Even though “Japanese or Chinese character as a tattoo” has been mocked for decades now, it really doesn’t folks from deciding that it will somehow work for them. Data enthusiasts will already know that good tattoos of this nature don’t get photographed, but the bad ones are still a testament to why you should, at the very least, get a good translation first.
Someone asked “People who understand Chinese/Japanese, what’s the dumbest thing you’ve seen tattooed on someone?” and people shared the worst examples they’ve encountered. So get comfortable as you scroll through, upvote your favorites and be sure to share your thoughts in the comments down below.
#1
When I was in the former Yugoslavia a bunch of us went on a trip to Budapest and got tattoos. One of the guys were with was Chinese so one of the guys in the group asked him to write him out some warrior ethos thing.
Fast forward a couple months after we get home and we’re at a restaurant in Chinatown. Our server kind of chuckles at my buddy and asks him the story. He, as tough as he can possibly sound, talks about the art of war and whatnot. The server is now laughing and goes “that says ‘where’s the bank machine’” or some iteration thereof.
Image source: Former_Salt_3763, DragonImages/Envato (not the actual photo)
#2
The only one I’ve seen irl is not that funny like getting Chicken Noodles tattooed but is still amusing
The Chinese character 士 (shi) usually appears in words for like warrior, soldier, scholar etc. The tattoo was some phrase involving “勇士” (yong shi) which means brave/courageous warrior. However, if the bottom horizontal stroke is longer than the top, 士 becomes 土 (tu) which means dirt. So 勇士 became 勇土, which is nonsensical but if read literally, “courageous dirt.”
Edit: I forgot to mention, in common colloquial Chinese, 土 when used as an adjective means tacky and unrefined in a country rube kind of way. So 勇土 can be read as “courageous tacky” too, which is perfectly fitting for a misspelled tattoo.
Edit2: Pay attention to this in Japanese too since 武士道 (“bushido”) is a common tattoo for a certain kind of Western guy. Since it’s an old term and written in kanji, it is also perfectly legible in Chinese where it literally means “the warrior’s path/way,” same as Japanese. Even pronunciation is similar (“wu shi dao”). I don’t know what happens in Japanese if 土 is subbed in accidentally but in Chinese it changes the meaning to “martial dirt path.”.
Image source: CharmingPeony, Tetiana Shadrina/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#3
In uni i met this girl who had 平 in the middle of her chest. she said it means peace (calm), and that it meant she would have a peaceful heart/life. which, yes, but 平 also means flat.
Image source: thewafflingdino, Diana Light/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#4
My favourite one I’ve seen is someone with a tattoo on the back of their head that just said 足. It means leg.
Image source: DrKandraz, Time Good/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#5
Years ago at the gym we used to go to, guy had 愛神 on his bicep. Characters for “love” and “god”. I suspect he thought it meant something like “the love god” as in great prowess in the bedroom.
Wife is Japanese and used to chuckle whenever we saw him. Said it suggested “those Valentine’s Day angel babies” (i.e. Cupid).
Image source: zeromeasure, zibik/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#6
A woman with the characters “Pretty girl”. But not pretty as in beautiful. Pretty as in pretty good, pretty bad.
Image source: kinky_boots, Guille Álvarez/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#7
I met a dude at a wake once who had a tattoo which he thought was “energy” (気), but was in fact the character for “horse” (馬).
If I were a mischievouser being, I would have told him to get the character for “deer” tattooed below it.
Image source: nonbiricowboy, Lin Renais/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#8
Had to muffle my laughter when I saw a big white guy with water bottle (水瓶）tattooed on his leg. I’m pretty sure he was going for Aquarius （水瓶座) – so not fatal, he just needs to add an extra character, but amusing in the moment.
Image source: srayn, Jay Wennington/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#9
A coworker showed me his new tattoo super proudly. Said it meant “warrior spirit.”
It was **”打折”**.
That’s “on sale” in Chinese. As in, a discount. At a store.
He is a 6’4″ former marine.
Image source: ConstantThroat102, Getty Images/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#10
I remember standing in line behind a girl somewhere in rural Pennsylvania, and she had a Chinese character I wasn’t familiar with on her neck. I looked it up in my Chinese dictionary app. She probably thought it meant “princess”. Dear reader, it meant “concubine”.
