娃哈哈奥

Chinese Characters

The Chinese character is to the tattoo craze what bellbottoms were to disco fashion. Seems like everyone's got one. And most of the time, they mean something stupid-- luck, loyalty, sexy. Usually, these are words that the wearer would never tattoo on themselves in English. But since it's a pretty Chinese character, it's all good. People in China see these tattoos as a bit silly in the same way an American might find a tattoo of an English word a bit strange. The dumbest one I've seen in China is a Westerner with a tattoo with the single-character "yo" on her lower back. This means "have." What? I've also read about a Westerner bringing his new kick ass "blood and guts" Chinese tattoo to China to find out that it actually translated to "blood and intestines." Wearers of Chinese character tattoos relish being asked, "Hey, what does your tattoo mean?" I'll tell you what it means. A Chinese tattoo means that the wearer got inked in the late 90s/early 00s, when Chinese letters seemed like a sweet idea. It also means, most definitely, the wearer is not Chinese.