I saw a guy with a kanji/hanzi tattoo the other day that had the characters: 雙子. I did not know the first character, so I looked it up. It turns out that it is the traditional version of 双, and the word 双子（ふたご） means "twins." Perhaps he has a twin sibling with the same tattoo? (Or maybe he is just a really big fan of the Minnesota Twins )

Interesting info. Although, I'm curious to know how you managed to copy the kanji. These days it might not be the case but in the past most people with tatoos were yakuza. I certainly wouldn't have asked him to hold still while I quickly jotted down the character. lol.

...or maybe Matthew's in Seattle and it's just some random white guy being trendy

Yep, it was a white American guy.

wrightak Wrote:I'm curious to know how you managed to copy the kanji. These days it might not be the case but in the past most people with tatoos were yakuza. I certainly wouldn't have asked him to hold still while I quickly jotted down the character. lol.

Copy it down? Haven't you learned anything here yet? I just glanced at it and thought to myself, okay, two turkeys on top of a crotch.

Actually, we could make a simple story from this, especially with the image of "twins" in mind: A pair of turkeys begotten from a single crotch.
(Arrgh, I've gotten to the point where stories just start automatically popping up in my head before I even realize it)

Oops, I guess you miss obvious things like that when you post at 1am!

Hehe, yesterday I found myself walking behind a guy with a shirt on that had some hanzi for a karate klub. Shaolin kungfu I believe. I was mesmerized trying to figure out each kanji as I trailed him. I think he noticed, he gave me an odd stare at least and I stopped trying to reading it

Im trying not to study people's hanzi/kanji tatoos too much. They seem to take it up the wrong way.

[ファブリス]

Quote:Oops, I guess you miss obvious things like that when you post at 1am!

Don't you love this method!

I once went past a shop that had these kanji "藤行旅", "fuju travel" or something (a travel agency I guess).

Interesting was that I could not even remember the name of the flower when I saw the characters, I just remembered "that kinda flower" (seeing some mental image I had for the story), "going", "trip". When I was back home I wrote it down, and also found the compound for "travelling" (the last two characters).

That experience confirmed to me that the keywords and stories help make the kanji distinct in memory, and the keywords are only temporary "hooks". But to be able to distinguish every character separately is most important. It wasn't just any kind of flower, it was these. I looked up images when I studied the character because I had no idea what a "wisteria" was ;P

once in a while i go to a go-tournament in amsterdam, while going there i use a metro and go past a certain building with 味家 on top of it.

i remember i did not know it al all the first time.
a while later i reconized the "roof" part of house, and i wondered what that thing below it was.

the next time i went to the tournament i reconized the kanji for flavour.
and last time i reconized it wholy
i suspect the combined meaning is something like "taste house"

Just thought I'd quickly mention that I think the name of the company is Fuji Travel and the kanji probably go 藤旅行　ふじりょこう. I remember the name of the flower because every time someone talks about it, I immediately think of the mountain. Too many homophones in Japanese.

Wisteria isn't the only piece of plant life that I didn't have a clue about before Heisig. What about Camphor tree, Catalpa and all the rest?