Is it just me or does everyone with even the slightest knowledge of Chinese have to suppress the urge to make fun of those hip, free-spirited individuals who walks around with Chinese tattoos, completely oblivious to the actual meaning of them? Not that there is anything wrong with having Chinese characters tattooed on one's body, I am even toying with the idea myself (though I am going to do a lot more Chinese studying before I make my final decision) but, honestly, what kind of person staggers into a tattoo parlor and requests a non-Chinese chap to write stuff on him, not knowing the language himself and making no effort to verify that the tattoo artist speaks in either?
The reason for this rant was female, blond and standing next to me on the train to work. I noticed she had the character for Wo3 written on her wrist. I asked her why. She said it meant "Peace". I informed her that it did not. Have now learned that I should never do that again. She got rather miffed. It just makes little sense to me to have something written on the body, in a language one cannot speak or read, and trusting that the tattoo guy knows what he is doing. I makes me wonder how many people out there are running around with "mu shu pork" written on them.