And just to show it can go the other way, when I lived in Taiwan I used to date a Taiwanese woman who didn’t speak English. She came home one day with a T-shirt she thought was very cute and asked me what the English on it said. It was the FIFA rules for when referees should give red cards. The kicker was that all the English had awful spelling, which still gets me. It was one-to-one the rules from the FIFA website, but someone had added in spelling mistakes.
Image source: Aervanath, stunnerswag (not the actual photo)
#11
I once met a guy with huge hieroglyphs on his forearm. He proudly declared that it meant “Chosen by fate” or something pathetic.
In fact, it said “Sesame Chicken”. Literally item #42 on the menu of the nearest Chinese restaurant. The worst thing was that the font looked like it was drawn with the left foot. I didn’t want to disappoint him – let him continue to feel like the chosen delicacy.
Image source: Specialist_Word_9028, Fit_Understanding268 (not the actual photo)
#12
Had a friend who asked for “courage” and instead got “gall bladder”.
Image source: DyspepticDingo2, Lucas Lenzi/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#13
I knew a girl in highschool who thought she tattooed “friendship” on her wrist but it translated to something like “digging a ditch.” .
Image source: CreativeAsFuuu, Getty Images/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#14
Saw a guy with a tattoo at work. Asked him what he thought it meant. He thought “Capricorn”.
Kinda. It was sheep.
Image source: YangKoete, Tim Bernhard/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#15
I worked at a MEPS for processing people into the military. Part of it was making sure people came in without indecent tattoos so occasionally I would have to use Google translate to make sure they didn’t have a foreign offensive saying tattooed on them.
One applicant came in with the usual “it means something deep” Chinese tattoo. I’m not sure how well Google translate always worked but it came out as “big head, little feet.” Told him “yep, nothing offensive here”.
Image source: Glum_Original_6543, Planet Airbrush/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#16
Please understand that I am the whitest white girl that ever whited. I speak conversational Japanese and read better than I speak.
When I was in college, I went out on a first date with an edgy weeb type who droned on and on about how “Japan was the perfect country” and how he “belonged there.” Then he rolls up his sleeve to show me his Kanji tattoo. I act impressed and ask what it means. He says some moderately racist stereotype about being “Japanese in heart, mind, and spirit” and getting the tattoo to “transform his body” and that it means like honored foreigner or some dumb thing.
It said “Low Sugar Green Tea”. I am almost positive the artist copied it from a can of Arizona.
Image source: z0mbiegrl, Filipe Amaral/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#17
I lived in Japan when Ariana Grande got her 七輪 (shichirin) tattoo. She thought it meant 7 rings but it means charcoal grill. All of my Japanese friends brought it up to me and were laughing at it. It even made the news in Japan. I remember going to meet with a friend at a cafe and she immediately pulled up the tattoo photo and started making fun.
Counting in Japanese is honestly kind of complex and nuanced. You need an active counter word like how we say “five sheets of paper” or “two pairs of jeans”. You can’t just say two jeans or five papers or you will look like an idiot. It just is not how their grammar works.
Then to fix it she added 指 (yubi) or finger. 指輪 (yubiwa) is the actual word for ring but she put it under the 七 (seven/shichi) and not before the 輪 (rin/wa) like she should have. So at that point it just reads Charcoal Grill Finger. You could also translate it in the other direction as Ring, Seven, Finger but either way the whole thing is butchered.
Image source: KakumeiDiscoBall, The Kelly Clarkson Show
#18
A few days ago I saw a women had „癌症“ tattooed
It means cancer the disease. I think she thought it meant the star sign….
Welp I hope I’m wrong, maybe she defeated cancer or something like that, then I’m happy for her.
Image source: oeliges_pferd, Natalia Blauth/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#19
Tattoo that said 米 (rice). It’s possible he wanted that, but judging by the guy, he more likely was going for 火 (fire) or 水 (water).
Image source: captbaka, Denis Agati/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#20
There’s a guy at my gym who just has あ on his shoulder.
That’s just… The letter A, essentially. It means nothing.
Image source: hilzanne, Getty Images/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#21
In a similar vein I met a guy at a water park with a tattoo in Punjabi on his chest. Since my partner is Sikh, we asked about it. He thought it was in Arabic. There’s getting a translation wrong, and then there’s not even having the writing system correct.
