Back in the 80's, my then-husband had a shirt with Chinese characters on it. one day while he was wearing it, he walked into a store owned and run by an old Chinese man. As soon as he saw the shirt, he burst out laughing and said, you're not pretty! My ex asked him what he meant and the guy said, your shirt it says buy me I'm pretty! You're not pretty! he never wore that shirt again.
One of my neighbour's teenaged daughters, aged 17, went to China on a student exchange trip last year for several months. She claims to love all things Asian, and wanted to express that with a tattoo on her inner arm. She wanted a "real Chinese tattoo" so she got the characters for what she thought was "Peace, Love, Harmony, Tranquility, Grace" tattooed a few days before the end of her trip. Recently she was proudly showing it off to their visiting Chinese students, who started giggling. They claim it really says: "Foolish foreigners waste money."
There's the story of a chinese girl here in Germany. She wanted to get a tatto in these old german letters. It was supposed to mean sticking together (maybe for her boyfriend). They tattoed "Klebstoff", wich means glue.
@@by_katrin ins deutsche zu übersetzen is ja nun wirklich nicht halb so schwer wie in ne asiatische sprache. Hab da kein mitleid. Hoffentlich wars schön groß und sieht richtig scheisse aus 😂
It's not a story. It's a photoshoped picture / meme and it's a joke about people getting tattoos in Chinese without knowing what it really means. debeste.de/upload/7bce2dd5ce8554492243db6af0921bce8712.jpg
I think the moral to the story is don't appropriate other cultures stuff. If you love Chinese culture so much, you would KNOW what it means and not have to get it from a third hand source.
When I first moved to Japan as an ESL teacher, I had a coworker named Gary. He had an advanced class one day full of Japanese English teachers and university students, all of which were attractive young women. One asked to see his foreigner registration card because she was curious how they had translated his name. When he handed it to her, she started laughing loudly and showing the other students, who were almost rolling on the floor by the time they told him what was up. When the immigration office translated his name into katagana, it was the characters for geri, which is Japanese for diarrhea.
A friend of mine had "Kung Po Chicken Extra Sauce No Vegetables" tattooed on his leg. He knew it was correct because when he would order his food he just showed them the tattoo. The people in the kitchen would come out to look at the crazy white guy with his food order tattooed on his leg. His order was never wrong. :-) Yes he is crazy, but at least he made sure the Chinese was correct!
My friend got "heaven" on her hip bone in Chinese. I have a friend that was born and raised in Hong Kong so I showed it to him n asked what it said. It actually says "DOLLAR". Lmao
I am a retired Tattoo Artist in Australia and I refused to do Chinese characters but happily did Japanese characters as Tattooing has a very strong Japanese history. Fortunately there was a Japanese restaurant next door to my studio and the old dear in there would write the characters for me in old traditional Japanese, not modern Japanese. Then she would come in and check the finished job. 😄
@@ericwayne1491 - Eric , to start with I am not a kid. Unless you call a 62 year old a kid. I thought that would have been a given when I said I am retired. Secondly, not all Japanese characters have Chinese origins. About 70% do, but not all: _"Japanese has no genetic relationship with Chinese,[3] but it makes extensive use of Chinese characters, or kanji (漢字), in its writing system, and a large portion of its vocabulary is borrowed from Chinese. Along with kanji, the Japanese writing system primarily uses two syllabic (or moraic) scripts, hiragana (ひらがな or 平仮名) and katakana (カタカナ or 片仮名)"._
@@Ken_James_SV dude japanese characters are basically borrowed from china like japan didn't exist in the past it waa under water. i would be annoyed if a good tattoo artist refused my request
One friend, knowing that I can read Chinese, proudly showed me her beautiful tattoo with many lines of text covering the length of her spine. She claimed it was a passage about various virtues (honor, strength, and the like). It started out ok, but a few lines down it started to turn into random Chinese words--like "strawberry ice cream". I wasn't sure if I should tell her or not...
hahahah ok, I ran across the funniest one.. this girl wanted the kanji for 'free' ... as in unhindered... freedom... but the character she got meant 'free - no cost.. no value' .... hahahahah
A friend of mine got stabbed in hong kong and got a tattoo with the date above the scar in a shady shop with gangsters and all and it says something along the lines of “congrats on getting stabbed”
My secretary's son-in-law thought he had his name tattooed on his arm until he was in a Chinese restaurant one day and the waitress started laughing at him and said,"Oooh, you Bad Little Baby!!!! :D
To the guy on the left who said full body tattoos take 6 hours... a Japanese style "bodysuit" (full body tattoo, meaning chest, back, butt, arms and legs) takes 120+ hours using a modern tattoo machine. If you go with tebori (the traditional hand-poked method) instead of a machine, it takes MUCH longer.
Awesome video. Never saw a show before where Chinese speakers evaluate bad tattoos...this could be a regular segment. So funny! And great interesting hosts. ☺
Another moral would be don't get a tattoo of something you don't know. or even easier, don't get a tattoo. Go back in history and find out what tattoos meant. What is annoying is a white, city dweller getting a tribal tattoo. They don't belong to any tribe! How STUPID do you have to be?
I got a Chinese character tattooed on my upper arm. I was told that it meant 'Striving/determination' something along those lines. A few years later I moved to China and started dating a Chinese girl. The first time she saw my tattoo she burst out laughing. When I asked why she said 'Why do you have cow tattooed on your arm?'
It's actually really common for japanese people to have random english words on clothes and stuff. They love the playboy bunny but most have no idea what it is.
The issue with tattoos that people don’t get is you need to draw them backwards, cause when they apply the template to your skin for the marker it needs to show up correctly.
Gurl i do study chinese at high school and, ya that's my second year but i'm sure that 会 means like "meeting" so it doesn't mean "speak" I would recommend u "说"
Alessia Gatti 会 has alot of different meanings, here it means know/understand as in something that has been learned, or be able to do something. I agree that he should also use 说，but that should be in addition to 会. However I've heard native Chinese people say it the same way as he did in his joke, so not really a problem.. You're talking about 会as in 会议(meeting) or 约会(appointment) which is the same word, but just isn't used the same way. As you keep learning Chinese you will notice that alot of words carry a vast amount of definitions, and those are often carried on into other words by combining it with different words.
ole berg yea, i already noticed it and i believe you're right. But i got another question, should be more appropriate "汉语" then "中文" as the first is chinese as a language, meanwhile the 2nd one is like, 'written' chinese?
I would get a Chinese tattoo... but at one time, I spoke, read, and wrote upper intermediate Mandarin. Nothing is more painful than seeing Chinese characters tattooed upside down or broken into radicals.
This happens the other way around as well, have seen people here in Asia with incorrect English script tattoos. Regardless of the language you should always make sure you know exactly what’s getting tattooed on your body.
While it was a t-shirt rather than tattoo, I saw a photo in one of our English textbooks detailing Engrish. The example was a young Asian (likely Chinese) man wearing a t-shirt that was probably supposed to read "Clap your hands, make some noise!" complete with music notes. Unfortunately, whoever made it had some L-R confusion in that first word...
