Asian Tattoos

Asian tattoos have become very popular over the last couple of years. Some may say its the mysteriousness behind them that attracts people to them or uniqueness of the Asian characters. Not to mention it's a great conversation piece because people will constantly be asking you what it means. They also have some sort of sex appeal to them. However, there is a growing problem that has been linked to Asian tattoos. The meaning of the character is lost in translation or the meaning of what people think it means turns out to be something completely different.



Many athletes and celebrities sport some sort of Asian tattoo and they too have become victim to the lost in translation of their tattoo. Below is a list of athletes and celebrities that have some sort of Asian tattoo that has been lost in translation or the meaning has been misinterpreted.


* Chris Anderson of the Denver Nuggets got the Chinese character for "good" on one shoulder and "bad" on the other. But it seems something got lost in translation because the character for "bad" also means "nausea".

*Shawn Marion of the Toronto Raptors likes to refer to himself as"The Matrix" and wanted to tell the world to knows this so he decided to inscribing it in Mandarin on his leg. But to Chinese it reads: "Demon bird camphor".

*The very talented Justin Timberlake has the character "qu", which means "song", but also "bent, crooked or wrong".

* Britney Spears has some Kabbalah symbols on the back of her neck. It is suppose to translate to "healing". But there has been many reports claiming that the three symbols are out of order so her tattoo doesn't really mean anything.



The lesson that should be learned here is make darn sure that when you are getting any kind of Asian tattoo be sure that your character really means what you think it means

I will admit that I have wanted to get some sort of Asian type tattoo because I think the Asian symbols are really cool. Plus it is a great conversation piece because people will also want to know your tattoo says/means. But to be honest you have got to be super careful about what you get tattooed on you. Mainly, because there are a lot of cases where people get some Asian symbol tattooed on them thinking it means something to find out later that it means something completely different and often something embarrassing.

So if you want to get an Asian type tattoo you need to make 200% sure what you are getting is really what you think you are getting. I would first do a lot of research about what word you want and make sure that every search you find is the same symbol. Or even better, if you know someone of Asian descent then ask them for clarification. I for one wanted to get the symbols for Karma tattooed on me but after doing research I found several different symbols. So to be on the safe side, I decided not to get that because I didn't want to be walking around with a tattoo that I thought said Karma and in reality meant evil one or something like that. Also you have got to take in consideration that some American words may not translate in Asian culture so you might have to think of something else. So if you want some sort of Asian styled tattoo make sure you know what you are getting into.