joe doesn't have this kind of opportunity.
"But I'm not Chinese or Japanese. It just looks cool to me." (more)
In conclusion: 天下本無事，庸人自擾之。
"How dare you question my shakey assumptions with your reasonable logic instead of helping me INSTANTLY LIKE I WANT YOU TO!"
ReplyDeleteWhat a maroon. (Insert optional grumble about AOLers here.)
BTW, I like your site very much, Tian. It's like a reverse Engrish.com. Shows there's stupid translation on both sides of the pond.
it always smacks of old imperialism when people speak of the collective far east ("the Chinese & Japanese culture") as "a beautiful, interesting, and exotic culture."
ReplyDeletebeing fascinated in another culture is not a bad thing at all, but when the fascination is so shallow that the other culture is treated with the same degree of interest as some funny tricks a dog can perform, it's all very insulting and disrespectful. if people just bothered to put in a little time into actually learning about another culture, they just might not say things like "Kanzi (Japanese Traditional)."
if that sort of email had been sent to me, i'm not even sure i would have replied at all. of course, then i would have missed the hilarious follow-ups. ("I'm sure the the pics of the people you've showcased on your site wasn't of Chinese or Japanese people or desent..........WERE THEY????????") ha ha ha...
Rachel and Andy,
ReplyDeleteThank you guys for the comments. Recently I had a person emailing me about translating his family name and Coat of Arms (family crest?) into Chinese characters.
At first I was quite happy, especially this gives me an opportunity to find out more about the Anglo-Saxon clan culture.
Then I realized this guy only wanted it so he can tattoo the characters around the family crest onto his arm.
Especially when he mentioned in his email about "the meaningfulness and artful nature of the Kanji version..."
English, Chinese and Japanese are all just languages. You say "sh!t"
in English, we say "屎", they all mean the same thing.
There is an idiom 崇洋媚外, what it means "worship foreign things,
obsequious to foreigners".
Tian,
ReplyDeleteYou have to admit, though, that there is a certain sense of artistry to Chinese characters that doesn't really exist with the Roman alphabet. While they are both, at heart, writing systems used to convey a language, there's a pretty big difference in using ideographs to depict meaning and using simple characters which only imply sound.
That being said, I'm still in complete agreement with the distastefulness endemic to treating another culture like some pretty little thing on the surface. I used to live in Japan, and my fellow Americans back in the U.S. used to always whine about how jealous they were that I got to live in such an amazing country that was so much cooler than America. This completely discounts the fact that Japan is rife with its own problems, including xenophobia, mysogyny, and any number of other social issues.
Needless to say, now that I live in the U.S. again, there are things that I of course miss about living in Japan, and things that I'm glad to be away from.
And while I do speak, write, read, and understand Japanese, I'm not about to get anything tattooed on my body.
Rikoshi,
ReplyDeleteVery well said.
RE: Rikoshi
ReplyDeleteOK, well, maybe Veranda and Helvetica aren't great works of art, but calligraphy of the Roman alphabet (and related ones) certainly is. Old manuscripts can be quite beautiful works of art on their own.
I am not sure it really is the "Oooo... Asia!" of it so much as the fact that the culture as been romanticised via media such that it seems like a paradise. You don't see many Westerners wanting tatoos in Vietnamese these days.
Different cultures are cool, but I don't think you can claim to be "fasinated with the Chinese & Japanese culture for many years" and have gained knowledge about the culture if you can't point out its weaknesses.
Thanks for the giggle, Tian!
Fionnghuala ní hÓgáin
I'm baffled as to how anyone can be so oblivious to the use of Google. Type "chinese dictionary" and a dozen free, accurate, easy-to-use dictionaries pop up. Maybe Tian should post a link to zhongwen.com or some other dictionary site; that might cut down the number of silly questions.
ReplyDeleteshi-hsia
Tian, perhaps you have to make it clear on your blog that you don't offer services in translation. I believe you set up the blog in order to laugh at the stupidity of some people. You don't have the obligation to help others, right? :O
ReplyDeleteConversely, though, aren't English words and lettering quite popular in some Asian cultures? When I was in Badaling province three years ago, half the signs were written in English as well as Chinese- and not even the ubiquitous "Engrish," either fairly sensible English or completely random words; my personal favourite was a noodle restaurant called "TACO!" Their punctuation.
ReplyDeleteOh, and I also bought a great sweater there with a boy and girl kissing above the message "WONDER WOMEN PARTY." I freakin' love that sweater.