Tom Arnold has a tattoo with Chinese characters. He showed it to Jet Li and Jet Li started laughing at him. He told Tom that meaning of his tattoo meant "Extreme Man Love"
funny as hell, I'm gonna move to china and start tattooing " cod and chips" on unsuspecting China men and tell them it means something like "fearless " or "loyalty " . VENGEANCE WILL BE MINE lol
手洗 is the word you use in Japanese when you want to ask where the “public bathroom/toilet” is. It literally means washroom or bathroom. It is considered a polite and indirect way referring to the toilet. The tattoo shows a different character: 手流. It is not Japanese to my knowledge.
You ask a Chinese artist to draw it on paper, then ask five different Chinese people what this symbol means. If you get the same answer five times you're sweet.
I must admit. I laughed out loud at the "This is a tattoo"-tattoo. I loved that! If it hadn't been for the fact that the joke would wear off long before the tattoo ever did, i'd want one for myself.
My friend has a tattoo that just says 'tattoo'. People think it's the funniest thing when they see it. I like this even better because you know people always ask, 'What is that?' and you can respond, 'This is a tattoo.'
***** How about getting a tattoo on a body part that just says the name of that body part? A tattoo that says "shoulder" on the shoulder, or wherever it is located :P The chinese for "leg" on the leg, etc.
This is hilarious! I've always thought that people were getting screwed with when they did this kind of thing. Thanks for proving it to me. "Swiftly Stupid" and "Noodles" are my favorites.
I went to high school with a girl who got ‘chicken chow mein’ tattooed on her, unknowingly. He literally just googled it. She was drunk and thought she was getting her own name in Chinese, which isn’t much better. But the tattoo artist fucked with her and wrote chicken chow mein instead 🤣
A friend of mine had someone she knew ask her what his tattoo means, since she is studying chinese. She asked him if he was drunk when he got it, and he responded with "yea, I walked in and said I want a tattoo in chinese and told them to write anything, what does it say?" "very drunk", she replied. Another frend knew someone who had just come out of jail, and had a tattoo in chinese symbols done there. After my friend asked him what it meant, he answered "I don't know, I took symbols from the tag of some chinese socks, it could say 100% polyester for all I know".
"Outside man" or "outside person" is the literal translation for 'gaijin', which is Japanese for "outsider" or "alien," aka "foreigner. " So this tatoo is correct -- it's just Japanese, and not Chinese.
Very cool vid. I have some Chinese calligraphy on my back that I got @ 17 yrs old. I'm 100% certain that it's NOT what I think it is. It probably says Blue Whale Fetish or something about corn chowder..... Idk
A friend got what HE thought was essentially "Ultimate Warrior, Ultimate Fighter" tattooed on his chest. (Went to a Korean artist, INSULTED the man, and had no reference to go by... obviously it was doomed) Turned out it actually said, roughly, "White Boy Should Do Homework" (credit to the artist for actually creating something that made sense). While he was horrified at first - as he had been hitting on a girl who started laughing hysterically when he opened his shirt, he kept it. He's now a Buddhist and views the tattoo as a good reminder that sometimes, yup. He's a stupid boy who should do his homework. As for me? I'm keeping to English for my tats for now, thanks. My Irish-Welsh backside doesn't really seem to fit a Chinese tattoo. Only languages I speak AND read fluently for me.
Irish knotwork is already planned for my spine once my sleeve is finished, and I'm slowly (and oh so tortuously) attempting to learn Welsh in hopes of one day feeling safe enough to get a bit of Welsh script put on permanently. (Thanks for the T/DW reference. Always love hidden geeks notes. - to make sure that last bit doesn't get read like it's sarcastic, I'll present my own geek card... my husband built custom combat capable lightsabers for the groomsmen in our wedding. And they used them on the dance floor. The geeklove is strong here.)
Tattoo artists are the only blue collar workers in western countries that we somehow feel we can rely upon to be fluently bilingual. Like who in the right mind would be at a UN meeting in dire need of a translator and be like " hold on, I know this one goth lady who must speek fluent chinese, shes a tattoo artist after all!"
As a Chinese majors in Chinese in Chinese college，I think the best Chinese tattoo for foreigners are some classic ancient poetry like "苟利国家生死以". or you can just tattoo"苟". that is a really magic character which can absorb others lives and times to make yourself longlive. Any Chinese who knows the poetry see the tatto of "苟" will show enormous admiration to you because of your knowledges of Chinese culture and politics.
I could never understand non Chinese people getting Chinese tattoos, unless they understand Chinese that is. Wish there was some way of contacting these people and telling them what their tattoos actually mean.
I'm a tattoo artist and I refuse to do tattoos of word or characters in languages when neither I nor the client actually understand or have direct connection too. I speak 3 languages but Chinese, (one example, but we get requests for Kanji, Sanskrit, Arabic, etc) is not one of them, and I refuse to be responsible for permantly marking someone as a culturally oblivious idiot. I value my art form and the integrity of a culture, particularly cultures I have no direct connection to, too much
calm down man,chick used the wrong spelling once. she used it correctly twice after. maybe she was typing fast. or mabey she just wanted to see how many grammar nazis were in the comments...
I have Japanese Hiragana on my shoulder, but if you ask the tattoo artist, it's kanji. I studied Japanese and my tattoo shows my obsession with the modern music of the culture. I do agree that people shouldn't get random words or symbols put on their bodies. I know I would hate to have fried chicken written on me when I thought it was (insert typical one word tattoo).
Brick The Siren THANK YOU. I was typing fast while multi-tasking, but I feel like it's pretty apparent that I DO know the correct spelling/use for the word "too".
My tattoo only composed of 2 words: Russian meaning Jehovah (Иегова) and Arabic meaning God is great (allahu Akbar) I know both words for sure so it's good for me hahah
+UssiTheGrouch. There's different kind of translate form of foreigner name, just for a example, a man named steven johnson, can be translated into 斯蒂芬.約翰遜(JOHN often translateinto yue-han in Mandarin), 史蒂芬.莊臣(remain as john son, in cantonese),莊士文(just as a example,which is pronunced as jon si wen,to translate STEVEN Johnson into a Chinese-alike name)
Can you get an actual meaning out of your "name" afterwards? Like pan means this and xi means that and so my name in chinese then could be translated to "doglovechickendrop" or something?
+Me (No, not Ashildr, I had the name before Doctor Who, and I'm not changing it!) it'd be kind of like that in Chinese. Japanese is much simpler, as they have katakana which is the sounds used for borrowed foreign words usually. So things like "ice cream" are アイスクリーム (aisukurimu). My name Michelle is ミッシェル (missheru)
hi great vid, just curious with some tattoos in characters( Chinese, Japanese and other languages), would the meanings change depending on how the characters are inked on (i.e broad strokes) and if its supposed to read vertically or horizontality and if horizontal should it go right to left or left to right? Also would you be able to recommend somewhere or some website where someone could check what they want to get inked on them and to verify that it is right (meaning the choice of phrase, various meanings and what combination of characters would look best for a tattoo). I know you can take a language course/s in chinese (Cantonese or mandarin ) which might be better for the person/s . Also with some of the tattoos if the person takes a photo using a mirror does that flip the characters too?
Hahaha this is comment thread hilarious. Non English speaking people thinking they can take it so literal and come up with "what it's supposed to mean". Yeah sure I also thought the person might have been going for outcast but you can't go for a literal translation. Those symbols together mean foreigner. And to the other comments...no it can't translate to "outdoor person" or "thinking outside the box". None of you speak and second language do you? It doesn't work like that...just like the guys in the video said. The meaning of certain symbols change depending on what they're put with a different symbols with a meaning can only be used in different contexts.
