Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
Tiger Tie by Burton
Andy from UK has purchased this tie from Burton sometime ago when he needed one. While the tie is often covered by the jacket, Andy has always assumed the Chinese characters had something to do with tiger.
After seeing my site, he started to have doubts about his original assumption and wanted to know just exactly what Burton is putting on their products.
I personally have never seen tiger been described in such way 夫武田元春訣前; but what I can tell is four out of the seven characters are written incorrectly.
My guess is these are random characters chosen to be used as marketing tools.
T-shirts Giveaway sponsored by Hanzismatter and Jlist.com
After seeing my site, he started to have doubts about his original assumption and wanted to know just exactly what Burton is putting on their products.
I personally have never seen tiger been described in such way 夫武田元春訣前; but what I can tell is four out of the seven characters are written incorrectly.
My guess is these are random characters chosen to be used as marketing tools.
T-shirts Giveaway sponsored by Hanzismatter and Jlist.com
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.
(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
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.
(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.
(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 康 and 女 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
(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 康 and 女 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
Friday, March 3, 2006
"Child Offering God"
http://www.bmezine.com/tattoo/A60302/high/bmepb233296.jpg
The only caption this March 2nd photo had was “my beautiful tat” in BMEzine’s Kanji tattoo gallery.
Assuming the first characters is a butchered 子 (offspring, child) and last character 神 (spirit, god) has somehow split into two parts. Since in Japanese, 子供 【こども】 means "child; children", therefore 子供神 roughly translates as “child offering god” or "children god". (thanks Paul).
I don’t know if that is a good idea for a young lady to advertise herself as “child offering god”, unless she is in the business of selling her eggs or being a surrogate mother.
T-shirts Giveaway sponsored by Hanzismatter and Jlist.com
Wednesday, March 1, 2006
NBA Body Art - Tale of My Chinese Tattoo
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