I'm sure that Asians who enjoy the look of Roman characters aren't going out and having "DUMPLING HOUSE" written on their bottoms, but shouldn't we be fair about the mutual admiration thing?
Tian, love your site. I am a tattoo artist and I do read Chinese. From my perspective, it's business and I do my best to educate.
ReplyDeleteI have seen some people in Asia with their names tattooed in English, and I have seen some shirt with very bad English on it (but funny), so I think it goes both ways.
The truth is that some people just don't care. They want so and so in one character only, and a cool looking one too. I have plenty of horror stories to share but if one does not do the research, then one deserves whatever is coming.
One more thing: I have to tell people that just because they see it on a shirt, bottle cap, a sheet of tattoo flash, a photo of a tattoo, internet, or even a dictionary, it does not mean they have the right characters, and you can't just stack them.... people still do it, and it is very frustration from my point of view.
Re: a said ...
ReplyDeleteThat's why we have engrish.com. I think people who automatically think something is cool just because it's written in English/Roman characters have the same deficiencies as Mr. Aol here does. I recall a few high school students in Japan being shocked when I told them what the "Playboy" lettering and bunny-symbol meant. Hanzismatter and Engrish.com are meant to wake people up.
BTW Tian, there's a nice double meaning in your site name ...
a) Hanzi Smatter - a whole bunch of Chinese characters
b) Hanzis Matter - yes, I know a plural form is redundant, but dammit, they do matter! :-D
I mean "frustrating", ha ha, a tattoo artist who can't spell-check....
ReplyDeletea) Hanzi Smatter - a whole bunch of Chinese characters
ReplyDeleteb) Hanzis Matter - yes, I know a plural form is redundant, but dammit, they do matter! :-D
Not to mention that German guy who didn't get the part in Star Wars:
c) "Han, zis matter off payment for ze trip to Alderaan . . ."
KKS and Durf,
ReplyDeleteThe play on words with hanzismatter, I am so pleased that somebody has finally understood what it was all about!
The word "smatter" in English actually means "superficial knowledge".
Well done, guys. Bravo.
re: a
ReplyDeleteit's not about roman letters looking any good (not that they don't); it's the status that english itself has in many parts of the world. despite the current government that might be unpopular in areas, the american culture has sold itself as something to aspire to. many chinese people are impressed by other chinese people who can speak english, because it makes them appear more cosmopolitan and worldly.
if it was just roman letters that were appealing to those in asia, then it wouldn't even be engrish everywhere. it would just be complete gibberish like "AKSDHCJKNE." this is, however, the case in the west, so people get tattoos of backwards/upside down characters or characters missing strokes/written with the wrong strokes.
i agree tho, that engrish is funny, but the difference is that a lot of people in east asia look up to american culture and the power it represents, while the majority of the current mainstream american fascination with chinese characters is like a child and their new favorite toy, to be replaced when they get another new toy. i really wish this wasn't the case, but that's just how i see it. perhaps someday it will be different.
by the way, where is badaling province?
Andy - Badaling is a section of the Great Wall near Beijing.
ReplyDeletei kno, i've been there. i just didn't kno it was a whole province.
ReplyDeletesorry, i probably shouldn't have tried using sarcasm. it very nearly never works in written form. serves me rite for trying to be a smartass.
Andy, they do sometimes use roman letters as complete gibberish. I can't tell you how many times I saw randome strings of letters in the clothing market when I lived in China.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, my old roommate from China sent me a bag for Christmas. At the top it says "MCIYEY MOXYE" and the balloon coming from Mickey's mouth contains the phrase "OKHOO COLOS." Isn't this gibberish? (let me know if it's correct in some langauge I don't know)
I agree with the commenters pointing out that hanzi smatter and engrish are two sides of the same coin. I'm not offended at engrish because it's a superficial, faddish use of "my" language. It's just for fun. People will play with language, no matter what their culture. So I suggest taking a lighter attitude toward Westerners who want to get kanji tattoos, just as Westerners take toward engrish. I don't think people are poseurs for wanting to play with language or for preferring east Asian aesthetics to Western ones. (Personally, I think calligraphy with Roman characters is ugly. That doesn't mean I'm a traitor to my culture.)