Do another video like this, and do a side-by-side with how the intended meaning would be written correctly. Also, it would be cool if after you say what they actually say, you put the tattoo back up with the actual English translation. You did for some of them. Fun video!
Exactly what I was thinking due to the neo-nazi reference of 88, but at the same time, if you want to get a prison tat to warn people that you bite, don't you think they'd do it in english? lol GRANTED... their poor judgement in general is what makes them a damn neo-nazi and probably what got them put away in the first place :P
That's too clean to be a prison tat. I also can't believe that a tattoo artist would hear someone say "I want 88 because it sounds like BYEBYE" and not go "Ummm, about that..."
Loren Couch actually no. the vegetarian thing was mostly propaganda to make him seem more like ghandi. he was put on a partly vegetarian diet from 1931 onwards though to combat his flatulence
If I ever got a tattoo in Chinese I would make it say something like 'chicken' and then tell everyone that it means something really profound and they would never know
I have seen so many people with Asian tattoos and they definitely don't say what they thought it was. I have been involved in the tattoo community in Australia for a long time and I know a lot of tattoo artist who actually refuse to do Asian word tattoos as they tend to always be wrong. I have a lot of tattoos and I have never gotten a tattoo in another language that I don't already know or anything just off the wall that looks pretty. I have designed all my own tattoos myself and I have sold some my artwork to tattoo shops. But people really need to actually think before getting tattoos people need to go back to when tattoos actually ment something to you personally and not just what is trendy at the time.
I think the worst kanji tattoo fail I have seen was I worked with someone that had the following tattooed on the back of their neck: 命 運 I asked her what it meant, and she said "Destiny". Close, but not quite. 運命 is destiny. 命運 is doom.
Jonas O ahhh I thought the person wanted to look at it the right way when they look at it in the mirror....but your theory makes a million times more sense.
I've always kind of wanted to get "Chicken Noodle Soup" tattooed on me, then tell everybody it says "Death before dishonour" or something like that. But people who don't read Chinese would just believe me, and people who do read Chinese would never believe I did it on purpose.
The reason the tattoos are upside down, is because the tattoo artist is transferring a copied form of the symbol. Which indicates a tattoo artist thats either A-not very bright, B-Ignorant of his own craft or that there's a right-side for the characters, C-lazy and doesn't care.
The only Chinese character that should be placed upside down should be fu 福 or fortune. This is because upside down, 倒 has the same pronunciation as to come. So an upside down fu means fortune comes to me. And that's the only example I can think of.
SwordOfOdin The problem is this. What happens if the characters are upside down or reversed in the first place? Again, some of these tattoo artists know about Chinese characters about as much as a regular person knows ancient Egyptian. They just look up the net and do whatever it may look cool...With sometimes very unintended results.
StryderK true, but my point is that that's the customer's fault, isn't it? I've got some tattoos myself, also something in japanese (my japanese teacher helped me to dodge any mistakes in the characters). When I went to my tattoo artist, he asked me which direction that stuff is supposed to face, so I answered. It is MY responsibility to chose a motive that suits me and is spelled correctly. The tattoo artist's job is just to get whatever I want under my skin. It is NOT his job to know Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Russian, Arabic or any other language people want tattoos in. The customer alone choses his tattoo, so the customer is also the only one to blame if he has bullshit written all over his skin. (the only time a tattoo artist fucks up is when he inks someone poorly, like with a shaky hand or cheap ink, or has a bad technique or stuff like that.)
SwordOfOdin But there are also unscrupulous tattoo artists that just don't care either. The responsibility cuts both ways. Yes, part of it is on the customers, but the artist also needs to, I don't know, know his arts here. If he doesn't know or are not sure about somethings, then how can he be trusted? It's like a manager hawking his own product, when someone asks, what does your product do? And his answer is basically, "I don't know! Buy it and find out!!!"...I mean, just how would that feel? If a tattoo artist wants to make a living by tattooing Chinese or Japanese characters, then he himself needs to do at least the minimum research to be at least somewhat knowledgeable here AKA, at least to know the orientation of the characters. I'm not expecting them to understand everything, but at least to avoid the most easily avoidable mistakes. It's the most basic responsibility here from the tattoo artist side. Of course, the consumers have to be responsible too, such as make sure what goes on your body, well, don't end up being on youtube being the most embarrassing thing of them all! At least from what I've seen, most Chinese character tattoos that I've seen make at least some modicum of sense, so at least both sides took responsibility...
That wouldn't work the same way as it would in America. In China and Japan they have a mandatory English curriculum in their schools, so even if their English was poor, they would still understand what you just tattooed on their body.
Laura Haver well, that'll works somehow. I live here in China. It's true that they learn English at school. But since it has different alphabet, for them English is difficult to learn. Many of them can speak a little english, but don't know how to write or read it. Only some person with high interest in English can speak, read and write it correctly.
Huge fan of your videos, it feels so good that finally there are some people that could understand and explain how Chinese people and cultural are and not all just saying bad things about us.
Double Chen concerning the guai jin * I hope I wrote this correctly* it could be japanese kanji noch chinese kanji and in japanese gaijin actually means foreigner. Just FYI
the guys said as much but it doesn't mean foreigner, at least in chinese. That's why they said it's a tattoo fail but in japanese it does mean foreigner so it wouldn't be a fail^^
"Outside man" is actually the way Japanese say " Foreigner". Pronounced "gaijin" in Japanese. So that one is correct although strange to have as a tattoo.
Best messed up text tattoo I ever saw was when I was a bartender and this customer got a tattoo that was supposed to be Chinese for "courage" or "bravery" or something like that... The dude never knew it was wrong until a Chinese person sat next to him and politely asked him if he was a gardener. He was like "...whaaaaat?" and she said, "well, your arm says 'potting soil', so I thought you might love to garden..." I guess it takes a lot of courage to get a tattoo in a language you don't speak... Bravo! (How do you write "Brass Testicles" in Chinese? He should have earned that one by now!)
gzuzumaki2 Yes, I am aware of the fact that kanji are originally Chinese signs, but I think you, sir, are missing the point. In the video they argued that 外人 was a weird combination to use for foreigner, but in a Japanese context it would make sense as both 外人 (がいじん - gaijin) and 外国人 (がいこくじん - gaikokujin) are used as terms for foreigners.
This is AWESOME !!!😂😂😂 I have 4 tattoos but this is the exact reason why I would never get Chinese letters on me! I think it’s a beautiful language and the symbols are amazing but you never know what you’re really getting if you haven’t cleared yet with someone who is fluent or knows the language! So funny to watch you all break down these tattoos though!!!
I want a Chinese tattoo that's all done up like a old Chinese scroll, except it's just a recipe for like a really good mixed drink or mac 'n' cheese or something.
I'm a writer and I would totally get "hand flow" tattooed on me as a description of my creative process (letting my hands enable the words to flow)... but the rest just make me laugh, and I'm sure there's a better description of writers available out there somewhere
Lol its so funny... seems like people who want to come up with an awesome tattoo idea prefer to take home the menu from their favorite restaurant and choose something funky looking^^ - Thank you guys! Please do more of that :D "Lesson: don´t get a tattoo in a language you don´t speak yourself"
Back in the 80's, my then-husband had a shirt with Chinese characters on it. one day while he was wearing it, he walked into a store owned and run by an old Chinese man. As soon as he saw the shirt, he burst out laughing and said, you're not pretty! My ex asked him what he meant and the guy said, your shirt it says buy me I'm pretty! You're not pretty! he never wore that shirt again.
