to: tiangotlost@gmail.com
date: Wed, Jun 30, 2010 at 11:28 AM
Hi,
I have a similar story to those posted on your blog, my sister allowed a trainee to practise his 'art' after a day of indulgent partying and likewise has no idea what this 'disaster' means.
I really hope you can help.
Many thanks.
Whoever got this probably over-stretched a book on a copy machine. The characters size are inconsistent. My favorite part is the tattooist even included the period behind 經.
妙法蓮華經 is Lotus Sutra.
the tattoo isn't stretched.. she just got fat from all of the partying (j/k).
ReplyDeleteTian,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your time it is most appreciated.
Mike H.
Could have gotten a pretty little picture of a lotus, but noooo.
ReplyDeleteThe 妙 looks like 炒。
ReplyDeleteactually, it looks like 炒法蓮華輕 (轻?)- Stir-fried French lotus light-weight.
I'm happy with Tian's interpretation thank you.
ReplyDeleteMike H
The first line looks small , the second looks pretty good actually but the last kanji looks very stretched . . . Most interesting is the meaning . Could the tattooist or the tattoo'ed have any idea of the meaning of this ? 'cause I'm curious as to why he would write lotus sutra on someone .
ReplyDeleteDon't ask me, I can't speak for her. She's a Buddhist and Lotus Sutra is what she wanted. I posted this to verify that's what it said - given the circumstances.
ReplyDeleteMike H.
Mike,
ReplyDeleteI don't know much about Buddhism or being a Buddhist, but if this tattoo has religious or spiritual meaning for her, wouldn't she want to get it done well, maybe in some nice calligraphy by someone that knows what they are doing?
As art, this tattoo is a disaster.
It is clear that someone completely ignorant of Japanese or Chinese took 妙法蓮華經 written horizontally in a boring print font and then cut the image up at the wrong places to write it vertically, giving:
妙法
蓮華
經
Then I guess they did not like the spacing or something, so they simply stretched some of the characters including 經 to fit. Unfortunately the result is awful.
It is not hard to find people that can do these tattoos nicely if that is what you want, so why not do so?
-Alan