Chinese Symbols Make Cool Tattoos
We’ve all seen it. People with cool looking Chinese symbol tattoos. Some of the reasons people like them is probably because they give people the feeling that you are very zen, have studied martial arts, or have respect for the ancient Asian warriors, etc. Or they can simply look sexy.
Courtesy of Flickr.com (jaycephotography)
The Chinese Have a 5,000+ Year History and Influences Many Asian Cultures
Chinese characters, symbols or calligraph, started as picture-based drawings dating as far back as 1,600 BC, and with gradual development, it became what it is today, and was made official in the Han Dynasty (202 B.C. - 220 A.D.), where over 9,000 characters were officially enlisted in the dictionary of that dynasty. Later on, in the Ching Dynasty (1800 - 1911), there were as many as 48,000 characters, but most of those are deep words that are hardly used, and aren’t used today. In Taiwan and Hong Kong (where traditional Chinese is still used), having knowledge of about 4,000 characters will allow one to read newspapers or novels, and basically have a competent grasp of the language.
Chinese symbols are are especially cool because it is also used in several non-Chinese cultures. For example, some Chinese characters are also used in the Japanese language. They call Chinese characters Kanji. Some traditional Korean also use Chinese symbols, but not quite as much as the Japanese.
Another thing to remember, is that the original/traditional Chinese looks a lot better than the simplified Chinese that the communist China developed in the last 50 years. So in my opinion, if you are going to get a Chinese tattoo, it goes without saying you would want make sure you get the original, real Chinese. The Chinese characters that Confucius used. Even the late and great Bruce Lee used the full, traditional Chinese when he wrote in Chinese. =)
Uses of Chinese Symbols in Tattoos
People often tattoo Chinese translations of their English names. Other times Chinese tattoos are of a known phrase or idiom in Chinese that means something special. Some people even have tattoos of single Chinese characters, as often times, a single Chinese character can mean several English words. Yes, that’s how deep Chinese language can be. If you look at a paragraph in Chinese and an exact translation of it in English, you will see that it takes a lot more words in English to arrive at the same meaning! These reasons make Chinese characters/words great tattoos.
The name “Andy” translated phonetically into Chinese: Courtesy of Flickr.com (cappellmeister)
Some Common Mistakes
But in reality, most people have no clue what they are really getting because they do not understand the Chinese language, and this can be disastrous because Tattoos are meant to be permanent. All it takes to ruin your day is when a Chinese speaking person tells you that your tattoo does not mean what you think it means, or somehow the wrong character was used for whatever reason. What a bummer that would be!
A common mistake is when the wrong homonym character is used in lieu of the correct character. Other times, it’s as simple as having the correct character tattooed upside down, or even sideways (especially bad if it’s on the torso, where there is an absolute up or down). Worse yet, I’ve even seen mistakes made where the tattooed character is a mirror image of the intended character!
How Do you Avoid These Common Mistakes?
If you have a friend who happens to be literate in Chinese, and if willing to do a little research for you, you can possible come up with some good designs. Or he or she can simply help “proof read” the designs you’ve found yourself. Another thing to remember is that while you may have found the Chinese characters, it’s another thing to have them printed and tattooed in the nice looking traditional fonts that’s reminiscent of the old kung fu movies rather than the basic, boring computer font.
If you are really serious about getting the right Chinese symbol tattoos, it might be a good idea to have someone knowledgeable guide you through the whole process and get you that final printable design ready for your local tattoo parlor. My friend Yingying is very good at this process, and I recommend that you check out her informative website for everything related to Chinese symbol tattoos. Good luck in your research process and I hope you get that cool Chinese tattoo soon. Just remember, tattoos are more or less permanent, so make sure to get it right the first time around!