You just made my day telling that story XD
hahahahaha I woulda kept wearing it. but i try not to take anything too seriously, including my deflating ego
MyBrainEatsEverything that's hilarious!!! 😂😂😂😂😂
MyBrainEatsEverything
Maybe the pretended message was: hey I am a pretty shirt, buy me!!
a friends tattoo says "Congratulations You can read chinese" in chinese character
That is actually amazing
*slow clap*
lmao
or at least.. that's what he thinks it says :P
It says: 我自己受辱
One of my neighbour's teenaged daughters, aged 17, went to China on a student exchange trip last year for several months. She claims to love all things Asian, and wanted to express that with a tattoo on her inner arm. She wanted a "real Chinese tattoo" so she got the characters for what she thought was "Peace, Love, Harmony, Tranquility, Grace" tattooed a few days before the end of her trip.
Recently she was proudly showing it off to their visiting Chinese students, who started giggling.
They claim it really says: "Foolish foreigners waste money."
I bet that’s a joke
don't care that’s fucked up
This is so mean
Not possible. There's no way she could study Chinese for months and not know five words.
Is it a joke or a bullshit story?
There's the story of a chinese girl here in Germany. She wanted to get a tatto in these old german letters. It was supposed to mean sticking together (maybe for her boyfriend). They tattoed "Klebstoff", wich means glue.
hahaha hätte auch Uhu schreiben können ;-))))
at least she didn't get the words for "Sticking it in"...
@@by_katrin ins deutsche zu übersetzen is ja nun wirklich nicht halb so schwer wie in ne asiatische sprache. Hab da kein mitleid. Hoffentlich wars schön groß und sieht richtig scheisse aus 😂
It's not a story. It's a photoshoped picture / meme and it's a joke about people getting tattoos in Chinese without knowing what it really means. debeste.de/upload/7bce2dd5ce8554492243db6af0921bce8712.jpg
I also want that glue tattoo! Or maybe it should read "shame sticks like glue" lol!
they even misspell English sentences, what makes you think they can write foreign languages without typos
Very true
No ragrets.
+Tony Sanchez
"you don't regret even one letter?"
"nope. That ain't me"
Douglas Gregory yeah um its actually a movie
Kaytarra Beaulieu I was waiting for this response lol
I was living in Asia for a few years and damn, you should see what some of those shirts say in English...
thank you.. i have something awesome to look up lmao.
ahhhhhhhhhh!!!! yes! you rock!!!!
bookmarked
i went to japan a few weeks ago and no joke, i saw a dude whose shirt said "born in vagina"
at least they're just shirts !! this are tattoos!
Soooo the moral of the story is; consult a trustworthy Chinese friend before getting a Chinese tattoo.
If I was Chinese and I was the person they consulted, even as a friend, I'd have them get stuck with something like "Donkey show star."
I Am Root 妈的
I think the moral to the story is don't appropriate other cultures stuff. If you love Chinese culture so much, you would KNOW what it means and not have to get it from a third hand source.
Or use Google Translate.
Or double triple check with different sources to make sure they say the same thing before permanently tattooing it on yourself.
When I first moved to Japan as an ESL teacher, I had a coworker named Gary. He had an advanced class one day full of Japanese English teachers and university students, all of which were attractive young women. One asked to see his foreigner registration card because she was curious how they had translated his name. When he handed it to her, she started laughing loudly and showing the other students, who were almost rolling on the floor by the time they told him what was up. When the immigration office translated his name into katagana, it was the characters for geri, which is Japanese for diarrhea.
A friend of mine had "Kung Po Chicken Extra Sauce No Vegetables" tattooed on his leg. He knew it was correct because when he would order his food he just showed them the tattoo. The people in the kitchen would come out to look at the crazy white guy with his food order tattooed on his leg. His order was never wrong. :-) Yes he is crazy, but at least he made sure the Chinese was correct!
Vikki Farra haha. that is awesome
when it works, it's not stupid...
I mean...I wouldn't tattoo a cake recipe on my body either but at least his tattoo has a purpose!
Vikki Farra lmfao
Lmao
Vikki Farra Smart guy right there.
This is why you shouldn't get a tattoo in a language you can't read, write, or understand.
Is that really a : oh look at me i can read write and understand chinese comment ? Cause that's sad.
I'm hoping it was a "just because I can read, write and understand it still doesn't mean I should get it" comment... but I don't think it is.
I feel more like this is a "Make sure to only get a tattoo in a language if you know it's not gonna say [I'm a poo flinging cat brain]" kinda comment
RaveriusMax I had a friend who got a tattoo that said one thing in Japanese but said another in Chinese. It was rather awkward when she found out.
Coffin dude= vampire
You have enlightened me
There is a word for vampire in chinese. So if that’s the intention, it backfired.....
Jiangshi.
@@powerincarnate6783 xixuegui （吸血鬼）
殭屍 you mean
My friend got "heaven" on her hip bone in Chinese. I have a friend that was born and raised in Hong Kong so I showed it to him n asked what it said. It actually says "DOLLAR". Lmao
Logan Hensley so it’s 元 instead of 天
👍
Lol I can see how that would happen. The characters have some similarities
@@ralmin maybe 😂 元 and 天 might look like the same for her friend
Heaven 天堂 Dollar 美元
My dad once told me a work friend of his got "fear no man" tattooed on his arm in Chinese but it actually said "lemon duck"
Lol omg 😂😂
"Lemon duck..."
D E E P ☠️
Oh you look so fine!!!
😂
This isn't even funny
Seen a man with a funny Hebrew tattoo. He wanted "Oz" which means courage.
What he actually had tattooed was "Ez" which means goat.
Hebrew is a fake language invented in the late 1800s anyway
I am so getting "old dangerous dad" lol
😂😂😂😂
That’s not a bad description of my father.
Why get a tattoo in a language you can't read?? 😂
Stupidity.
So other people in my culture can't easily read me :) The important thing is that *I* know what it (supposedly) means.
For personal amusement. I want a tattoo written in Chinese that says: I can't read Chinese.
Of course, my son had a onesie that said: I can't read.
That's brilliant :)
some people just want to show off but fail miserably lol
If I was Chinese I’d point to peoples tattoos and say “hey I love shrimp fried rice too”
I am a retired Tattoo Artist in Australia and I refused to do Chinese characters but happily did Japanese characters as Tattooing has a very strong Japanese history. Fortunately there was a Japanese restaurant next door to my studio and the old dear in there would write the characters for me in old traditional Japanese, not modern Japanese. Then she would come in and check the finished job. 😄
Kids get some education. Japanese history is all written in chinese. Without borrowing chinese characters , japanese is nothing.
@@ericwayne1491 - Eric , to start with I am not a kid. Unless you call a 62 year old a kid. I thought that would have been a given when I said I am retired.
