作为一个中国人，当看到一个外国人身上纹着汉字纹身，你是怎么想的？ [美国媒体]

As a Chinese person, what do you think when you see someone who’s of another nationality with a tattoo written in Chinese?

作为一个中国人，当看到一个外国人身上纹着汉字纹身，你是怎么想的？


MichaelZhang, knows Mandarin Chinese
AnsweredOct 13
It’s weird. Most of the peoplethat have one (are white, young, and clueless…) had the tattoo inked by someonewho doesn’t even speak Chinese well, or at least they put up VERY misleadingtranslations to make the clueless white person think the character meanssomething very different. Just search up “chinese tattoo fail” on google imagesor some platform like pinterest and get hours of instant facepalms.
But if the tattoo actually sayssomething coherent and meaningful, then most of the time I’d remark on it andsay something about it. If they actually know the meaning, then they’ve eitherhad experience with the culture or the tattoo artist they went to wasknowledgeable and honest. And then when I ask them why they wanted to get thetattoo, they would reply with nice things like “I think they look cool.” or“It’s a nice script.”
95% of the time, however, thatperson has no idea whatsoever of the true meaning of the character. I’ve hearda story about someone who had the word “sister” tattooed on their arm, and weretold that it meant something like “spiritual bond” or “eternal relationship” orcrap like that. NO. It’s just a word for sister. And when they met someone whoactually spoke Chinese, they refused to listen and kept on insisting it meantsomething else. Seriously? You think you know more than someone who speaks thelanguage just because it’s your tattoo? Oh, Americans…
So, if you do want to get atattoo in Chinese and have no experience speaking the language, just bring atranslator, or better yet, someone who actually speaks the language.
What’s worse?

Michael Zhang  知晓中国大陆
这有点奇怪。绝大多数这样的人（纹汉字纹身的）（白人、年轻、二逼。。。）所找的纹身师甚至都说不好中文，或者至少他们为二逼白人提供了非常具有误导性的翻译，让他们以为这个词很与众不同。只需要搜索一下“失败的中文纹身” 图片，或者去 pinterest 这类平台瞧瞧就知道了。
但如果有的这类纹身意思明确且连贯，大多数时候我都会点评一下。如果他们确实知道这些纹身的意思，那么要么他们对中华文化有经验、要么纹身师确实经验丰富且诚实不恶搞。而当我问他们为何他们想要这个纹身的时候，他们会回答说：“我觉得这看起来很酷”，或者“这字符很漂亮。”
然而几乎所有人，95%的人，根本不知道这些字符的意思。我就听过说一件事，某人在自己手臂上纹了个“姐妹(sister)”，但被告知这词的意思是“精神纽带”或“永恒关系”或别的什么鬼玩意儿。不，这仅仅是姐妹的意思。然后还有人在遇到说中文的人，却拒绝听他的并坚持这个词汇的别的什么意思。真的？所以你认为你比一个说这门语言的人还要了解它，就因为这是你的纹身？噢，这就是美国人。。。。
所以，如果你想要纹个中文纹身，又没有说这门语言的经历，只需要找一位翻译者，或者更好的，去找一位说这门语言的人。
接下来大家看看，哪个纹身最糟糕？



Robert Matthews (马学进)
Oct 16 · 26 upvotes
The"emperors clerk" is mistranslated (or maybe that was deliberate?). Itshould say "eunuch" (= castrated guardian of the imperial harem,among other duties).

（译注：此人为一位研究古汉语的外国人）
“emperorsclerk（皇帝们的办事员）”是错误的翻译（或者是故意为之）。它应该被译为“太监”才对（=后宫中被阉割了的监护人，负责其他职责）。

Garion Hall
Feb 18
That’sway better!

这样更好了！

Tim Chang, lives in China (2013-present)
UpdatedJan 14
Depends on what they say, but Ilike them. Generally I’ve seen quite nice ones. I’ve even error-checked afriend’s Chinese tattoo before she got it done. I haven’t seen any glaringerrors as some of the other answers have pointed out.
One that does come to mindthough, is adult film star Riley Reid’s tat:
The script is nice, but the translation is a bit clunky andawkward (生活带来您时柠檬做柠檬水). Any Chinese speaker who doesn’t understandEnglish might have trouble understanding that it means: When lifebrings you lemons, make lemonade.
The way it’s written, translated directly, it says: 
Life brings you when lemons make lemonade.

