"Why we don't...Japanese tattoos" Wiki

[Mukade]

Greetings all.

I recently started browsing through the WagaWiki and stumbled upon the "Why we don't do Japanese tattoos" page.

Although I agree entirely with the content of the page, I disagree wholeheartedly with the title of the page. The crappy kanji tattoos which are currently trendy are, after all, not true Japanese tattoos.

Therefore, I feel compelled to change the article to read "Why we don't do kanji tattoos," along with a more clear explanation in the page of the difference between kanji tattoos and Japanese tattoos.

Of course, I didn't want to make this sort of change without some sort of consensus from the rest of the gang here, as this is a community, after all.

Are there any objections? Any thoughts?

[Infidel]

Unfortunatly, the people looking to get a kanji tatoo often don't even know the word kanji. They think it is written in Japanese. So the current title seems more likely to be found. But you could add some comments in the article that Kanji tattoos are not, real, Japanese tattoos for their edification.

[keatonatron]

The point of the article (as I wrote it ) has nothing to do with whether it's kanji or real Japanese--we don't help with tattoos period. Of course, if I had simply said that, people would think that includes image-only tattoos. If people want to ask our opinions about what type of Geisha to get tattooed on their shoulder or if it would be "cool" to get the rising sun tattooed on the back of their neck, that's perfectly fine.

Besides, whether it's real Japanese or Kanji, the main message remains the same: if you get a foreign-language tattoo without doing the translation yourself and/or fully understanding it, you're just engraving your own ignorance into your skin for all to see.

[flammable hippo]

if you get a foreign-language tattoo without doing the translation yourself and/or fully understanding it, you're just engraving your own ignorance into your skin for all to see.

I completely agree. When I was in Florida in Universal Studios, I was waiting on line for one of the rides (I think it was the Mummy) and anyway, there was this guy there who had 酒　tattoed pretty big on his arm. I was snickering the whole time on the line because this was a very white American and I figured that either he didn't know Japanese and didn't know he was forever branded with alcohol or that he somehow did know Japanese or at least what that kanji meant and was some sort of sake fanatic.

[BrianM]

I totally agree with u guys. The other day at the supermarket i saw some guy with a Katakana tattoo->フ. Maybe he was trying to be funny and make it an american thing with F.U idk but i just hate those people that get these Kanji tattoos and have no idea what it means. U can get one that says Idiot, but the guy and tell u that it means Hero or something cool.

[Rounin T]

I met a girl with a string of 5 random kanji tattooed on her arm. Something like 怒戦忠火竜. She told me it was the name of her boyfriend, one Jason. "See," she said, "Here's the J, here's the A, here's the S, here's the O, and here's the N. But it's all in Japanese!" I bit my lip to keep from laughing at the time, but I feel a little bit of pity now.

[chikara]

Rounin T wrote:
I met a girl with a string of 5 random kanji tattooed on her arm. Something like 怒戦忠火竜. She told me it was the name of her boyfriend, one Jason......

That sounds very familiar.

See this post on Hanzi Smatter.

There is a kanji alphabet that can be used for writing any English word you know

[Harisenbon]

there was this guy there who had 酒　tattoed pretty big on his arm.

That's not bad. I saw a guy with　精子 tattooed on his neck because he thought it meant "spirit child"

[Kagemaru]

Claryfying the title, although I agree with it in principle, I think would only confuse these knuckleheads more, as a large portion of them obvioulsy don't bother reading the article anyway.

I don't belive it's worth claryfying the title to please the minority of us who already know how peabrained it is.

I really want to know what the fascination with it is?

Makes me smirk to think that Chinese and Japanese people are getting around sporting English tattoos with words like "install" or "exhaust"...

[AJBryant]

I'd just like to share an image of a tattoo sported by a Japanese guy:



So, ya see, it goes both ways.


Tony

[Rounin T]

chikara wrote:
There is a kanji alphabet that can be used for writing any English word you know

So that's how they fool the poor saps. I had a friend who made up his own asian-looking alphabet code in middle school and tattooed his arm once a day with a ballpoint pen. He never tried to pawn it off on someone else, though.

[Mukade]

Okay, I left the title as-is, but couldn't resist fleshing out the article. I tried to emphasize some of the dangers of getting tattoos that you don't understand, as well as the reasons why we here at TJP want nothing to do with character tattoos.

And, since I am obviously personally invested in this topic, I also included a note about the difference between 'character' and 'Japanese' tattoos.

If anyone has feedback on the updated version of the article, why not use this thread to do so.