this post was submitted on 02 Dec 2024
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[โ€“] StoneyDcrew@lemmy.world 98 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (7 children)

Sure "WATER" looks dull if written in boring Arial 10 font with caps lock, but if you add a bit of pizzazz it would look fine as a tattoo. Esp. If you are a non-English speaker.

๐“ฆ๐“ช๐“ฝ๐“ฎ๐“ป

๐–‚๐–†๐–™๐–Š๐–—

๐•Ž๐•’๐•ฅ๐•–๐•ฃ

[โ€“] ylph@lemmy.world 60 points 7 months ago (4 children)

So many Chinese character tattoos are done in the Chinese equivalent of boring Arial 10 font though, that's part of the point. The one in the photo is at least hand written, but by someone with poor aesthetic sense, it still looks dull and ugly.

[โ€“] jewbacca117@lemmy.world 15 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Is there a fancy old Chinese font? What about wing dings?

[โ€“] ylph@lemmy.world 17 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

There are different Chinese fonts (in print/computer context) and also different Chinese historical scripts, each with different styles of writing, and finally a very diverse variety of calligraphy styles.

The idea of what is considered "old", "fancy" and "fancy old" doesn't necessarily map the same way as it does in Latin/Western writing in general, the cultural and historical sensibility and connotations are often quite different, although in most broad sense, you could find some style analogues to achieve a similar vibe, but it would be quite context dependent.

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[โ€“] flames5123@lemmy.world 5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Chinese characters in โ€œarialโ€ font would be monowidth lines, no serifs, no real pizzaz. The tattoo in the picture is how I see most Chinese character tattoos. This is still stylized a bit.

[โ€“] ylph@lemmy.world 7 points 7 months ago

Sure, but tattoos in sans serif fonts are still super common, and honestly, it makes little difference, the one in OP is still basic as fuck - call it Times New Roman instead of Arial. It reads like plain text to a Chinese reader, not some kind of calligraphy - what you call "stylized" is actually just the default original textbook stroke style of the standard script. The sans serif version with monowidth lines is actually more of a modern stylized form of that.

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[โ€“] HikingVet@lemmy.ca 15 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Old English script always makes the word look like a different word, like water here looks like bater.

[โ€“] AmidFuror@fedia.io 8 points 7 months ago

Go away. Watin'.

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[โ€“] Sam_Bass@lemmy.world 11 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Your 2nd sample reads 'Bater'

[โ€“] Agent641@lemmy.world 14 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Don't talk back to the master

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[โ€“] uservoid1@lemmy.world 53 points 7 months ago (3 children)

According to Google translate the visible part says: "Independent, curious and ruthless" which isn't that bad of a text.

[โ€“] slackassassin@sh.itjust.works 25 points 7 months ago

Hydro homies out here loving both.

[โ€“] RandomStickman@fedia.io 7 points 7 months ago

The last one is ็‹ก็Œพ which means "sly"

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[โ€“] Magister@lemmy.world 43 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Reminds me of someone who have the Chinese word for "refrigerator" on his right shoulder, and when Chinese people would point and laugh about it, he would roll up his sleeve from his left shoulder where there is a tattoo of a fridge

[โ€“] ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 12 points 7 months ago (3 children)

Get the word for Japanese written out in Chinese.

[โ€“] L0rdMathias@sh.itjust.works 27 points 7 months ago (5 children)

Bruh what? Imagine thinking water - the bringer of life - isn't cool enough to warrant getting a tattoo of it. I hope his mouth remains eternally slightly dry.

[โ€“] Dkarma@lemmy.world 11 points 7 months ago

Def not a hydro homie

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[โ€“] JackbyDev@programming.dev 21 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Wouldn't it be more like this?

Calligraphy of the word water in cursive.

[โ€“] ylph@lemmy.world 6 points 7 months ago

It's more like this

[โ€“] johannesvanderwhales@lemmy.world 18 points 7 months ago (4 children)

Calligraphy is a traditional art form in China and Japan, so it seems to me like many people there recognize the beauty of the characters. Some people just want an excuse to hate on other people (and for some reason tattoos on other people really draw this behavior out).

[โ€“] ComfortableRaspberry@feddit.org 8 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Getting a tattoo is a more or less permanent decision. It's soooo very important to make sure tattooed people understand they made a bad decision, because it's permanent! Otherwise I won't feel better about me and my boring small minded self :(

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[โ€“] Agent641@lemmy.world 17 points 7 months ago (2 children)

If I'm gonna get a foreign language tattooed on me (and I'm probably not gonna until I'm 80 at least) it's gonna be some Sumerian cuniform, probably hate mail to Ea Nasir.

