to: tiangotlost@gmail.com
date: Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 5:58 PM
subject: Tattoo Translation
Hello,
I just stumbled across your blog and thought that you could assist me in verifying the meaning of my tattoo. I did them myself late one night a couple years back while apprenticing at a tattoo parlor.
Thanks
J. S.
First of all, the top character 苦 is upside down. Bottom characters 阿呆 means "fool, idiot".
The tattoo is very fitting & means "bitter [or suffering] idiot".
lol yeah thats what I thought. It was supposed to be a inside joke between me and my mentor on all the people who get a Kanji and dont necessarily know the meaning. Ironically, in trying to make fun of people getting kanji's, I became one of them due to my upside down placement of "Suffering".
ReplyDeleteYou guys!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.s1979.com/m/citystories/issues/2010/0702/48001.shtml
They did a piece on you on Taiwanese tv!
However, they carefully avoided actually giving you credit. LOL.
J.S., at least you got the penmanship down. I've seen "Kanji" tattoos that are just random strokes of thick to thin lines going every which way to resemble actual Chinese/Japanese characters.
ReplyDeleteInteresting inside joke though, and I'm glad you took that the joke's on you in stride too. :D
J.S. is just trying to save face. How sad.
ReplyDeleteFor the record, The flash sheet with the kanji's had them labeled as "stupid" and "Painful" witch was the reason I chose them to tattoo on my self.
ReplyDelete"Suffering Fool" might also be a fitting description for someone stabbing themselves with tiny needles repeatedly.
In the End, I knew what I was doing.
nice explanation js... why not just put "i'm a stupid idiot" in english...
ReplyDelete