A failed tattoo? Not necessarily.

The tattoo in the picture below is often given as an example of a failed tattoo (I've founded the same confusion even on hanzismatter.blogspot, a blog which belongs to someone who seems to have vast knowledge of Chinese and Japanese languages).

If we consider only the Chinese reading of these characters, the tattoo's meaning is "fool, sucker" - 呆 (pronunciation: dai with the first tone) = dull; dull-minded, simple, stupid; 子 (pronunciation: zi with the third tone) = offspring, child; together they form the word 呆子 (daizi) which means "fool, stupid, sucker".

On the other hand, in Japanese 呆子 is just one of the nearly 300 ways (I know, it's hard to believe that there are really that many) to write the popular name "Akiko".

In conclusion, this is not (such) a failed tattoo.

Similar posts:
Stupidity is painful

Another failed kanji / hanzi tattoo

A cool guy... or a bad woman?

Tattoos fails: kanji / hanzi mistakes

He has hemorrhoids... and he is proud with that

Failed tatoos: Kanji mistakes - the seven virtues of the samurai

Stupidity is painful

I've often heard that stupidity is painful - and recently I found the proof. For the beginning, let's keep in mind two facts about tattoos:

1. Getting a tattoo is a pretty painful process.
2. It's really silly to get a Kanji / Hanzi tattoo without getting informed about the Kanji / Hanzi 's meaning.

Now, with this two things in mind, let's take a look at this tattoo:

The very first problem is that the top character is upside down. But that is just a small problem.

The real problem is the meaning of these ideograms:

The the top character (苦) means "pain; suffering; distress; anxiety; trouble".
The next two ideograms (阿呆) mean "fool; simpleton; idiot".

The tattoo's meaning is something like "suffering idiot" or "a fool in pain" or "distressed simpleton" or something of this kind.

In conclusion, stupidity is really painful.

Similar posts:
Another failed kanji / hanzi tattoo

A cool guy... or a bad woman?

Tattoos fails: kanji / hanzi mistakes

He has hemorrhoids... and he is proud with that

Failed tatoos: Kanji mistakes - the seven virtues of the samurai

Another failed kanji / hanzi tattoo

Yesterday I found this image on tattooingtattoodesigns dot com.

This tattoo can be found in the section called "asian tattoo design", but, if you ask me, it should be placed in a category called "Failed tattoos" or "misspelled tattoos", or something of this kind.

First, the translation of the ideograms is completely wrong: it's not "I am a goddess" (as the person who posted the photo thinks), it's just the word "goddess" awfully written.

The word 女神 (pronunciations: nǚshén in Chinese, joshin or megami in Japanese) is composed by these two ideograms:

This ideogram means "woman", "female"

This ideogram means "gods", "soul" or "mind". The ideogram is composed by two parts which MUST always be written together, not split in two, as the tattooer did in this case.

In the pictures below you can see the correct writing of this word:

the word "goddess" written with Chinese / Japanese ideograms - (vertical writing)

the word "goddess" written with Chinese / Japanese ideograms - (horizontal writing)

The tattoo so proudly displayed on that girl's neck is just an embarrassing misspelled tattoo, but fortunately, due to its small size and its simplicity, it can be easily covered with another tattoo.

Tattoos fails: kanji / hanzi mistakes

Recently I found this image on ratemyink.com:

and here is the description of the image, sent by the tattoo's owner: "This is technically my third tattoo. The artist is Dan Greuling from Creepy Creations in Londonderry, NH. With my design idea, Dan did the entire work freehand. The symbols come from the Five Phase (constructive/destructive) Cycle of Traditional Chinese Medicine (clockwsise from top: wood, fire, earth, metal, and water). They show growth and break down ie. how everything is connected. The root system now extends down to my left foot ending in the double koru. There is much more to this. Please ask. (For those who don't know how this website (ratemyink.com) is working: if you have a tattoo and you want to find out what other people think about your tattoo, you can send a picture with the tattoo along with a short explanation about the meaning of the tattoo.)

Unfortunately, the symbol on the top of the tattoo is not the ideogram for tree, but a meaningless phonetic katakana syllable 'ho'. The "tree / wood / timber" symbol (木) has no hook at the bottom and the 3rd and 4th strokes are attached to the 1st. In the image below you can see both the ideogram for "wood / tree" and the katakana character "ho":

In conclusion, before you get a Kanji / Hanzi tattoo it's better to spend some time researching the authenticity of the symbols’ meaning.

He has hemorrhoids... and he is proud with that

I know, it's not a tattoo, but it's funny. I assume that the poor kid has absolutely no idea about the meaning of the ideogram imprinted on his sweater.

What doesn't know the lucky owner of the sweater is that the ideogram means "piles, hemorrhoids" (both in chinese and in japanese). Fortunately for him it's easier to get rid of a sweater than it is to get rid of a tattoo.

Now, I would like to give you an advice: if you want to decorate your skin (or your clothes) with ideograms (Kanji or Hanzi) you should avoid the ideograms which contain the radical depicted in the image below:

This radical means "sickness" and the kanji / hanzi composed with this radical are usually associated with diseases, sickness, illness, etc (e.g.: 疔 = ulcer, 疝 = colic, 疥 = scabby eruption, 疣 = wart, 癢 = itchy) - in short, not the kind of words that one would normally choose for a tattoo.

There are several ideograms composed with this radical which are not related to illness and diseases, (e.g.: 疾 = fast, rapidly) but there are very few and, unless you are absolutely sure about the meaning of the ideogram, it's better to avoid the Kanji / Hanzi which contain the above-mentioned radical.