"Air"

http://www.bmezine.com/tattoo/A50523/high/bmegl068697.jpg

The top character 空 is correct and means "empty, hollow, bare, deserted". The center character appears to be a Japanese katakana, may be either シ or ツ. The bottom character is incorrectly written 氣 or 気, which means "air, gas, steam, vapor; spirit".

空氣 (空気) = air; atmosphere

Friend or Foe

http://www.bmezine.com/tattoo/A50817/high/bmegl114051.jpg

Body Modification Ezine has the largest online gallery which features all sorts of body modification. One section I am particularly interested in is the Kanji tattoos, where clients and tattooists submit their pieces to be showcased. Although almost all the photos have some kind of caption, but most of them do not include translation and simply labeled as “Kanji”.

One of the recent entries (shown above) belongs to a tattooist named Babakhin Dmitry. I have emailed him asking if the photo was mirrored or it was indeed the actual work. He then replied that he has scanned in the photo mirrored and the actual work is fine.

Update: One of Hanzi Smatter's readers points out that in the photo, the tabs on the clients' jeans are on the right side, where they should be. Unless the clients were wearing jeans that are made with tags on the left side (which are very rare, almost non-existent), the tattooist has indeed tattooed the mirrored character 友 on the clients.

友 = friend, companion; fraternity

The question remains:

If the mirrored photos are proudly displayed in the online gallery and assume to be correct, then how many suckers are out there with the actual mirrored image tattooed on them?

Mirrored examples:

http://www.bmezine.com/tattoo/A50823/high/bmegl119642.jpg
http://www.bmezine.com/tattoo/A50731/high/bmegl108470.jpg
http://www.bmezine.com/tattoo/A50720/high/bmegl102931.jpg

Upside-Down examples:

http://www.bmezine.com/tattoo/A50516/high/bmegl067383.jpg
http://www.bmezine.com/tattoo/A50728/high/bmegl106127.jpg

Radical "Dream"

http://www.bmezine.com/tattoo/A50817/high/bmegl115333.jpg

Besides the disproportionably tattooed characters, 夢 (dream) is mirrored.

過激 [かげき] are done correctly. In Japanese, they mean "extreme" or "radical".

More Fat Please

Photo has been removed on behalf of Ms. Kerry Fitzmaurice's (aka. SpeedyTomato) request. The original can be seen here.

This photo of a spinal tattoo belongs to user "SpeedyTomato" on MySpace.com. Several readers have emailed it to me and want to know what the characters meant.

Other than the randomness of the phrases, the only mistake I found was 肥 (fat, plump, obese; fertile) with its incomplete right partial.

美人 = beauty
正直 = upright; upstanding; honest
許 = allow, permit; promise; betroth
幸 = luck(ily), favor, fortunately
愛 = love, be fond of, like
肥沃 = fertile
迷子 [まいご] = lost (stray) child

I could not stop laughing after I re-read the entire tattoo as one phrase:

"Upstanding beauty [hottie] would allow [one] lucky lost-child [run-away] [to make] love [to my] fertile [body]."


UPDATE: Ms. Kerry Fitzmaurice (aka. SpeedyTomato) has emailed me requesting to have her tattoo photo removed, and here is the reply I sent her:

Dear Kerry,

Thank you for your email. The reason your photo was posted on my site is because several visitors to both your site and mine have emailed it to me. Also to note that the photo you have on your site is mirrored. I sure hope that is not what actually appearing on your back.

I don't know if you knew this or not, but everything and anything people put on the web will be archived one way or another. Therefore even if I remove the photo from my site, it can be easily found via Google and other search engines.

I do understand the tattooed phrases are meant to be independent from each other, but the placement of them has made the phrases to mean something else. Which you may have already known does not sound very flattering (unless it was your original intention). That is what happens when people trying to piece phrases together from another language without fully understand them. Check out my buddy Steve's site Engrish.com.

This is not the first time that someone had their photo made onto my site and then request me to have it removed. There was one young lady Naomi Chaney that had "crazy diarrhea" tattooed on her body, and I did agree to remove the photo after she sent photo to prove that she was indeed the original owner.

From the way my attorney advised me as well as information provided via Electronic Frontier Foundation about similar situation is that:

I am obligated to remove photograph from my site when the original owner objects in a written format (even though email is not really legit in some court, but I would accept it), but if the photograph exists else where on the internet, I have the freedom to link to it.

My advice to you is that if you don’t want people to see your tattoo mistakes, don’t publish it on a website. Better yet, don’t get a tattoo in a language that you do not fully understand.

Sincerely,

Tian

tiangotlost at gmail dot com

Iron Fury

This bad ass screen-print t-shirt by Utility brand is sold in Target stores. From the English caption as well as the Bruce Lee look-alike in a fighting pose, one would easily assume the Chinese characters on the shirt would be in the realm of some sort of fierce combat.

Not so.

燙斗 means cloth iron.

Extreme ironing indeed.