http://www.hanzismatter.com/2004_09_01_archive.html

Check out this website. I cant believe people get tattoos without checking them out first.
This site is fun because it is a good way to test your own Kanji knowledge. Basically, look at the pictures and try to find the mistake. Either a stroke is missing, in the wrong place, the Kanji is in mirror image, upside down or misplaced, says the wrong thing, is only a primitive or radical, or such a jumble mess that it is unreadable or it does not even exsist. AND THESE ARE TATTOOS!!! They dont wash of with soap and water.

Have Fun!

Wisher

I should add that you have to look through the archives. The link above just takes you to the first page. It also has the misuse of Chinese Charaters in general, not just Tattoos.

I was making fun of a friend in Japan about a T-shirt she was wearing that made no sense in English. She replied, "Yea, but Weserners get tattoos that make no sense in Japanese and they are permanent!"
Touché

Love hanzismatter. I love the guy who got "death" backwards. Classic.

My buddy's a tattoo artist who used to ink out here in Venice. He told me whenever someone asked him what a kanji tattoo meant, he told them "stupid white boy can't read Japanese" =P

I saw a guy with ホモ written on his arm here in my town.

PrettyKitty Wrote:I saw a guy with ホモ written on his arm here in my town.

That might have been on purpose.

Ahh, I love that site. I've seen some hilarious stuff there.

joxn_costello Wrote:

PrettyKitty Wrote:I saw a guy with ホモ written on his arm here in my town.

That might have been on purpose.

I would have thought so if he didn't obviously have a girlfriend.
Though it still could be on purpose.

PrettyKitty Wrote:

joxn_costello Wrote:

PrettyKitty Wrote:I saw a guy with ホモ written on his arm here in my town.

That might have been on purpose.

I would have thought so if he didn't obviously have a girlfriend.
Though it still could be on purpose.

I can imagine someone doing it for the humor factor. It's much less of a risk to write it in Japanese: most of the people that would beat you up for tattooing that on yourself wouldn't understand it! That reminds me, has anybody seen that Finnish guy on Hanzi Smatter that tried to tattoo a very racist message on himself, but ended up demonstrating his own ignorance by tattooing it in an 'Asian font' that was nothing more than a gibberish character attached to each letter of the Roman alphabet.