Kanji Tattoo

Some artists say that right now, 1 out of every 20 tattoos they do is a Kanji Symbol. What is Kanji? It is a type of Chinese lettering. I am sure that you have seen lots of them around. Everyone either wants to look like Bruce Lee or look “cultured” by having a tattoo in a different language. I am here to tell you that this is probably the the tattoo to be most cautious about getting. I don’t mean that it will hurt or cause some kind of physical complication, but there are tons of stories about people who have ended up with unfortunate tattoos (I will let you in on some of those later).

The truth is that it is complex to translate one language into another. Chinese lettering has around 5 thousand letters, some with 30 different strokes involved in them. Missing one stroke can absolutely change the meaning of a tattoo. Also, some things just don’t translate well. For instance, one man went to get a “Big Daddy” tattoo, but the kanji he ended up with was “Large Father”. There is just no great way to translate “Big Daddy” into Chinese. And just because you symbol translates to the right word does not mean it translates to the correct meaning. One girl went to get “Free” tattooed in Chinese. Later she found that the "free" she got tattooed to her meant “free of charge” instead of something to do with freedom.

I wouldn't trust any of the designs you find on the internet. Many times, tattoo artists purchase those from some trade show not knowing what they mean. Many of them are just plain inaccurate. Some of the common ones, like peace or power you can probably find online correctly. However, a tattoo more personalized than that I would highly recommend that you use a translation service  or a friend with a really good understanding of Chinese. It would definitely be bad to find out that the tattoo you just got really meant “Pork Fried Rice” instead of “Beautiful”. Just a word to the wise…