Image source: SnipesCC, JSB Co./Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#22
Funniest for me was “white people” on a black dude’s shoulder at a restaurant.
I cant read it, but my chinese friend was wheezing for a good 30 – 40 seconds before he can finally tell us why. We then proceeded to wheez together for another minute or so.
Image source: Potatonized, Vitalii Khodzinskyi/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#23
It’s on me. In college I thought I was getting “integrity”. Months later a girl from Japan started laughing and told me it translates to picnic table. I haven’t bothered to confirm if she was messing with me.
Image source: Boulder_612, Michael Lee/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#24
My friend tried to get “spirit” tattooed but has since been informed it says “ghost” which I find delightful.
Image source: andtoyouse, Akram Huseyn/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#25
“幸运饼干” — Lucky cookie. As in, fortune cookie.
Full sleeve. Very detailed.
Image source: ConstantThroat102, Allef Vinicius/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#26
I used to date this (much older) guy when I was young and dumb. When HE was young and dumb, he got tattooed in Bali with a Chinese character on each hip. he thought they said “peace” and “freedom” or something (this was a long time ago so I can’t remember the specifics) but they actually said “rainbow” and “toast”. he was a total flog so serves him right, lol.
Image source: pommbat, ROMAN ODINTSOV/Pexels (not he actual photo)
#27
Met a person who told me his tattoo meant focus in Japanese.
The tattoo was: フォーカス
This is actually just the English word “Focus” but written in Japanese and pronounced: “Foe—kah—sue”.
Image source: rysama, Kristian Angelo/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#28
Saw this on the neck of an Asian person years ago: 畜生。You know how in mix martial art, people like to use words “animal” or “beast”, treating them like the highest compliment one can use to describe a powerful fighter? That’s probably what this Asian American guy thought. Although in its earliest days as transliteration of Sanskrit word meaning just animal, for thousands of years now in Chinese, it has two common meanings: 1) domesticated animal, 2) person so dumb/ignorant, so lacking in morality, he might as well been a beast.
Image source: wuyizidi, Dennis Schrader/unsplash (not the actual photo)
#29
I saw a guy with a tattoo saying “日本话”, he told me it was his daughter’s name in Japanese.
日本话 literally means “Japanese”.
Image source: TaiShuaiLe, Andrej Lišakov/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#30
I saw a guy with the Japanese kanji for “fun” as in enjoying oneself, but he added the hiragana after it for 楽しみ. It looks really dumb, kind of like adding a period after a word on a tattoo.
Image source: Cohumulene, GRAHAM MANSFIELD/unsplash (not the actual photo)
#31
My Japanese is terrible and it was a bumper sticker not a tattoo, but “安 – Peaceful.”
Sure, it means that, but it’s used a lot more commonly to mean “cheap.”.
Image source: MJacobAlvarez
#32
I grew up speaking Mandarin. One time a woman at the grocery store asked me to translate her tattoo because it “meant strength and courage.”
It said **”chicken noodle soup”** (鸡汤面).
I told her it meant “inner peace.” I’m not proud of this.
Image source: ConstantThroat102
#33
Saw some guy with a giant tat on the side of his neck and it was 生, or born
Turned his head and I see 笑, laughter
Then there’s another one, 爱, love
Bro has “live laugh love” all across his neck in black but one of them’s not even the correct verb.
Image source: Early_Conversation51
#34
Once met a guy who had 家 tattooed on his arm and tried to tell me it meant home and family etc. I just smiled and nodded, because sure it does, but on its own without context it just means “house”.
The cherry on top was that the font was like the
Japanese equivalent of Arial, so it seemed like he’d just typed something into google translate and had the result tattooed onto him directly.
Image source: MuffinFallsFarm
#35
Bit late but oh man I’ve been dying to share this story for years.
I was standing in line at a fish & chip shop one day, and some hippy-lookin dreadlocked dude in front of me had these three Chinese characters down the back of his leg. ” 禾 口 平 ” in that order, top to bottom.
I stared for ages and ages, then realised it was supposed to read ” 和平 “, but whoever his tattooist was had split the ” 和 ” into two characters.