ReplyDeletere: anonymous
ReplyDeletethey might seem like random strings, but they aren't. they're an imitation of english, or name brands. for instance, "MCIYEY MOXYE" is just their version of "MICKEY MOUSE." it's in the same vain as buying FOLEX brand watches, PRABA wallets, and CUCCI purses. "OKHOO COLOS" is just a mixed up version of what he actually says in a picture that the designer of the "knock-off" created.
i have to admit tho, i have seen random strings of letters from some japanese sources, but they weren't because any one roman letter looked good. it was because the gibberish string was supposed to represent english.
i'm sorry if my comments sound like i'm deeply offended by the fad of tattooing something you don't kno what it says on yourself. honestly, i don't care what other people do to their own bodies and in their own lives. but that doesn't mean i would want to deal with people who treat an aspect of any culture like it's an amusing diversion. the fact that the writer of the funny email was so offended that tian didn't want to help her and that he dared so much as to ask her why she wanted to do it is ridiculous.
again, i enjoy engrish as much as the next person, but i guess a question i have is, why would anyone permanently mark themselves with a tattoo that is a fad and something they don't kno much about? remember those "tribal" tattoos that all those people got last decade? i guess it all ends up to be pretty funny as long as it isn't me.
I'm honestly amazed no-one's pointed out the glaring mental deficiency behind the idea that "No one saves us but ourselves. No one can, no one may. For we ourselves must walk the path." can be written in two entirely seperate languages in exactly the same way. That's like asking someone "Can you write *insert phrase here* so that it'll make sense in both Finnish and Spanish. They're both European and they use some of the same letters, so it should be fine."
ReplyDeleteHow on Earth did this guy manage to even find his way out of the womb?
Also briefly and tangentially - I just checked the Naming FAQ on Good Characters. They make good points, but when I see a site specializing in this stuff misspell things like "pinyin" and "Min" it makes me somewhat less eager to use their service.
ReplyDeleteGeof -- ssh! They're site sponsors for hanzismatter!
ReplyDeleteAndy -- d'oh. Sorry about that; it always irritates me when people don't get that I'm being sarcastic online.
Andy, you're absolutely right about MCIYEY MOXYE. It was a bad example, because I really have seen strings of random letters, just not on anything I bought.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in China, almost everyone wore clothes with roman lettering. They just paid no attention to the meaning. Once when I was shopping with the aforementioned roommate, we saw a shirt with Charlie Brown and Peppermint Patty, who was laughing and the shirt had HA HA HA... in huge letters. I pointed it out to her and it was like she had never noticed the letters before I showed her.
People get used to ignoring things. The first semester I was there, I had no time to learn Chinese. Eventually my eyes totally ignored the hanzi on the signs, automatically leaping from pinyin/English sign to pinyin/English sign. That was a hard habit to overcome once I began reading hanzi.
How many of these tattooed people can *write* the characters on their bodies? Just for looks, IMO.
Long-time reader, first-time poster.
ReplyDeleteA lot of people have chimed in. I'd like to add one thing about Engrish. Frequently, Engrish makes perfect sense if it's "back translated" into Chinese/Japanese or wherever.
For instance, there was a clothing line in Taiwan for many years called 單身貴族. This is a common colloquial name for young, unmarried people. It would be similar to opening a shop in the States called "Singletons". Suffice it to say I've heard worse.
Well, English names are fashionable, so this brand was advertised all over Taiwan as "Single Noble Fashion", which to a non-Mandarin speaker, looks very odd indeed.
Anyhow, emailers asking for Chinese tatoos, I would ask a basic question: Do you really want to trust the translation of a language you can't read to a guy who pokes fun at Westerners abusing Hanzi (even if it's in good fun)?
Dear Tian,
ReplyDeleteI agree with your wanting to sway people away from getting words (or, good God, whole phrases) tattooed on themselves, but I think you may be answering these emails in the wrong way.
True, if you do end up helping them off the track of Hanzitatting themselves, then there's less material for your site, theoretically.
But if you really care, which you seem to do, perhaps answering a query with something like this would be helpful:
"You're right -- Chinese characters are beautiful and exotic, but they also are just a writing system. A writing system that's in use every single day for things like grocery lists and Post-It notes. The fact is, regardless of what it may mean to you, lots of people will read it, and even if it makes perfect sense, do you really want strangers to know these things about you? Why bring them in on something so personal?
"If you and your family are still in the market for a meaningful common tattoo, might I kindly suggest you work on a piece of artwork together -- something they used to do along time ago with tattoos before Chinese characters became all the rage -- something that can't be understood by anyone but you and your family.
"I think in the end you'll all be much more appreciative of a tattoo like that -- that you've created yourselves -- than if it were just something you got written on yourself as if you were a cheap piece of paper."