Secondly, not all Japanese characters have Chinese origins. About 70% do, but not all: _"Japanese has no genetic relationship with Chinese,[3] but it makes extensive use of Chinese characters, or kanji (漢字), in its writing system, and a large portion of its vocabulary is borrowed from Chinese. Along with kanji, the Japanese writing system primarily uses two syllabic (or moraic) scripts, hiragana (ひらがな or 平仮名) and katakana (カタカナ or 片仮名)"._
HA...HA...HA
@@Ken_James_SV dude japanese characters are basically borrowed from china like japan didn't exist in the past it waa under water. i would be annoyed if a good tattoo artist refused my request
"Its so permanent" WELL KIDS ARE PRETTY PERMANENT TOO CAROL
Oh f*ck, i love that quote. 😂
licinha unless ur antivax
licinha I hope your poor writing skills aren’t! It’s* too,*
I’d rather have all my tattoos than any kids 😂🤷🏽♀️
Well, both of them can be removed with a laser.
I just love it when someone shows off their ink & gets them translated. Their reactions are priceless.
Is this like an Asian Good Mythical Morning?
it looks like that
Lollllllll
2:32 *COFFIN MAN, TAKE ME BY THE HAND LEAD ME TO THE LAND!*
NeedsMoreBoosters YAAAAASS
NeedsMoreBoosters how about funeral director?
sounds like a line out of a blues/ death metal song
the quest from the coroner to the tomb is a real trip...COFFIN MAN
10:30 drowing in weed either can only been read with a mirror, so it is so the person can read it when he sees his/her reflection.
One friend, knowing that I can read Chinese, proudly showed me her beautiful tattoo with many lines of text covering the length of her spine. She claimed it was a passage about various virtues (honor, strength, and the like). It started out ok, but a few lines down it started to turn into random Chinese words--like "strawberry ice cream". I wasn't sure if I should tell her or not...
hahahah ok, I ran across the funniest one.. this girl wanted the kanji for 'free' ... as in unhindered... freedom... but the character she got meant 'free - no cost.. no value' .... hahahahah
A friend of mine got stabbed in hong kong and got a tattoo with the date above the scar in a shady shop with gangsters and all and it says something along the lines of “congrats on getting stabbed”
Let's see
Thanks my coffee is all over my keyboard now
Ermehgerd
Miel van Velzen lol
That’s a really good idea
My secretary's son-in-law thought he had his name tattooed on his arm until he was in a Chinese restaurant one day and the waitress started laughing at him and said,"Oooh, you Bad Little Baby!!!! :D
ColKorn1965 Uh oh😂😂😂
To the guy on the left who said full body tattoos take 6 hours... a Japanese style "bodysuit" (full body tattoo, meaning chest, back, butt, arms and legs) takes 120+ hours using a modern tattoo machine. If you go with tebori (the traditional hand-poked method) instead of a machine, it takes MUCH longer.
The flipped characters could be due to the camera or using a mirror.
Awesome video. Never saw a show before where Chinese speakers evaluate bad tattoos...this could be a regular segment. So funny! And great interesting hosts. ☺
moral of story: never trust google translate
Another moral would be don't get a tattoo of something you don't know. or even easier, don't get a tattoo. Go back in history and find out what tattoos meant.
What is annoying is a white, city dweller getting a tribal tattoo. They don't belong to any tribe! How STUPID do you have to be?
@@davidedwards3361 they belong to the White tribe.
Disagree, it's more about learning how to use it correctly
Good gawd, those cheekbones! Some people are walking art!
Haroisaan Disinterested.
Haroisaan ✌️😉
I got a Chinese character tattooed on my upper arm. I was told that it meant 'Striving/determination' something along those lines. A few years later I moved to China and started dating a Chinese girl. The first time she saw my tattoo she burst out laughing. When I asked why she said 'Why do you have cow tattooed on your arm?'
我看到了更糟糕的情况
If you regret, you can write one more word, 人
@@user-qs9lz9di9w What will it mean then?
@@user-qs9lz9di9w I meant the whole thing, with the character for "cow" as well.
You can add 逼 behind 牛 （cow), 牛逼
"Water hand flow" = waterbender!!!!!
actually I'd explain it as "abortion by hand" since 流 can be an abbreviation for 流产（abortion）
War Butt r u talking about avatar?
But there is no water character in there (水). He misread & corrected himself
Guys I'm pretty sure the guy was trying to get grenade tattooed cuz 手榴 (hand grenade) and 手流 (hand flow) are synonyms
War Butt "hand flow" i automatically thought sign language
I wonder if there are Chinese dudes with random western words on their body.. like chicken soup or banana...
yes there are, i1.wp.com/aramajapan.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/aramajapan_9ldvlgyebpdc42hw9ehdf1pratund7mrxwwwjgw.jpg
***** nothing if you love chicken soup
yes in Japan, they have some inappropriate American words. too funny
SO MANY!!!!
It's actually really common for japanese people to have random english words on clothes and stuff. They love the playboy bunny but most have no idea what it is.
People usually bring it in.. ive told clients before “ do i look Chinese? Because I definitely don’t know how to read or write characters” I refuse
The issue with tattoos that people don’t get is you need to draw them backwards, cause when they apply the template to your skin for the marker it needs to show up correctly.
ok but these are the tats not the stencils, and also, photos can be flipped
@@Cassxowary that was nothing but stating the obvious. And changes nothing or brings value other than anything said
"I'm a biting vegetarian." lmao
I have friends in the kink community that "I don't eat meat but I bite" would apply to.
@@Morna777 LMFAO
I want a tattoo that says "我不知道，我不会中文。". That way if someone asks what it means I can say "I don't know, I can't speak Chinese."
Isabella Saxon what does that say
You didnt get the joke.
Gurl i do study chinese at high school and, ya that's my second year but i'm sure that 会 means like "meeting" so it doesn't mean "speak" I would recommend u "说"
Alessia Gatti 会 has alot of different meanings, here it means know/understand as in something that has been learned, or be able to do something. I agree that he should also use 说，but that should be in addition to 会. However I've heard native Chinese people say it the same way as he did in his joke, so not really a problem..
You're talking about 会as in 会议(meeting) or 约会(appointment) which is the same word, but just isn't used the same way.
As you keep learning Chinese you will notice that alot of words carry a vast amount of definitions, and those are often carried on into other words by combining it with different words.
ole berg yea, i already noticed it and i believe you're right. But i got another question, should be more appropriate "汉语" then "中文" as the first is chinese as a language, meanwhile the 2nd one is like, 'written' chinese?
I would get a Chinese tattoo... but at one time, I spoke, read, and wrote upper intermediate Mandarin.
Nothing is more painful than seeing Chinese characters tattooed upside down or broken into radicals.
This happens the other way around as well, have seen people here in Asia with incorrect English script tattoos. Regardless of the language you should always make sure you know exactly what’s getting tattooed on your body.
and don’t use languages you don’t know or care about
While it was a t-shirt rather than tattoo, I saw a photo in one of our English textbooks detailing Engrish. The example was a young Asian (likely Chinese) man wearing a t-shirt that was probably supposed to read "Clap your hands, make some noise!" complete with music notes. Unfortunately, whoever made it had some L-R confusion in that first word...
Tom Arnold has a tattoo with Chinese characters. He showed it to Jet Li and Jet Li started laughing at him. He told Tom that meaning of his tattoo meant "Extreme Man Love"
Cassandra F
Tom Arnold said it in his stand-up
It's a joke......He's a comedian.