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[โ€“] Snowclone@lemmy.world 15 points 7 months ago (1 children)

China: Makes the most beautiful calligraphy writing where every word is a pleasure to write and see. Also China: It says 'Soup' down your arm, man. Why are you writing Soup all down your arm?

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[โ€“] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 13 points 7 months ago (5 children)

This site is now dead, but it used to be one of my favorites. It's someone who would translate the Asian-language tattoos people would send in. A lot of them were not even using real symbols or letters, but a lot of others were hilarious.

https://hanzismatter.blogspot.com/

This is one of their last posts and, to be fair to them, it's pretty hard to continue a blog like that once your irony meter has exploded.

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[โ€“] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 11 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Someone in another thread (or on a Youtube comment I'm not sure) posted a T-shirt found in Japan that said in English "Too young to live, too fast to die, Cream Soda" which I think is an Initial D lyric.

[โ€“] autokludge@programming.dev 11 points 7 months ago (1 children)

It's like, the most aggressive slogan but attached to the most cheerful product imaginable. It's like "Fuck the pain away. Neapolitan Ice Cream."

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[โ€“] niktemadur@lemmy.world 10 points 7 months ago (3 children)

Chinese writing is a vast world of art and ideas, with probably over 30 thousand different characters, nobody knows for sure how many there are. Not knowing what a character is, to strip it of meaning or cultural baggage, kind of frees one up to appreciate the rhythm and delicate balance of lines as their own thing.
Then again, you do not want to end up with PIG SWAMP MOUNTAIN DWARF NOODLE in permanent ink on your skin.

If you want to see Ewan McGregor naked and his body covered in Chinese calligraphy, sometime between Trainspotting and Star Wars, do check out Peter Greenaway's bonkers visual masterpiece The Pillow Book.

[โ€“] ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net 9 points 7 months ago (1 children)

PIG SWAMP MOUNTAIN DWARF NOODLE

Perfectly explainable.

"Pig Swamp" was our frat name in college.

"Mountain Dwarf Noodle" was my nickname.

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[โ€“] clay_pidgin@sh.itjust.works 9 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Si what DOES her tattoo say?

[โ€“] wandermind@sopuli.xyz 16 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (4 children)

็‹ฌ็ซ‹ independent/independence
็„กๆƒ… heartless/heartlessness
ๅฅฝๅฅ‡ curiosity

And something more under her shirt

With some of the word written vertically and some horizontally for whatever reason

[โ€“] FilthyShrooms@lemmy.world 6 points 7 months ago (4 children)

Ok but what does his tattoo say?

[โ€“] YoorWeb@lemmy.world 18 points 7 months ago
[โ€“] Sabata11792@ani.social 8 points 7 months ago (1 children)
[โ€“] FilthyShrooms@lemmy.world 5 points 7 months ago (1 children)
[โ€“] Sabata11792@ani.social 7 points 7 months ago (1 children)

NP, its a hard legnuage to pick up

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[โ€“] JohnOliver@feddit.dk 9 points 7 months ago (2 children)

google translate, translated that as:

Independence River is curious and ruthless

[โ€“] pyre@lemmy.world 9 points 7 months ago (1 children)

not bad in the realm of Chinese tattoos

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[โ€“] shoulderoforion@fedia.io 8 points 7 months ago (2 children)

kanji look so much more like art than the latin alphabet do, to us

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[โ€“] Juice@midwest.social 8 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Dear China, stop having such a beautiful language then. signed, Mandarin is really hard

[โ€“] Rhaedas@fedia.io 7 points 7 months ago (4 children)

The important thing is to know what it actually says. Outside of that, Chinese and other type writings are artistic in themselves already, so even if it only said "water", if that looked nice why not?

This picture shows that artistic character. If her back had the meaning tattooed in English it might get some odd stares. Unless it was in Papyrus font.

[โ€“] PP_BOY_@lemmy.world 6 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Yeah really, it's like these people have never heard of calligraphy.

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[โ€“] ylph@lemmy.world 6 points 7 months ago (2 children)

It might look artistic to you, but to a Chinese reader this example looks basic and dull, so they just see the meaning of the words much the same as the "WATER" on the left. There just isn't any real aesthetic or artistic value here, in the context of Chinese writing.

It kind of goes both ways though, back in the day there was a fad in Asia too of people wearing clothes with random English words on them, because there those looked exotic and cool, even though to Westerners it looked a bit dumb.

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[โ€“] MataVatnik@lemmy.world 5 points 7 months ago

I mean why not? Goes kinda hard

[โ€“] Sam_Bass@lemmy.world 5 points 7 months ago

Soooo.... She is perpetually wet

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