Tim Chang 生活在中国（2013-至今）
怎么看待中文纹身？这取决于纹身内容，但我还是挺喜欢它们。普遍来说我有见过一些非常不错的。我之前就为我一个朋友的纹身纠过错，在她纹好身之前。我还没见过那种能亮瞎眼的错误，正如其他人回复中所提到的。
不过我想到了一个，成人影星Riley Reid的纹身：



字符挺不错的，但翻译过来就有点尴尬了（生活带来您时柠檬做柠檬水）。任何一个说中文的人在理解这句话的时候会懵逼，其意思是：当生活给了你柠檬的时候，就把它榨成柠檬汁。

Rik Osborne
Dec 25 · 115 upvotes including TimChang
Thisis a good example of how it would have been better to find a Chinese “saying”that means the same thing, rather than trying to directly translate an English“saying” into Chinese.
ForChinese speakers who may not understand the English saying, “When life bringsyou lemons, make lemonade”, it’s simply a clever way of saying, “Try to makesomething good out of a bad situation”.

这是一个不错的例子。说明在中文中找到一个跟英语意思差不多的会来得更好一些，而非直接将英语内容翻译成中文。
作为说中文的又不懂英语的人来说，像“当生活给了你柠檬的时候，就把它榨成柠檬汁”。更简单又聪明的办法是，“开拓进取以走出糟糕境遇”。

Tim Chang
Dec 25 · 1 upvote
Agreetotally :)

完全同意。

Mohammad Anas
Jan 7 · 4 upvotes
Whendid you notice Riley's tatoo ?

你是什么时候注意到Riley的纹身的？

Dave Glennie
Jan 10 · 1 upvote
Whohasn’t noticed Riley’s tattoo? Lol ;)

还有谁会注意不到这个色情影星的纹身？哈哈哈哈

Grace Zhang
Dec 22 · 28 upvotes including TimChang
Er…ittook me a while to understand that tattoo, 'cause I was not thinking in Englishat first. I believe a Chinese who does speak English will have a hard timeunderstanding it at all.

Emmmmm理解这个纹身花了我好一段时间，因为我并没第一时间用英语思考，我相信懂英语的中国人都会很难理解这个东西。

Feifei Wang, Ispend about the same amount of my life in China and in the US.
UpdatedFeb 24 · Upvoted by Erica Friedman, Has two tattoos and facial jewelry.
It really depends on the tattoo.
For example, Beckham's Tattoo “生死有命富贵由天” is very welldone. The words are correct, the calligraphy is smooth and done with aflourish. This is perhaps the best Chinese tattoo I've seen on a westernperson.
Most tattoos I've seen in real life were chunky and awkward, thelines were not smooth, there was not much style in it either. They almostalways looked like English words poorly translated into Chinese, printed outwith basic font, and brought to the tattoo artist who doesn't speak or writeChinese, with the tattoo artist doing their best to mimic the strokes. (Manyother answers have posted examples; I won't repeat any here).
I don't recommend that people get Chinese character tattoos ifyou don't speak/write Chinese and Chinese/China has no significance in yourlife. I don't recommend people do it for the fun of it, or simply becauseChinese characters look exotic and cool. Perhaps I see tattoos a bitdifferently to other people. It's a mark you keep for life, it should besignificant to your person. It shouldn't be random.
And if you really want to do a Chinese Tattoo, perhaps youshould do it in China, by a tattoo artist who speaks and writes Chinese, andwho understands Chinese. If you don't want to travel to China for it, maybe youshouldn't do it.

Feifei Wang  一半时间在中国一半时间在美国
纹身如何，取决于纹身。
例如，贝克汉姆的纹身“生死由天富贵有命”就非常不错。词都没有错误，书法挥洒自如。这可能是我在西方人身上看到过的最好的中文纹身了。



然而我所见过的绝大多数中文纹身都让人怪异尴尬，笔画不流畅，也没有什么书写风格。他们几乎总是把英语词汇翻译成中文的糟糕内容、用电脑字体格式，把这些交给一个不会说中文或写中文的纹身师，然后让纹身师们尽其所能的模仿汉字的笔划。（很多其他人的回复已经提供了例子，我就不重复了）。
对于那些不会说/写中文以及中文对他们的生活没什么关系的人，我不建议你们纹中文纹身。也不建议他们为此就图个乐呵，或者就因为汉字看起来更有异国情调很酷。
也许我看到的纹身和其他人有一点不同。这是你人生的标记，对你来说应该是重要的。它不应该是漫无目的的。
如果你真的想要一个中文纹身，也许你应该去中国，找一个中文纹身师，如果你不想为此前往中国，也许你就不应该纹这类纹身。