That's what Tom Arnold wanted?
funny as hell, I'm gonna move to china and start tattooing " cod and chips" on unsuspecting China men and tell them it means something like "fearless " or "loyalty " . VENGEANCE WILL BE MINE lol
lots of Chinese people know English though
Simon Berjawi and then you end up crying in the trunk of a triad car
chinese kids start learning English at grade 3
It can be pretty shameful for them to have that on their body since cod and chips sound like something from a place where ppl dont know how to cook XD
Skilgannon The Damned That'd definitely work in Japan, that's for sure.
手流，it is japanese, means toilet
Washroom.
Lmaaaaooooo! Either is too funny , what are people thinking ?😂😂😂
😂😂😂😂😂😂
No, it is 手洗い in Japanese.
手洗 is the word you use in Japanese when you want to ask where the “public bathroom/toilet” is. It literally means washroom or bathroom. It is considered a polite and indirect way referring to the toilet. The tattoo shows a different character: 手流. It is not Japanese to my knowledge.
You ask a Chinese artist to draw it on paper, then ask five different Chinese people what this symbol means. If you get the same answer five times you're sweet.
*when u take chinese class and ur parents say its useless but u come across a comic and a video where is chinese and actually becomes helpful*
Jahmyra Andrews It can actually help you a lot in your career to know chinese
Jahmyra Andrews
If you're a business representative speaking Chinese is really helpful.
You're parents give bad advice. Chinese is probably the most valuable language to learn on top of English
You could become a professional Chinese translator...how is that useless?
you parent still have old ideas
I must admit. I laughed out loud at the "This is a tattoo"-tattoo. I loved that!
If it hadn't been for the fact that the joke would wear off long before the tattoo ever did, i'd want one for myself.
My friend has a tattoo that just says 'tattoo'. People think it's the funniest thing when they see it. I like this even better because you know people always ask, 'What is that?' and you can respond, 'This is a tattoo.'
*****
How about getting a tattoo on a body part that just says the name of that body part? A tattoo that says "shoulder" on the shoulder, or wherever it is located :P
The chinese for "leg" on the leg, etc.
I have a gang of tattoos but a comical one is in my arm pit. I have "Brad" tattooed in my one arm PITT. I introduce people to Brad Pitt all the time!
+music fungus Ha!
Amphibiot
"C'est n'est une pipe" sort of thing
This is hilarious! I've always thought that people were getting screwed with when they did this kind of thing. Thanks for proving it to me. "Swiftly Stupid" and "Noodles" are my favorites.
I went to high school with a girl who got ‘chicken chow mein’ tattooed on her, unknowingly. He literally just googled it. She was drunk and thought she was getting her own name in Chinese, which isn’t much better. But the tattoo artist fucked with her and wrote chicken chow mein instead 🤣
A friend of mine had someone she knew ask her what his tattoo means, since she is studying chinese. She asked him if he was drunk when he got it, and he responded with "yea, I walked in and said I want a tattoo in chinese and told them to write anything, what does it say?" "very drunk", she replied.
Another frend knew someone who had just come out of jail, and had a tattoo in chinese symbols done there. After my friend asked him what it meant, he answered "I don't know, I took symbols from the tag of some chinese socks, it could say 100% polyester for all I know".
I knew a guy who got a tattoo of "asian writing" on his arm in Chinese characters
I can get behind that, though. I mean, come on, that's kinda funny, right?
I get a kick out of that idea. And I'm not sure who came up with it first but that is also an Amy Poehler joke.
"Outside man" or "outside person" is the literal translation for 'gaijin', which is Japanese for "outsider" or "alien," aka "foreigner. " So this tatoo is correct -- it's just Japanese, and not Chinese.
Very cool vid.
I have some Chinese calligraphy on my back that I got @ 17 yrs old.
I'm 100% certain that it's NOT what I think it is.
It probably says Blue Whale Fetish or something about corn chowder..... Idk
A friend got what HE thought was essentially "Ultimate Warrior, Ultimate Fighter" tattooed on his chest. (Went to a Korean artist, INSULTED the man, and had no reference to go by... obviously it was doomed) Turned out it actually said, roughly, "White Boy Should Do Homework" (credit to the artist for actually creating something that made sense). While he was horrified at first - as he had been hitting on a girl who started laughing hysterically when he opened his shirt, he kept it. He's now a Buddhist and views the tattoo as a good reminder that sometimes, yup. He's a stupid boy who should do his homework. As for me? I'm keeping to English for my tats for now, thanks. My Irish-Welsh backside doesn't really seem to fit a Chinese tattoo. Only languages I speak AND read fluently for me.
Q
Jenna Lutz
With your background you could get one in Irish Gaelic or in beautiful Welsh vowels. (That's a Torchwood/Dr. Who reference.)
Irish knotwork is already planned for my spine once my sleeve is finished, and I'm slowly (and oh so tortuously) attempting to learn Welsh in hopes of one day feeling safe enough to get a bit of Welsh script put on permanently. (Thanks for the T/DW reference. Always love hidden geeks notes. - to make sure that last bit doesn't get read like it's sarcastic, I'll present my own geek card... my husband built custom combat capable lightsabers for the groomsmen in our wedding. And they used them on the dance floor. The geeklove is strong here.)
Jenna Lutz
It is so cringe to me that people get tattoos in languages like Chinese or Latin when they can't even speak those languages
Ilowa I just covered mine. It's correct tho but I still felt uneasy with it lol.
Ilowa i feel exactly the same way, especially if your not of that ethinicity or descent.
jonathanjpina yeah that's how I felt so I covered it quick lol.
***** right!
Ilowa Or Japanese ugh. Pisses me off. It's almost disrespectful.
The guy is loyal to his noodles. 🤣
"Hand flow" could be for martial arts.
That's a fancy way of saying 'wanker'.
They're loyal to noodles. I'm also loyal to noodles.
Racheal Danielle Gorbea lol. I choose rice
he said the person who got the noodles tattoo is loyal to noodles because they meant to get loyal as a tattoo. so he said loyal to noodles for the tat
I like noodles. But I’d rather spend money on more noodles than on a tatt that says “noodles.”
Tattoo artists are the only blue collar workers in western countries that we somehow feel we can rely upon to be fluently bilingual. Like who in the right mind would be at a UN meeting in dire need of a translator and be like " hold on, I know this one goth lady who must speek fluent chinese, shes a tattoo artist after all!"
As a Chinese majors in Chinese in Chinese college，I think the best Chinese tattoo for foreigners are some classic ancient poetry like
"苟利国家生死以".
or you can just tattoo"苟". that is a really magic character which can absorb others lives and times to make yourself longlive. Any Chinese who knows the poetry see the tatto of "苟" will show enormous admiration to you because of your knowledges of Chinese culture and politics.
…..你这。。。祸害外国人啊，，
Then the tattoo became""寄"mean dead XD
Awesome guys!!!!
As always! Thanks so much for sharing!!!!
I could never understand non Chinese people getting Chinese tattoos, unless they understand Chinese that is. Wish there was some way of contacting these people and telling them what their tattoos actually mean.
soupy3185 I think many of them just think it's exotic and looks cool. 🤣
Chinese people have a better system, they just wear shirts with crazy things written in English.
soupy3185
It's because it just looks cool, not that hard to understand.
I'm a tattoo artist and I refuse to do tattoos of word or characters in languages when neither I nor the client actually understand or have direct connection too. I speak 3 languages but Chinese, (one example, but we get requests for Kanji, Sanskrit, Arabic, etc) is not one of them, and I refuse to be responsible for permantly marking someone as a culturally oblivious idiot. I value my art form and the integrity of a culture, particularly cultures I have no direct connection to, too much
"TO" not TOO.......jesus gaddam christ.....why can't people spell anymore?
calm down man,chick used the wrong spelling once. she used it correctly twice after. maybe she was typing fast. or mabey she just wanted to see how many grammar nazis were in the comments...
