Chinese tattoos that include authentic characters and symbols can form the basis of beautiful designs which carry a deep and personal meaning.
But due to the complex nature of Chinese writing it’s extremely easy to end up with a permanent embarrassment trapped under your skin unless you take a few basic precautions. So to help you avoid these Chinese tattoo disasters, here are the top five mistakes to look out for;
1) Mistranslation
Chinese writing is very complex and carries many subtle meanings. It’s extremely easy to end up with something unexpected written all over your skin. Here are two classic example of these “misunderstandings” that I’ve heard about recently;
a) A woman wanted a Chinese writing tattoo, but she knew about the dangers of mistranslation. So she went in to a local Chinese restaurant and asked one of the waiters to write out the Chinese characters for the word “free”. He duly obliged and she took the design to a tattoo artist who provided her with the tattoo of her dreams.
Unfortunately, he didn’t understand what the design meant and the word “free” has two...