JAPANESE KANJI TATTOOS
Japanese tattoos are cool. But if a personal translator
is out of your league how can you avoid becoming a kanji
fashion victim and get stuck with a tattoo you will really
regret?
1. Know the difference – hiragana, katakana
and kanji
Before you talk to your tattoo artist, make
sure you know what you are talking about. You
say you want a Japanese tattoo, but what do
you know about Japanese characters? You need a
quick stint in 2-minute Japanese boot camp.
First off, let’s be clear that there is no Japanese
“alphabet”. There are three sets of Japanese characters
– hiragana, katakana and kanji – and each group has its
own history, function and style. Get your head around
these facts and you will already know more than 99% of
the people walking around with Japanese tattoos right
now:
Hiragana – These simple, rounded characters represent
sounds, but have no independent meaning. They were
developed by women in the Heian period and are still
considered feminine by Japanese people.
Katakana – Developed by Buddhist monks around the
same time as hiragana, these are simple, angular
characters that also represent sounds and have no
meaning of their own. You saw them cascading down
the screen in Matrix (although they were backwards!)
Kanji – Originally from China, these characters are
like pictures, representing a meaning and also several
different sounds depending on the situation.
Just reading this has probably given you an idea of
which style you might like for your tattoo – but
don’t stop just yet! Now you know what kinds of
Japanese characters there are, let’s move on to…
2. Writing styles
Come a bit closer. Lean forward towards the
screen. That’s right. Now, look at the words
in front of you. Take a good, close look at
the shapes of these letters. OK? Now tell me
honestly: Would you want a tattoo in Times New
Roman? How about Tahoma? What’s that? You don’t
want a tattoo by Canon or Epson? Sure you don’t.
And in the same way, you don’t want to have your
Japanese tattoo looking like a printout either!
So, now we move on to writing styles. Just like
there are three kinds of Japanese characters,
there are also three ways they can be written.
Don’t worry. This is easy! I know, you are thinking
that you can’t even read Japanese, so how on earth
will you be able to recognize these different styles?
Well, try this:
Kaisho – Block letters. You learned to write your
ABCs like this, and Japanese kids learn to write
their characters in just the same way: Like a Volvo
– boxy but good.
Gyousho – Cursive letters. You moved up to middle
school and learned you could write faster by letting
the parts of some letters flow into the next. Yes,
you guessed it - the Japanese do the same thing, and
they call it gyousho.
Sousho – Super-cursive letters. Ever seen a
prescription from a doctor? Then you know what sousho
is like in Japanese: Sure, the writer or some other
trained person can (probably) read it, but no one
else has a clue what it says!
Are you getting the picture? If you want to look like
a computer printout, then be my guest and go for the
kaisho style. That’s your choice. But I think you
probably want to use either gyousho or sousho for
your tattoo. My personal preference would be gyousho:
It’s stylish, but it won’t leave even native speakers
baffled.
3. Real or fake?
Remember I mentioned Mel C at the beginning? Wel
l guess what kanji she got tattooed on her arm?
That’s right – “Girl Power”: Great in English,
but show this kanji combination to most Japanese
people and you’ll get a blank look at best. Want
a worse example? Try “big daddy”. Now, you know
what it means in English, but put it into kanji and
you end up with “large father”! It just doesn’t work.
I’m sure you remember that kanji are the only
characters that have meaning as well as sound
. And their beauty means that they are what most
people want for their tattoos. But watch out:
As well as being popular, they can also be the
most dangerous!
Let’s see if we can find a pattern here: Look
carefully at the examples above. What are they
communicating - concrete concepts or abstract
ideas? Can you see the difficulty the translators
had? The kanji for “dragon”, “samurai”, “love” or
any other concrete ideas are pretty easy to discover.
But go for anything with an idiomatic meaning and whoever
is trying to help you translate it is going to get
a major headache!
Just an idea, but how about this suggestion: Rather
than trying to force a round English peg into a
square Japanese hole, why not find a real Japanese
phrase that you like and get that instead? Bushidou
(the Way of the Warrior) and Ninjutsu (The Art of
Stealth) are two good examples of real Japanese terms
that would make great tattoos.
4. Your name in Japanese
As I’m sure you remember from 2-minute Japanese boot
camp, katakana are the characters usually used to write
foreign words and names. So, if you want to get a tattoo
of your name, technically these would be the characters
you would choose. But I am guessing that, like most people
, you want your name written in kanji.
Do a quick search on Google and you can find a number of
sites that specialize in translating names into kanji.
Basically there are two different methods that these
sites use, so let’s look at them here.
Translating the meaning
This method involves finding out the original meaning
of the English name, and then researching the kanji
equivalent.
For example, my name has its origins in Greek and means
“crowned one”. The one who is crowned is the king, so I
could translate my name into the kanji for king and
call myself ohsama. (Perhaps a little pretentious –
and disturbingly similar to Mr. Bin Laden’s first name!)
Translating the sound
This is a lot more difficult! Flick through a dictionary
and you will find a bunch of kanji that can be combined
to sound like your name. But sound isn’t everything:
Remember that kanji have meaning as well. In fact, it
is even more complex than this! Be sure to check each
of the following factors with anyone who translates your
name like using this method:
1. Sound – Does it sound like your name or not? I have
seen my name “translated” on certain websites to sound
like Stefan. Shame my name (Stephen) is actually said
the same as Steven!
2. On-yomi and kun-yomi – Yes, more technical words!
But don’t panic – they are easy to understand: Basically,
kanji have two kinds of reading. One kind, on-yomi, is
their original Chinese sound. The other, kun-yomi, is
their Japanese-only sound. What to watch is that (like
oil and water) on-yomi and kun-yomi don’t mix. Use
either all on-yomi reading or all kun-yomi readings
to make the sound of your name.
3. Meaning – Do the kanji have a good meaning together?
Now, it can be very difficult to find kanji that sound
right and have a good meaning, so you may need to compromise
a little on one of these.
4. Masculine or feminine – I guess this is more like a
sub-category of meaning, but it is something you need to check
out to avoid embarrassment. For example, while “Asian Beauty”
may be a great combination for a woman, I get the feeling most
men would not be too happy about having that permanently
written into their skin!
5. If in doubt, check!
First, use your new-found knowledge of Japanese to
ask a few difficult questions to your tattoo artist
or kanji “specialist”. If you get the feeling they don’t
know what they are talking about, you probably want to
look elsewhere.
Next, before you get anything permanent done, use an
online dictionary to check whether the Japanese really
means what you want it to. You may not be able to input
Japanese yourself, but you can copy and paste characters
from an email or web page and see what they mean.
Finally, if you are lucky enough to know any, ask a
Japanese person what they think. Their confused expression
may tell you that you have come up with another “big daddy”!
Follow this advice and you will avoid the most dangerous
pitfalls of Japanese tattoos and get a kanji tattoo you
can be proud of.
Stephen Munday lives in Japan. He works for Provide
Cars, who buy cars at japanese car auctions and sell
them to japanese car importers around the world. This
article is (c) Stephen Munday 2005. Permission is given
to reproduce this article in whole with the URLs correctly
hyperlinked.
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