I have Japanese Hiragana on my shoulder, but if you ask the tattoo artist, it's kanji. I studied Japanese and my tattoo shows my obsession with the modern music of the culture. I do agree that people shouldn't get random words or symbols put on their bodies. I know I would hate to have fried chicken written on me when I thought it was (insert typical one word tattoo).
Brick The Siren THANK YOU. I was typing fast while multi-tasking, but I feel like it's pretty apparent that I DO know the correct spelling/use for the word "too".
My tattoo only composed of 2 words: Russian meaning Jehovah (Иегова) and Arabic meaning God is great (allahu Akbar) I know both words for sure so it's good for me hahah
These guys are refreshingly wonderful!
Such a pleasure to watch. You guys clearly had a lot of fun doing this.!! Thanks. BTW, I did see the same thing in reverse in Thailand
do u know the coffin man the coffin man the coffin man.
That lives on Dreary Lane.
(That actually is very fitting.)
BTW, most of these Caucasians with Chinese symbols think they got their names tattooed.
Is there even a proper way to "translate" a common western name into Chinese characters? 😂
+UssiTheGrouch. There's different kind of translate form of foreigner name, just for a example, a man named steven johnson, can be translated into 斯蒂芬.約翰遜(JOHN often translateinto yue-han in Mandarin), 史蒂芬.莊臣(remain as john son, in cantonese),莊士文(just as a example,which is pronunced as jon si wen,to translate STEVEN Johnson into a Chinese-alike name)
Basically you make up Chinese name that sounds close to your real name. For example, my name is Patricia and my Chinese name is 潘夕雅 (pan xi ya)
Can you get an actual meaning out of your "name" afterwards? Like pan means this and xi means that and so my name in chinese then could be translated to "doglovechickendrop" or something?
+Me (No, not Ashildr, I had the name before Doctor Who, and I'm not changing it!) it'd be kind of like that in Chinese. Japanese is much simpler, as they have katakana which is the sounds used for borrowed foreign words usually. So things like "ice cream" are アイスクリーム (aisukurimu). My name Michelle is ミッシェル (missheru)
3:20 although it may not mean literally "foreigner" in chinese, if you translate that from japanese it'll be "foreigner" (read as gaijin)
I’m always so fascinated that you can read all these characters and there are thousands
I'd get noodles 😂 I'm loyal to my noodles
exactly
Udon FTW
Before they said it was supposed to mean loyalty I was thinking maybe they had noodle legs.
Madison McKenzie Yes! My cat is named Noodle. So would totally get that tattooed.
:)
I'm just here to read the comments and have a good time.
This comment is my favourite.
LOL.😂
Maximus Orion same tbh
hi great vid, just curious with some tattoos in characters( Chinese, Japanese and other languages), would the meanings change depending on how the characters are inked on (i.e broad strokes) and if its supposed to read vertically or horizontality and if horizontal should it go right to left or left to right?
Also would you be able to recommend somewhere or some website where someone could check what they want to get inked on them and to verify that it is right (meaning the choice of phrase, various meanings and what combination of characters would look best for a tattoo).
I know you can take a language course/s in chinese (Cantonese or mandarin ) which might be better for the person/s .
Also with some of the tattoos if the person takes a photo using a mirror does that flip the characters too?
This video was awesome, thank you so much! Made me subscribe =D
"Outside Man" could that have been an attempt at "Outcast"?
外人 is a Japanese word for "foreigner"
+Sanaenaeable
Actually it's 外国人 "Gaikokujin", often shorten to 外人 "Gaijin" which meaning is a bit vague.
I agree. I interpreted it as xenos or outsider
Hahaha this is comment thread hilarious. Non English speaking people thinking they can take it so literal and come up with "what it's supposed to mean". Yeah sure I also thought the person might have been going for outcast but you can't go for a literal translation. Those symbols together mean foreigner. And to the other comments...no it can't translate to "outdoor person" or "thinking outside the box". None of you speak and second language do you? It doesn't work like that...just like the guys in the video said. The meaning of certain symbols change depending on what they're put with a different symbols with a meaning can only be used in different contexts.
Hey Seuss Oh I'm sorry I couldn't hear it through your text comment.
Well, have you ever been betrayed by noodles? I didn't think so.
seatbelttruck depends on the restaurant lol
The noodles will never betray you. The cook on the other hand.....
I just ate noodles and I'm thinking of getting more.
bu there are people got strangled to death by noodles...
Unless you are a vegan and it's egg noodles O.O
Do another video like this, and do a side-by-side with how the intended meaning would be written correctly. Also, it would be cool if after you say what they actually say, you put the tattoo back up with the actual English translation. You did for some of them. Fun video!
This is the best video I've watched for weeks👍👍👍👍👍👍👍
"I don't eat meat but I bite" Anyone else wonder if that might be a prison tat? Changes the context a bit...
Exactly what I was thinking due to the neo-nazi reference of 88, but at the same time, if you want to get a prison tat to warn people that you bite, don't you think they'd do it in english? lol GRANTED... their poor judgement in general is what makes them a damn neo-nazi and probably what got them put away in the first place :P
That's too clean to be a prison tat. I also can't believe that a tattoo artist would hear someone say "I want 88 because it sounds like BYEBYE" and not go "Ummm, about that..."
It could also be their birth year
Loren Couch
actually no. the vegetarian thing was mostly propaganda to make him seem more like ghandi. he was put on a partly vegetarian diet from 1931 onwards though to combat his flatulence
All I could think of was “tell your boyfriend that I’m a vegetarian and I ain’t f***ing scared of him”
If I ever got a tattoo in Chinese I would make it say something like 'chicken' and then tell everyone that it means something really profound and they would never know
sooooooo chicken in cantonese is slang for hooker, soooo good luck!
simpsiano123 that makes it even funnier hahahaha
simpsiano123 That actually makes sense considering we call hot girls "chicks"
Ava Carroll lmao
Ava Carroll Unless they watched the Double Chen Show.
Loving the castle background 😂
I think it's Bodiam?
I have seen so many people with Asian tattoos and they definitely don't say what they thought it was. I have been involved in the tattoo community in Australia for a long time and I know a lot of tattoo artist who actually refuse to do Asian word tattoos as they tend to always be wrong.
I have a lot of tattoos and I have never gotten a tattoo in another language that I don't already know or anything just off the wall that looks pretty. I have designed all my own tattoos myself and I have sold some my artwork to tattoo shops. But people really need to actually think before getting tattoos people need to go back to when tattoos actually ment something to you personally and not just what is trendy at the time.
I think the worst kanji tattoo fail I have seen was I worked with someone that had the following tattooed on the back of their neck:
命
運
I asked her what it meant, and she said "Destiny". Close, but not quite. 運命 is destiny. 命運 is doom.
Oh dear. Does she know now what it means?
Yes, I told her. Her only comment was "I don't think I like it so much anymore."
Ah..I hope she changed it to prevent misfortune.
two are both correct for destiny,運命in Japanese,命運 in Chinese
Thus the symbolic languages are rather confusion prone?
