Japanese Tattoos

Kanji characters have a certain mystic that attract many people to have one or several tattooed to their body. I recently met a young girl who wasn’t really interested in Japan or learning Japanese, but loved, in her words, Kanji symbols. She was very proud of the Kanji character tattooed on her hip. She told me it meant “power”. I didn’t have the heart to tell that the kanji was wrong. Somehow she ended up with a pretty much meaningless Kanji on its own. It is used with other Kanji to mean cooperation, association and and whatnot. I wondered if she had fallen victim to a nasty practical joke or if what she wanted was lost on translation.

You might feel justified making the assumption that tattoo artists know Kanji and would do the research for their customers. However, most tattoo artists know little about Japan, Japanese culture and Kanji. A Japanese friend told me about an American he met who had a tattoo on his bicep that translated meant “council worker”. The American thought it mean “samurai”. As you can imagine he wasn’t very happy when he found out.

Don’t let this happen to you.  If you going to get a tattoo it is up to you to do through research. It is up to you to make sure you are getting exactly what you want. A good place to start is David Mc Gimpsey’s My Japanese Tattoo ebook.

You could also get some Japanese friends to help you out with choosing the right Japanese Kanji character. You could also consider getting a kana character – either a hiragana or katakana symbol. Kana symbols on their own don’t really represent anything, but some do look very cool.

Japanese Kanji

Japanese Kanji, although based on Chinese Kanji, is indeed unique. Many Kanji do represent meaningful and beautiful cultural values, ideas and concepts unique only to Japan. Some Kanji look incredibly beautiful. There is nothing quite like watching a Shoudoka, a Japanese calligraphy master, put brush to paper. Keep in mind most Kanji just represent or mean the same old words we use everyday. Some Kanji don’t even mean that much just on there own. If you are considering getting a Kanji tattoo you obviously want to make sure you get it right. You don’t want to be parading some bizarre Japanese symbol around.