Correct me if I’m wrong but I think ” 禾 口 平 ” means *grain mouth flat*.
Image source: PaulTGheist
#36
Knew a guy named “Gale” in college. He wanted a tattoo that basically said “strong wind”, I’m guessing as a pun on “gale force” or something?
Anyways, he was kind of a jerk and not the brightest bulb, so instead of 強風 (strong wind) he got… 弱虫 (weakling). Watching him try to impress the Asian students was always amusing, and to my knowledge no one ever told him what it actually meant.
Image source: WhatsYourTale
#37
I’ve seen ‘字’. I guess they just asked for a ‘word’ in Chinese.
Image source: showusyacunny
#38
I was standing in a line for a ride at universal studios and the guy infront of me had a tattoo the length of his forearm that was in large computer font 宮保雞丁， “Kung Pao Chicken”.
Image source: elyse6014
#39
A cashier at a grocery store I used to go to got 無料 tattooed on her wrist. She thought it meant she was free. I told her, yes, but not the way you think.
nyITguy:
“Free of charge.”
allticknotock:
Could also mean useless or incapable in Chinese
Image source: tesujiboy
#40
Saw a middle-aged man with ‘仙女’ tattooed on him. It means ‘fairy’.
Image source: CommercialDoubt4628
#41
There was an English guy while on holiday in Thailand who decided to get some tattoos. Printed out the designs for both arms and got them done. Unfortunately the tattooist couldn’t read English so he included the “left arm” and “right arm” text.
Image source: Vendemmian
#42
A guy thought he had the word freedom in Thai across his chest. It actually said freedom from women.
Image source: Fivefinger_Delta
#43
My friend went to Japan for a work thing and got a kanji tattooed on her. She’s a big girl, and because she was trying to work on that, has been getting biiiig into hiking, so she went to have the kanji for tree put on her. She’s trusting, and has NO idea what the kanji for that is, so she just trusted the tattoo artist to put that on her. She came back, aaaaaand didn’t understand that the kanji for tree, 木, which is what she SHOULD have gotten, was instead supplanted with 太. It was stylized, but it DEFINITELY that second kanji. That means “fat,” by the way. I told her (because I HAD to, before less kind people saw it), and together we rushed to my tattoo artist and had it fixed.
Basically, they added the vertical line that would make it look more like “tree” and then added a bunch of those little slash radicals all over the place and brushed green over it to look like leaves. It looks pretty convincing, and you really can’t tell it ever said, “Fat” in the first place.
Image source: Canaanchaos
#44
I’ve seen a tourist in Japan with 右腕 (right arm) and 左腕 (left arm) tattooed on his arms. At least he got the directions right.
Image source: Nicolas_Verhoeven
#45
Once I saw a foreigner with a tattoo that said “pillow leg”. I have no idea what they wanted it to say… It stuck out because how can a pillow have legs?
Image source: eissextoy
#46
One time I was at the seaside and saw a lady – long blonde hair, model-like appearance. I had to do a double/triple take at her back, because she had a giant 豚 (PIG) tattoed there…
I’ve also seen a pic of a guy on the internet who proudly showed off his chest tattoo that said 少年愛 (gay love). I still wonder if that one was on purpose. I heard tales about foreigners going to tattoo artists in Japan asking for something like “crystal dragon” and ending up with 外人 (foreigner) instead. Could be either way lol.
Image source: Constant-Leather9299
#47
I’ve seen 快来 which literally means come quickly. Uhh.
Image source: sushiriceonly
#48
I knew a girl in the aughts who had a Chinese character tattooed on her shoulder blade that she thought meant angel. Our Mandarin speaking and reading friend had to break the news that it actually translated to hepatitis B. Thankfully, she tested negative and had it covered up and I was able to laugh.
Image source: WendyWilliamsFart
#49
I was out and about a few summers ago and saw a guy showing off a tattoo on his right bicep to some people. He was proudly telling them that it meant warrior.
He was probably thinking of 侍 (pronounced ji) which can mean Samurai, but also waiter or to serve. The problem is that he had a different character, 痔 . While it is pronounced the same, and looks similar, it means hemorrhoid.
I went in the opposite direction, he was so happy about it, and he was a stranger. No need to burst his bubble.
Image source: OrchestralSoda
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