Saturday, October 29, 2005
"Bitter"
http://www.bmezine.com/tattoo/A51012/high/bmepb147728.jpg
苦 means "bitter", "hardship", or "suffering".
The three exact emotions this guy is going through right now.
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Tuesday, October 25, 2005
Saturday, October 22, 2005
Friday, October 21, 2005
Whole-Hearted Devotion
http://www.bmezine.com/tattoo/A51022/high/bmepb152472.jpg
誠心誠意 is an old Chinese idiom that meant "in all sincerity", "with one's whole heart", or "whole-hearted devotion".
Ironically, neither the tattooist nor the client has devoted enough effort to make sure the tattoo was done correctly.
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Thursday, October 20, 2005
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Sunday, October 16, 2005
Upside Down "Beauty"
http://www.bmezine.com/tattoo/A51012/high/bmepb147957.jpg
This young man is proudly displaying his newly done tattoo. Too bad the first character 美 (beauty) is upside down. Perhaps the young should get 鄙陋 (superficial) as a cover-up tattoo.
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"Where To?"
http://www.bmezine.com/tattoo/A51012/high/bmepb149670.jpg
Due to the tattoo’s poor penmanship, it is very difficult to determine what the client’s original intension was.
The tattooed character could either be 何 (what, why, where, which, how) or 向 (direction).
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Wednesday, October 12, 2005
Dragon and Characters
An U. S. Navy recruiter from Florida has emailed me these photos of tattoos on a new recruit. Since the characters were randomly chosen, therefore I am not going to spend too much trying to decipher what this piece of “skin garbage” really means. But, I am going to point out the incorrectly written characters.
I feel like a medical examiner staring at a badly charred corpse and comparing dental records.
The top character 黑 means “black”. It was poorly written but still somewhat recognizable. The second character 虎 (tiger) was never finished. It is missing the lower partial 几. 龍 (dragon) is poorly written, but was somewhat recognizable.
道 (way, path) is also poorly written.
The two character phrase 武術 means “martial arts”, but the positioning order has been reversed.
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Tuesday, October 11, 2005
"Knowledge" Lacking
http://www.bmezine.com/tattoo/A51003/high/bmegl144560.jpg
I don't remember if it is "good news travel in pairs" or "bad news travel in pairs", but these two have the exact same mistake in their tattoos.
識 (recognize, understand, knowledge) in both are missing a dot at top right corner.
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Sunday, October 9, 2005
Saturday, October 8, 2005
Thursday, October 6, 2005
Tuesday, October 4, 2005
Sunday, October 2, 2005
Firefly's "Electricity Caution" Sign
http://barneygumble742.tripod.com/firefly_xp.htm
Reader Norman emailed me this screen capture. The second character 電 (electricity) of this caution sign in the show Firefly is mirrored. It is also interesting to point out that in the future, spaceships will run on Microsoft Windows and don't lose those device driver disks.
Update: I saw the movie Serenity last night. Although there were some Chinese inconsistencies throughout the movie, overall it was very good. I have to say it was definitely one of the few good Sci-Fi movies that I have enjoyed in long time.