Just a thought.
Warmly,
Derek
Derek,
ReplyDeleteYou are absolutely correct and I agree with you completely. Thank you.
This was sent by me to tian a few weeks ago. He never addressed my reply directly but instead suggested I buy a tshirt from cafepress.
ReplyDelete"> just out of curiosity, why do you want a tattoo in a language that you
> do not understand?
"Just as people don't have to fully understand another culture to be
fascinated by it [...], "you don't need knowledge of the language to
like Asian characters," [...]"
[Insert new comment: That was in his article, quoted by a university professor if I remember correctly]
But in all honesty I'm not sure. The chinese characters are fanciful
and elegant in a way, I suppose, and much more subtle than writing in
big, bold, english characters what I want to say. I am vietnamese,
however, and my father is half-chinese, so the relation is not
entirely vacuous."
"But obviously others have sought out your knowledge and expertise on the matter concerning tatoos they have for a reason- that reason being they want to know if their tatoos are in the correct context, that is why I wrote you."
ReplyDeleteI would have replied, "Well, then get the tattoo, and I'll tell you if it's right or not."
- dirge75@yahoo.ca
Hi Tian,
ReplyDeleteI'm a regular Hanzismatter reader and thought I'd comment on your recent email exchanges with someone asking you to design a tattoo for them. While the writer was undoubtedly rude, I do feel that he made a point that you may not be considering (aside from "why are humans attracted to other cultures?"): there is an artistic quality and attraction to unfamiliar languages that attracts many people. Having spent time outside of the U.S., I have seen people wearing english language clothing that has no literal meaning. So what? They enjoy the exotic presentation of something from another culture. Is that somehow invalidated if there are grammatical or factual errors? I think not. If a Russian hipster were wearing a shirt that said "Boston Red Sock" (sic) in Russian, would it be visually and graphically interesting? Unlikely. The same shirt in english? tres chic.
Also, consider the artistic dimension of Arabic calligraphy. It is very difficult to read for content, some of it takes years of study to master, some of it is actually grammatically questionable, but it has a higher purpose than being a billboard: it is devotional art. It is analogous to sounds which have a mantric value in that the literal meaning is secondary.
So: does it matter that a tattoo doesn't correctly render some idea precisely? I would say no. It is art, self-expression, whimsical. The intention of the wearer is important. And, it is supremely illogical. Go figure.
Regards,
Mark
Unless I missed some post, nobody noticed that chinese characters have the extraordinary capability of integrate even complex concepts into a single drawing. I studied Traditional Chinese Medicine for a couple of years, and, for example, have always been intrigued by the ideogram of "fury" (nu: 怒), describing an anger that is very different from the one we define in western culture. What's fascinating in this ideogram is that the concept it describes is quite hard to translate in english or italian (my native language, so forgive me for my english). In short, should I ever decide to have a chinese tattoo, it would be for the ability of the chinese language to say many things with a single stroke.
ReplyDeleteOh Christ, another sucker buying into the Ideographic Myth. Yay.
ReplyDeleteAndy-
ReplyDeleteI marvel at the fact that this was taken personally!
All I meant to do was point out that, intent aside, it's a two-way street. Not to say that Western intent is pure and honourable, nor that Asian intent is vapid and mindless.
Have some happy candy.
i marvel at the fact that you read personal offense in what i wrote. i was just pointing out that on the two-way street, one direction is paved with asphalt and the other with concrete. i have plenty of happy candy already, thanks.
ReplyDeletei read the exchange & the link at nonsense chinese tattoos. i came away thinking the issue was not so much respect for another culture but different cultural attitudes towards tattooing. the nonsense chinese site might as well say, "We are Chinese and we think Tattoos are Loathsome and Disgusting. Don't get a Chinese Tattoo please."
ReplyDeletei wonder if Tian has a tattoo or would ever consider getting one.
The best was to answer last comment is this:
ReplyDelete"The problem is NOT that people are getting characters tattooed on them; it's that people who don't understand the characters are getting characters tattooed on them by other people who don't understand the characters. It is equivalent of 'blind leading blind'. To those of us who do, it's a cause for mirth and head-shaking." (original quote by Brendan O'Kane)
Meng Gao from Autherntic Asian has posted one entry detailing the most famous tattoo in Chinese history.
Therefore tattooing is not uncommon in Chinese culture.
