Monday, May 2, 2005

"Central Ice"

http://www.tattoostation.co.uk/images/gallery/large_kanji.jpg
http://www.tattoostation.co.uk/gal8.html


The top two characters usually means "central". In geographical term, there is an area just south and south-west of Tokyo that is called the same. In Japanese, would sometimes also represent the "heart", as the equivalent of "center".

The bottom character , despite it might look like a miswritten (long, perpetual, eternal, forever), it is actually the Japanese version of , which means "ice".

Hence the problem: does the tattoo suppose mean "central ice", "icy center", "Ice of Tokyo's South-West", or "cold hearted"?


8 comments:

  1. Perhaps he meant that he was cold-hearted.

    Got here off a Japanese LJ comm, by the way. Great stuff. XD

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  2. It doesn't mean "heart" in Japanese as in the internal organ, or one's feelings. It would be heart as in "America's Heartland;" in other words, "the center."

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  3. 氷, as a single character, often means "shaved ice".

    It's gotta be like a wise proverb... "THE CENTER OF SHAVED ICE [IS TASTELESS]"... did anyone see 無味 tattooed on his other arm?

    I didn't know people started picking tattoo ideas from fortune cookies made in Japan...

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  4. if he is a hockey player "center ice" could have been what he was intending.

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  5. I don't know how physically demanding is in the hockey sport, but doesn't he look a bit out of shape, especially when his arm does not seen to have any muscle tone.

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  6. You should also tell the readers where you got the images from and what they were supposed to mean originally (if possible).

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  7. If you click on the photo itself or the links posted underneath, you would then realize that your comment made yourself sounding like a fool.

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  8. I had a friend who was the equipment manager for the Ft. Wayne Komets (an IHL hockey team in Indiana,) who once told me that hockey players are the most physically out-of-shape atheletes of any professional sport. Apparently they really enjoy their beer.

    I wouldn't be suprised if the tattoo says "center ice" just like he wants it to. Besides, sports fans are known to be even more rabid than the players themselves about the sports they vicariously enjoy so.

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