Antonius Lin, afather and a friend
AnsweredOct 13
Apologies in advance for anyunintended offense for my personal opinion on tattoos and the individuals whohave them.
In short: A combination of pityand disgust.
Now before anyone feels offendedby the above statement, please allow me to explain the rationalE behind thatemotion.
1.      Tattoo is general: It's not thatI'm prejudiced or even judgemental as an individual, however even as anAmerican Chinese armed with the knowledge that tattoos are generally acceptedin our society as an art form, there's still the deeply innate Confucian notionthat there's something wrong with people who have tattoos, since tattooedpeople have historically been associated with the fringes of society (read:criminal branding). Of course I swat this feeling away using rationale andmodern sensibilities, yet I have to admit that this is a conscious effort.
2.     Tattoo of Chinese characters:aside of the funny sides the others have mentioned. Unfortunately this alsobrings up the topic of immaturity and laziness. Immaturity as in, if one wouldlike to look cool by doing something they don't understand what else could itbe other than immaturity? And laziness as in, if one would like to appreciateanother people’s culture or their scripts, wouldn't there be a different andbetter way to show that appreciation? Eg. Tea ceremony, calligraphy orsomething as simple as learning how to take off one's shoes when entering aChinese (or Korean or Japanese or generally Asian with similar Confucianinfluence) friend's home or even learning to serve one's elders drink or foodwhen eating together. But nooooo. All these take efforts and time to learn sowhy not just tattoo something we don't understand?
3.     Tattoo of Chinese characters:didn't we cover this already? No, we didn't. This screams “loneliness” and “Idon't know where I belong”. Thus the pity. Chinese culture isn't like, eg,Maori or southern hemisphere aborigine cultures where skin scarifying is a riteof passage (tribal tattoos). So finding those people beautiful is one thing. Ithink they're beautiful in their own way. Full stop. Yet for people to tattooChinese characters just does not exude “beauty” since it goes against the verynotion of being “Chinese”.
Fact is, even while acceptting tattoos as beautiful art form,there's the notion of beauty that's lost when we know the person is too lazy toeven learn / research what it means first before permanently scaring their bodywith such choices of Chinese characters instead of, say, a “normal” tattoo.

Antonius Lin 一位父亲、也是朋友
以下我对纹身的个人观点，对那些有这类纹身的朋友的无意冒犯，提前先说声抱歉。
简单来说就是：同情和恶心的组合。
现在肯定会有人因上述表态而受到冒犯，请允许我解释。
1.纹身很普遍：倒不是因为我个人对此怀有偏见且居高临下的批判。作为一位美籍华人，一位生活在纹身普遍被视为艺术并接受的社会的人，因为深深的先天的儒家意识，总觉得带有纹身的人有问题，自从纹身男历来与社会边缘联系在一起以来（犯罪的标识）。当然，我用基本原理和现代情感来消除这种感觉，但我不得不承认这是一种有意识的努力。
2.汉字纹身：有趣的方面，其他人已经提到过了。不幸的是，这也带来了幼稚和怠惰。之所以幼稚，是因为这样做你觉得很酷但对于别人如何看待一无所知。而之所以怠惰，是因为如果你欣赏他人的文化的他们的文字的话，难道就没有更好的展示这种欣赏的方式吗？例如，茶道，书法或者别的如学习前往一位华人（或韩国人、日本人等所有儒家文化圈的亚洲人）朋友家里后如何脱鞋，或者学习与老人共餐时如何为他服务。但，真的别在那些我们不懂的，如纹身这类事物上花费精力和时间。
3.汉字纹身：我们不是已经讲过这个了吗？不,我们没有。这叫“孤独”和“我不知道我在哪儿”，很遗憾。中国文化不像毛利人或南半球土着文化，在那里，皮肤上的刺青是一种必经的仪式（部落的纹身）。所以发现那些人的美是另一回事。我认为他们以自己的方式很漂亮。仅此而已。然而，对于中文纹身来说，它并没有流露出“美”，因为它违背了“中国”的概念。
事实就是，尽管纹身是一个漂亮的艺术形式，但当我们知道某些人是懒于学习/研究这些纹身的内在意思时就不再有“美”的概念了。

Ricky Soong, I am Chinese
Answered Oct 13
The last person Isaw with a tattoo written in Chinese characters was during my college time - inthe US.
It was on a Monday and 15 minutesbefore our class started. He bragged about how cool he was getting a new tattooover the weekend with his friends, also our classmates.
What he didn’t realize was thetattoo he got was “滑蛋虾仁” (literally, smooth egg shrimp).
I almost laughed out loud.
I asked him whether he knew thetrue meaning of it, but since I was the only Asian-looking person in class (theclass hadn’t started and so there were about 6 or 7 students in classroom. Iappeared to be the only Asian.) he looked a bit dismayed. Looking to get anapproval from an Asian, he said “it’s cool in Chinese, right?”
I knew it would be a painfulprocess to remove an unwanted tattoo and humiliating to tell the truth. Not tohis surprise, I simply replied a hesitant “yeah”, instead of a “hey, you got asmooth egg shrimp on your arm. What a fool you are!”
He quickly switched the attentionback to how he came to the selection of his favorite Chinese characters. Onething I had to admit, the characters were presented in a calligraphic style.Without looking into the meaning, it was a beautiful tattoo, I say.

