Deer

Reader Dimitri emails:

"Hello Tian, I am a long time reader of your blog. Last week while visiting the city of Val-d'Or (Quebec) in Canada, I found the following plastic leg 'tattooed' in the front window of a tattoo parlor. In this picture, you can clearly see the character is upside down. Could it be they wanted to make sure the tattooed person will be able to read his own tattoo?"

The character shown on the leg is an upside down 鹿, which means "deer" in Chinese.

In Japanese, when it is combined with 馬 (horse); as in 馬鹿, it means "fool, idiot", and 馬鹿外人 means "stupid foreigner[s]".

Eternal Love

Reader Neko emails:

"One of my friends from high school recently got this tattoo. She claims it means 'Eternal Love'. I found 'Eternal' in my books, but could not find anything even closely resembling her version of love. Is it a translation I simply haven't seen before? I did end up finding a 'flash' version of this same thing online somewhere, but since I only saw it once, and it was flash.. I'm having a hard time believing. I'd love to get your input on it. :)"

The top character 永 means "long, perpetual, eternal, forever". The bottom character 疼 even though sometimes it is used to describe "dote, doting", but most often it means "aches, pains, sore".

Morals of the Story: Buyers Beware.

Condo Tiles

Reader Michael Bolduc emails:

"Tian, I am a realtor and these are in a condo a client of mine wants to buy. He's not wild about the tile mosaic around these tiles and is considering removing the whole thing. These tiles are on the facing of the breakfast bar. Do they say what is reported in English? Thanks for your help."

I have never seen "family" is referred as "亦作". Usually 家庭 is translated as "family".

亦 = also, too; likewise
作 = make; work; compose, write; act, perform




Despite the poor calligraphy, this tile was my personal favorite. The character shown is the simplified version of 熱, which means "hot". Mixing the Chinese character with the English caption, the tile is "hot love". This tile would be a good sell on eBay.




Bad calligraphy, correct characters and translation.

幸 =luck(ily), favor, fortunately
福 = happiness, good fortune, blessing




This one is correct as well.

生 = life, living, lifetime; birth
长 = long; length; excel in; leader