Chinese Tattoo for Hate or Hatred

Carlos sent in this tattoo confirmation with the following:

"1. I've been told it means hate.
2. Upper back/neck area.
3. The symbol is inside a flaming scroll.

Thank you."

Hi Carlos,

It does, more or less, look like the Chinese character for "hate" or "hatred".

I cannot see very clearly due to the quality of the picture, but it does look a bit off here and there to me (e.g. the left side should be more detailed; the upper right four mouths were not supposed to look like mouths). I have attached the correct character for your own comparison and evaluation as to whether you'd like to have it redone the correct way. Although I am able to see the character and understand what it is, it's definitely better to have an exactly correct version.

3 Chinese Tattoo Characters - A Matter of Symbol Placement

Regina sent in this Chinese tattoo confirmation with the message and attachment below:

"My tattoo is 3 characters long. The first character is supposed to be eternal, the second one is supposed to be love and the third one is supposed to be happiness. Mine is between my shoulder baldes and my husband has a matching one on his stomach."

Hi Regina,

Individually they do mean what you mentioned. I say "individually" because of the positioning of the three words - which when read in Chinese sounds directly translated from English (it's not authentic to have 3 words next to each other that are not part of the same phrase). But this is a common error with Chinese tattoos -- and most often non-speakers get them as personal reminders. And I bet that no Chinese person will ever say "that's wrong".

The word "eternal" is more commonly seen with 2 characters.

But the good news is, none of the characters themselves are wrong. Although, on the word "happiness", I'd suggest that you go back to the parlor and add a dot - like the second character on http://chineseculture.about.com/library/symbol/blcc_happiness.htm . It's probably the font and the drawing of the design that made it disappear. But without the dot, the character is technically incorrect (i.e. kind of like spelling the English word "happiness" with one p).

Steel or Iron?

Travis sent the following with a picture of his tattoo attached:

"My tattoo is located on my arm. When I was in the store they told me the symbol means "steel". The book I got it out of says the same but I looked up the symbol for steel and its not the same symbol. This is my only tattoo."

Hi Travis,

This is the simplified Chinese character of the word "iron". By itself I would probably not stretch it as far as "steel" - as steel is a byproduct of iron, and the word "steel" consists of one more characters.

The reason you see a different character is most likely because traditional Chinese characters are more commonly used in books outside of China (simplified Chinese is used in the People's Republic of China implemented as part of the pre-revolution (around 1950's), while Taiwan, Hong Kong, and most overseas Chinese communities continue to use traditional Chinese, which dates back much longer).

Love - Mirror-Imaged

Sabrina sent me this Chinese tattoo confirmation with the following:

"Meaning - Love.
Tattoo is on my wrist and not near any others."

Hi Sabrina,

This appears to be a mirror-imaged version of the character for "love". Although it would be understood by most, it is not correct in Kanji nor in Chinese. (i.e. imagine the English word "love" but spelled backwards and the letter "e" mirror imaged).

* If your camera/computer happened to mirror the image, and the tattoo is actually the reverse of the image you sent, then you're okay.

To avoid getting a mirror-imaged Chinese tattoo, it's a good idea to consult a native Chinese speaker beforehand, or even ask at your local Chinese restaurant. Many Chinese people would be happy to help, provided that you have done your homework and are on the right track.

Chinese Tattoo Meaning: Victory or Triumph?

Marty sent me a tattoo confirmation question with the following picture:

"The tattoo is on my back and I have no Idea what it means. Any help would be appreciated."

This was the first correspondence.

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Hi Marty,

The tattoo reads "victory" in Chinese - correctly written, no mistakes at all.

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I later received a follow-up from Marty: "I was also told that it reads triumph. I there any truth to that?"

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Hi Marty,

The word "victory" in English is nearly synonymous with "triumph". So yes, there would be truth to that. Note that, much like English, the Chinese language consists of synonyms. That said, the word can also be translated to "win" or "success".

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Chinese Tattoo Name for Jean or Gene

Rick sent this chinese tatoo confirmation request of a tattoo his brother asking the following:

"This is my brother's tattoo and he won't give us a straight answer about what it means. It is on the left side of his neck."

Hi Rick,

This is a common translation for the name "Jean" or "Gene" (short for Eugene") -- just like English, it can refer to a male or a female name.

"Fake" Hanna Tattoo in Chinese

Justin sent in a simple confirmation request for a hanna tattoo: "My friend got this fake chinese tattoo but what does it mean?"

Hi Justin,

In Chinese, the character means somewhere along the lines of "contrary", "opposite", "against" or "opposed to", or "to turn over". Although rarely seen by itself, it would give an average Chinese passerby the connotation of "rebellion" and "opposing forces".

According to the Kanji dictionary, it has the same meanings in Japanese, plus a few others like "to violate" or "to infringe".

Hope that helps!

Chinese Tattoo Confusion - To Respect or To Fear?

I received this Chinese tattoo confirmation request from Patrick with the message as follows:

"I am sending you a picture of my tattoo to confirm its meaning. I was told that it means respect, it is located on the middle finger of my right hand (large enough to receive it, that is all). As you can see on the picture, on each side of it there is a design that kind of make it look like a ring, that is not part of the Chinese character.

Thank you kindly for your help,

Patrick"

Hi Patrick,

It looks like part of the character (the part on the finger which is also in the white box on the corner) does have a meaning along the lines of "to respect", although today it is widely interpreted as "to fear". There is a correlation, as someone you respect generally also is someone you have reservations about (or "fear")). This is a verb, and not a noun. Because the character leans more toward "fear" than "respect", it is generally not recommended if someone were specifically looking for the word "respect".

