Hanzismatter is a blog ‘dedicated to the misuse of Chinese characters in western culture’. Quite often these days you see western people with Chinese characters in their tattoos. It is clear that, in many cases, people choose the characters because of how they look, without understanding what they mean. This can have hilarious consequences, such as the tattoo in the classical style, with dragons and ‘ancient characters’ that actually mean something like “Thank you. Please come again.” (Pic above.)
The webmaster at Hanzismatter, Tian, is a friend of ChinesePod. We hope to do a show about his work after Chinese New Year. In the meantime you can visit his site and see for your self.
Ken Carroll 凯恩
My dictionary translates the characters “bu gan dang” as “you flatter me”. Is bu gan dang used differently in Shanghai, I wonder?
The same basic problem exists in China too - just not permanently etched on people’s bodies - with many hilarious examples of English on people’s clothes. One of my favorites is a shirt I saw a shy girl wearing that exclaimed, “I eat your skin!”