9:44 The photo is taken in a mirror, therefore it is inverted :)
Jonas O ahhh I thought the person wanted to look at it the right way when they look at it in the mirror....but your theory makes a million times more sense.
But it's still backwards if it was reversed in a mirror
Jason Miller smh. 🤦♂️
I think they were saying that it is also upside down. Instead of "drowning in weed" it says "weed sink drown"
Didn't want the clip to end. Interesting stuff.
I've always kind of wanted to get "Chicken Noodle Soup" tattooed on me, then tell everybody it says "Death before dishonour" or something like that. But people who don't read Chinese would just believe me, and people who do read Chinese would never believe I did it on purpose.
The reason the tattoos are upside down, is because the tattoo artist is transferring a copied form of the symbol. Which indicates a tattoo artist thats either A-not very bright, B-Ignorant of his own craft or that there's a right-side for the characters, C-lazy and doesn't care.
The only Chinese character that should be placed upside down should be fu 福 or fortune. This is because upside down, 倒 has the same pronunciation as to come. So an upside down fu means fortune comes to me. And that's the only example I can think of.
Tattoo artists usually ask which way the tattoo goes. It's the fault of the customer if he doesn't know ;)
SwordOfOdin The problem is this. What happens if the characters are upside down or reversed in the first place? Again, some of these tattoo artists know about Chinese characters about as much as a regular person knows ancient Egyptian. They just look up the net and do whatever it may look cool...With sometimes very unintended results.
StryderK
true, but my point is that that's the customer's fault, isn't it? I've got some tattoos myself, also something in japanese (my japanese teacher helped me to dodge any mistakes in the characters). When I went to my tattoo artist, he asked me which direction that stuff is supposed to face, so I answered. It is MY responsibility to chose a motive that suits me and is spelled correctly. The tattoo artist's job is just to get whatever I want under my skin. It is NOT his job to know Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Russian, Arabic or any other language people want tattoos in. The customer alone choses his tattoo, so the customer is also the only one to blame if he has bullshit written all over his skin.
(the only time a tattoo artist fucks up is when he inks someone poorly, like with a shaky hand or cheap ink, or has a bad technique or stuff like that.)
SwordOfOdin But there are also unscrupulous tattoo artists that just don't care either. The responsibility cuts both ways. Yes, part of it is on the customers, but the artist also needs to, I don't know, know his arts here. If he doesn't know or are not sure about somethings, then how can he be trusted? It's like a manager hawking his own product, when someone asks, what does your product do? And his answer is basically, "I don't know! Buy it and find out!!!"...I mean, just how would that feel? If a tattoo artist wants to make a living by tattooing Chinese or Japanese characters, then he himself needs to do at least the minimum research to be at least somewhat knowledgeable here AKA, at least to know the orientation of the characters. I'm not expecting them to understand everything, but at least to avoid the most easily avoidable mistakes. It's the most basic responsibility here from the tattoo artist side. Of course, the consumers have to be responsible too, such as make sure what goes on your body, well, don't end up being on youtube being the most embarrassing thing of them all! At least from what I've seen, most Chinese character tattoos that I've seen make at least some modicum of sense, so at least both sides took responsibility...
I always wanted to go to another country and become a tattoo artist and put random Engliah words on the locals.
Like "chicken nuggets" and something else?
That wouldn't work the same way as it would in America. In China and Japan they have a mandatory English curriculum in their schools, so even if their English was poor, they would still understand what you just tattooed on their body.
Laura Haver
well, that'll works somehow. I live here in China. It's true that they learn English at school. But since it has different alphabet, for them English is difficult to learn. Many of them can speak a little english, but don't know how to write or read it. Only some person with high interest in English can speak, read and write it correctly.
Engliah words?
"spaghetti"
This was so funny!!! You’re so funny guys 😂
you guys crack me up. should be on tv
Huge fan of your videos, it feels so good that finally there are some people that could understand and explain how Chinese people and cultural are and not all just saying bad things about us.
Chocolyite Ye thanks :-)
Double Chen concerning the guai jin * I hope I wrote this correctly* it could be japanese kanji noch chinese kanji and in japanese gaijin actually means foreigner. Just FYI
Game EVAngelion Whoa! Good point, I just realized that. He probably did just get 'Kanji' not 'Hanzi'
the guys said as much but it doesn't mean foreigner, at least in chinese. That's why they said it's a tattoo fail but in japanese it does mean foreigner so it wouldn't be a fail^^
Thanks
Old dangerous crazy dad. If there ever was a better description of my old man, I haven't seen it.
"Outside man" is actually the way Japanese say " Foreigner". Pronounced "gaijin" in Japanese. So that one is correct although strange to have as a tattoo.
Best messed up text tattoo I ever saw was when I was a bartender and this customer got a tattoo that was supposed to be Chinese for "courage" or "bravery" or something like that... The dude never knew it was wrong until a Chinese person sat next to him and politely asked him if he was a gardener. He was like "...whaaaaat?" and she said, "well, your arm says 'potting soil', so I thought you might love to garden..."
I guess it takes a lot of courage to get a tattoo in a language you don't speak... Bravo! (How do you write "Brass Testicles" in Chinese? He should have earned that one by now!)
I want to get "Fuck Yourself" or something like that in Chinese and tell people it means something deep like "Never give up" or some bs like that.
日本 or 日本人
Max Chen This is rather offensive for Japanese in this context...
Max Chen The Japanese never give up at fucking themselves.
Don't get butthurt babe Stefan Kołodko
I google translated it and it said "Japan" or "Japanese" Max Chen
外人 is the Japanese word for foreigner though
Iwamoto Yuri ikr xD
You realize Japanese is just stolen Chinese that's been altered and changed a bit??
Iwamoto Yuri its chinese
gzuzumaki2 Yes, I am aware of the fact that kanji are originally Chinese signs, but I think you, sir, are missing the point.
In the video they argued that 外人 was a weird combination to use for foreigner, but in a Japanese context it would make sense as both 外人 (がいじん - gaijin) and 外国人 (がいこくじん - gaikokujin) are used as terms for foreigners.
Jeron Wong it's both ;)
Please do part too. Tattoos are dope but these are funny
This is AWESOME !!!😂😂😂 I have 4 tattoos but this is the exact reason why I would never get Chinese letters on me! I think it’s a beautiful language and the symbols are amazing but you never know what you’re really getting if you haven’t cleared yet with someone who is fluent or knows the language! So funny to watch you all break down these tattoos though!!!
LMAO
"if u r an undertaker, that tatoo will be ok"
"wow, that's metaphorical right there"
I want a Chinese tattoo that's all done up like a old Chinese scroll, except it's just a recipe for like a really good mixed drink or mac 'n' cheese or something.
Joe Donahue BOSS!
I'm a writer and I would totally get "hand flow" tattooed on me as a description of my creative process (letting my hands enable the words to flow)... but the rest just make me laugh, and I'm sure there's a better description of writers available out there somewhere
Lol its so funny... seems like people who want to come up with an awesome tattoo idea prefer to take home the menu from their favorite restaurant and choose something funky looking^^ - Thank you guys! Please do more of that :D "Lesson: don´t get a tattoo in a language you don´t speak yourself"
7.00 I would totally tattoo noodles on me, noodles are amazing
+Marijn Cornelis Meyer dude...i saw nu rou mien, on some guy on the subway, which means beef noodle , maybe hes like you.