Here are articles in Wikipedia.org about the history Japanese and Chinese tattoos:
"Tattooing has also been featured prominently in one of the Four Classic Novels in Chinese literature, Water Margin, in which at least two of the 108 characters, Shi Jun and Yan Qing, were described as having tattoos covering nearly the whole of their bodies. In addition, Chinese legend has it that the mother of Yue Fei, the most famous general of the Song Dynasty, tattooed the words 精忠報國 (pinyin: jin zhong bao guo) on his back with her sewing needle before he left to join the army, reminding him to 'repay his country with total loyalty'."
I personally do not have any tattoos.
"You say "sh!t" in English, we say "屎", they all mean the same thing."
ReplyDeleteJust a thought, probably echoes the ideogram idea, but one of the things I think that fascinates westerners about these characters is the idea that they're pictograms - at least we unknowingly interpret them that way. "shit" is just a collection of letters, and put together it doesn't look or sound anything like the thing it describes - but to me having never seen it before, 屎 looks like Kurt Vonnegut's classic description of an anus: * I'm curious, does it appear to you as just a collection of strokes, or do you have long-ingrained memory triggers like "that looks like a tree, a man walking..."? I have a book called "Kanji pict-o-graphix" that's filled with these - some apparently historical (gate) others obviously made-up. In any case, in a way to us it's not a word, it's a picture. Not that that makes it more excusable, but to me it explains some of the appeal.
"There is an idiom 崇洋媚外, what it means "worship foreign things, obsequious to foreigners"." I think I'm going to get a tattoo of this. Then again, maybe I'll just go out for some lemon chicken.
I really like this site as it does provide some balance in my mind. I'm an English teacher in Thailand and often tease my students about their English and they go into hysterics regarding my Thai abilities and writing.
ReplyDeleteI really have to say that languages that I cannot understand look pretty and exotic to me. Kanzi really looks cool and I can understand why people like to decorate things with it. If I could read it, I might see differently. Like with Thai, before I could read it it looked like art, now it kinda looks like letters again.
At any rate, I had a shirt a number of years ago with some Japanese characters and a friend of mine, she's white but has lived most of her life in Japan, translated it for me. It was properly written but entirely random. She found it very funny and being of a northern local style.
S/he is still on AOL. 'Nuff said.
ReplyDeleteWhy do people get hanzi tattoos? I'll tell you my reasons. I have a Kanji tattoo, my husband has the same one. We got them for several reasons. First, to celebrate our engagement in a permanent way (hence, tattoos). Second, we got kanji because as field linguists who will one day design orthography for unwritten languages we're interested in writing systems. Thirdly, we were happy that one symbol represents a concept that would take many characters in the roman alphabet. There were other reasons, also. My husband's original idea was to use part of a manuscript Bible (we couldn't agree on a tattoo design based on this); so the idea all along was to have a tattoo 'in writing'. We spent a lot of time researching our tattoos, but it's true, the artist who inked us was probably bored out of his mind doing it.
ReplyDeleteYou should have written out something like "I am a dumbass, please slap me. I like it when people hit me." and sent that back to them. Anyone that rude and moronic kinda deserves it.
ReplyDeleteJust my 2 cents,
Morrighu
most (all?) languages have a distinction between informal day-to-day script and formal decorative script.
ReplyDeletefor those saying the roman alphabet isn't as aesthetically appealing as hanzi/kanji - what about illuminated manuscripts, or gothic letter forms, or street graffiti burners, or copper-plate hand writing etc
This debate is really interesting. It reminds me a bit of some archaeologists I know who like to get tattoos of iconography from the period they study. Now, the thing about archaeology is that interpretations are constantly changing. I saw a woman at a conference a while back who had a tattoo that used Inuit boat iconography - it looks very cool, its a little boat going across her shoulder. The only problem is, that the latest interpretations of these intricate little carvings strongly suggest that they are part of funerary rituals and the boats represent the passage into the underworld. Suddenly it becomes rather a nasty little thing to have permenantly on your shoulder. There are pleanty of others, including little Aztec icons that also look very cool - but are all to do with ritual human sacrafice in rather unpleasent ways. Don't even get me started on "Celtic" art, but I always throught that at least professional archaeologists should know better.
ReplyDeleteIsn't it funny that the guy asking for the translation acted as if it was in his every right to demand the translation out of Tian with all understanding and respect.
ReplyDeleteAll presumptious that he'd get what he wanted just because he asked and claimed that someone liked the culture a lot and yet managed to mispell Kanji as "Kanzi"
Jerks like that deserve meaningless crappy tattoos like "crazy diarrhoea"