Ricky Soong  我是中国人
我见到的最后一个纹汉字纹身的人，是在我美国上大学期间的事情了。
那天周一，很差15分钟就开课了。他整个周末都在向他朋友吹嘘自己新的纹身多么的与众不同，包括他的同班同学。
但他没意识到他的纹身“滑蛋虾仁”的意思（字面上说，顺滑的鸡蛋虾）。
我差点大声笑了出来。
我问他他是否知道这个纹身的意思，当时班里只有我一个亚洲面孔（这个班还没开课，所以只有6-7个学生在里面。我似乎是唯一的亚洲人）。他看起来有点心慌，看起来等待着亚洲人给予认可似得，他说：“在华人里这很酷，对吧？”
我知道，要除掉不想要的纹身是一个痛苦的过程且羞于说出真相。不出他意外，我只是迟疑了一会儿然后回答说“没错，很酷哦”，而不是“嘿，你在你手臂上问了一个顺滑的鸡蛋虾仁，你是有多蠢啊！”
然后他很快就转移注意力回到他是如何选出他最喜欢的汉字的。有一点不得不承认，这些字符是书法风格的。如果不看其中的意思，确实是很漂亮的纹身，我得说。

Paul Woodhouse
Oct13 · 4 upvotes including Ricky Soong
as I’m not Chinese I can’t really write an answer on thisone… I once spent an evening with a lady who had 狗stamped near her arse, really struggled to keep a straight face… maybe fortunatelyshe never found out I can read Chinese…

我不是华人，我不懂怎么给你这个问题的答复。。。有一次我花了一晚上给一位女士屁股上纹“狗”字，努力的板着脸不笑出来，可能幸运的是她压根没发现我懂中文。。。

Ricky Soong
Oct14
Oh… I hope she was like you - possibly got pranked with 我很醉. You didn’t get the tattoo on face, did you?

噢。。。我希望她会喜欢你，比如因为你脸上的“我很醉”之类的（译注：上面那个外国人的脸上纹着“我很醉”的纹身）。你没有在自己脸上纹这个，对吧？

Paul Woodhouse
Oct14 · 3upvotes
LOL… its not a tattoo on my face, my wife wrote it on onenight in marker after I’d had a little bit too much to drink…

哈哈哈。。。我脸上的不是纹身，我老婆在某天晚上我有点小醉的时候给写上去的。。。

Damon Lam, 9 years of unsuccessful assimilation from HongKonger to Chinese.
Answered Oct 13
Somewhat puzzled.
My teacher has two tattoos, oneof either wrist. One of it is the Chinese character 乱, which could mean “messy”,“chaotic”, or “unorganised”.
If it’s accompanied by any othercharacter, I might look at it and think: so you at least you took the effort.
But no, it’s just one character,completely devoid of context (which is everything in Chinese), and one thatdoesn’t really have any positive connotations.
Ok?

Damon Lam 一个用了9年都没能成功同化成中国人的香港人
有点困惑。
我老师有两个纹身，一个在手腕上。其中一个汉字是“乱”。
如果它后面还有接什么汉字，我可能会觉得：所以你至少有努力过。
但没有，就只有这个汉字，完全没有任何背景（这在汉语里无比重要），而这个汉字本身也没有任何积极意义。

Aaron Richmond
Oct27 · 1 upvote
Pretty much what we think when we see Chinese people withEnglish tattoos, half the time they make no sense.

这就跟我们看中国人纹英文纹身一般，大部分都毫无意义。

Joey Yu
Oh boy… this is a funny one to answer!
I've seen many strange Chinesecharacters tattooed on people. Sometimes the letters are upsidedown!
I can't remember them all, but I've gota collection of strange ones I've seen on the internet.
Anyone fluent in Chinese will find thesevery amusing!

噢伙计。。。这真是一个有意思的东西！
我有见过大量奇怪的汉字纹身。有时候字符都是颠倒过来的！
我无法全部都回忆过来，但我在网上找到了一些奇怪的纹身。
任何中文流利的人都会发现这些纹身非常可乐！