Also, you said the left/right was not part of the design. To the Chinese reader (of the image you sent) it looks like they are two character/radicals to the sides of your main character. They look like the characters for "vision", and as if they were meant to be a radical for the character "to fear". However, when combined, there really is no such word (think of radical as an alphabet, e.g. the word "fear" but spelled like "visionfear", which doesn't mean anything).

But if there's something I'm not seeing about the design that makes them obviously not charactes, then I wouldn't worry about it. You can send another photo of the sides if you wish to confirm.

Hope that helps!

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And a follow-up from Patrick:

"Thank you so much for your explanation! Well I really am not somebody who inspires fear but at the time I had it printed I felt lack of respect among my peers which I discovered soon had to be earned. It took some time to work out that state of mind but finally I think that if respect can't be gained in reasonable fashion, fear will do the work in those short lapses of time!

Thank you sincerely,
Patrick"

Chinese Tattoo for Karma

Beez emailed me and with this picture and asked this:

"I was told my tattoo was one from the phrase Karma.  More specifically, I was told it means cause and effect; or causality (Punitive Justices, Retribution for Sin, etc).  The tattoo is located on my back.  There are no other tattoos.  Lately, for whatever reason, I have just been paranoid the tattoo means something else - I don't really know why.  Thank you!"

Hi Beez,

Nothing to worry about. The tattoo says exactly what you think it means.

And a follow up from Beez:

Thanks so much.  You've made my day!

Chinese Symbol Tattoo - A Matter of Stroke Placement Error

                       

James asked this in a Chinese tattoo confirmation request:

"I have a kanji symbol for good/joy and I want to confirm the meaning... was I right about this one?"

Hi James,

The character is a bit hard to see, but appears to be an incorrectly written one meaning "virtuous", "good" or "kind" in Chinese. Please see the attached .jpeg file for the correct character (the two dots above the horizontal line and the square should be centered, not aligned to the left). Mistakes like this are extremely common when using tattoo parlor samples, etc. The good news is that's it's close enough so that I (and probably most Chinese speakers) would recognize it.

As for Kanji, my dictionary indicates that this character means more or less the same in Japanese.

Example of Chinese symbol tattoo meaning same thing as Japanese Kanji tattoo

Although there are many differences in meanings between Chinese characters and Japanese Kanji, there are also cases where they are written and used in the same context and that they do mean the same thing.

Here is a Chinese tatooo confirmation request below that illustrates the point:

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Hi,

I got this tattoo about 10 years ago.  The place I went to had a printed/published book which I got the symbol from.  The book said the symbol means "Will or determination".  I don't remember if it was Chinese or Japanese.  I've looked all over the web and cannot find it anywhere.

Thank you very much,

Brian

Hi Brian,

Not a worry - this is exactly what you think it means, both in Chinese character and in Japanese Kanji, and a good choice for a tattoo. * The free samples on my site contain only a very general idea of words, i.e. the word "will/determination" would vary depending on one's target/what one's after. But the design that you have is commonly used as a highly regarded virtue in the Chinese culture, all the way since the School of Confucian began in China.

It's nice to do a confirmation once in a while that isn't bad news!

BAD: Chinese Tattoo Symbol vs. Japanese Kanji

Kimberly attached the picture below in a Chinese tattoo confirmation request and asked the following:

"Me and my sister had the same tattoo put on the back of our neck. We were told that it meant "Bad"....but we have recently seen in another shop signs for "BAD" that look nothing like our tattoos so now we are curious as to what our tattoo's mean. We only got the sign for BAD because we liked how the sign looked...but we didnt want the sign for some off the wall thing either :( so please help me figure out what me and my sister have tatted on the back of our necks ?????"

Hi Kimberly,

From the way the character is written, it looks like it is a Kanji character (Chinese characters that are adopted in the Japanese language). It is very similar to the equivalent Chinese character, and most likely will be understood by Chinese, but they do have slightly different meanings:

Japanese Kanji (according to my dictionary, as I am not Japanese): One direct translation is "bad", and other possibilities include "evil", "vice", "wrong", "inferior", "harmful", "unlucky", etc.

Chinese character: It only contains meanings along the lines of "evil", "wickedness" or "hatred" and "loathsome". A more negative association is implied.

Also, it does look like the character is not correctly written. The two slanted/vertical lines on the right do not have any meaning in Chinese. In Japanese, it seems to be a phonetic alphabet found in Japanese Kana (a script, such that Kanji is another script). I am not aware that pairing up with the word "bad" gives it any meaning, but I'm not an expert in Japanese, so I could be wrong. The only other possibility that I know of is that it is an incorrectly written version of the word "person". To be certain, you may want to follow-up with a Japanese native.

Chinese Tattoo for "Hero" + Name Translation

I received this Chinese tattoo confirmation request from Becky:  "I was told the top one was hero and the bottom one was my husbands name Eric. Would you please help me and tell me the meaning. I looked up hero my self and got something way different. The tattoo is on my foot and it is not by any other tattoo's."

Hi Becky,

For the word 杰 - at first glance, I recognized it to be common Chinese male name. If I were to speak for the average Chinese folk, one probably would not immediately draw any connection to "hero".

The main reason Becky found the word "hero" a completely different one in her own research (which probably was 英雄, as in the same translation for the Chinese movie Hero with Jet Li) is that character itself has a meaning along the lines of "outstanding" or "prominent", or at best "an outstanding person", which is primarily used only in ancient/literary text.

In other words, this character should probably not have been used for "hero", but it's also not completely wrong. I suppose that if the symbolism to you is most important, then at least it's a good looking character. Incidentally, it also is one of the characters in Jet Lee's Chinese name -- 李連杰.

As for the name "Eric" -- it's more or less correct. Because English names translated into Chinese are merely approximations of English sounds, there is some flexibility in their translation. However, this also means that such English name translations evolve, and Becky's one is an example of an outdated version. The good news: it means what you intended.