Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Sunday, March 26, 2006

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Sunday, March 19, 2006

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Downloadable Gibberish Asian Fonts

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New York Times and Tattoo Choices

I just finished my interview with Cindy Chang of New York Times last night. I thought it went pretty well.

We discussed about the phenomenon of tattoos/body modifications and how Western companies trying to break into the Chinese market with mistranslated slogans. My friend Jeremy Goldkorn’s Danwei.org and Andy Chuang’s Goodcharacters.com both have a few examples.

Cindy would also like to hear more from Hanzi Smatter’s readers’ perspective. If you would like to voice your opinion, please let me know via email , and I will forward Cindy your contact information.



Soon after my interview, I got this email this morning from Valen Farcas.

gmail - tattoo choices
(transcript)

Farcas is “bothered” by the fact that many of my entries are too sarcastic and I should “think a little self-restrain would do a great deal instead of a minute and a half of laughter.”

He/she is also unhappy about my “obsession with trying to make YOUR native language so exotic and exciting by denying people of its uses with the explanation that it has nothing to do with their culture and nature, so what?”

I truly enjoy and welcome comments like this since I believe strongly in “check-and-balance”. But if Farcas really want to call me an “elitist”, why bother with sugarcoating it with “your [awesome] blog”?


T-shirts Giveaway sponsored by Hanzismatter and Jlist.com

Saturday, March 11, 2006

Marquis Antoine Daniels

Jimmy Tsai of Venom Sportswear emailed me about Dallas Mavericks’ player Marquis Daniels in the latest issue of DIME magazine.

DIME Marquis Daniels Tattoos
(full size)

According to Daniels, the three “Chinese symbols” on his arm are his initials “MAD, Marquis Antoine Daniels” in Chinese.



Although the first two characters and are recognizable, the last character is only a partial that represents “roof”. Even if the characters were phonetically transliterated, they are still way off from “MAD”.

What does his tattoo really mean?

“Healthy Woman Roof”

Related: "NBA Body Art - Tale of My Chinese Tattoo" in Sports Illustrated.


T-shirts Giveaway sponsored by Hanzismatter and Jlist.com

Friday, March 10, 2006

"Skin, Hair, Body"


http://www.bmezine.com/tattoo/A60307/high/bmepb236775.jpg

This tattoo
was shown in March 7th of BMEzine’s kanji gallery without any caption.

The first character (leather, skin) and last character (body) are done correctly. I am having trouble on deciding if the owner wanted (capitol of Anhui province) or (hair, milli-) in the center.

As of right now, I think it should be , which means “skin, hair, body”.

In a previous post, owner of a claims she was told it meant “carpe diem”, which is wrong.


T-shirts Giveaway sponsored by Hanzismatter and Jlist.com

Interviews and Comics

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Friday, March 3, 2006

Wednesday, March 1, 2006