Assistance with Chinese Characters

In My Humble Opinion
1

As I’ve posted to the forums a few times, last summer I made a pretty radical change in my life style and I’ve lost 52 lbs.

Recently, I’ve been toying with the idea of getting a small tattoo. Originally, I had an idea that I would get a pheonix (mythological bird reborn in fire) to symbolize the huge change I made. I wanted something really tribal, in black ink.

I want something I can see, everyday to remind me what I’ve accomplished and to remind me that 90% of people that lose weight, gain it all back and more within 2 years. I need something that says, every day “don’t screw this up.”

I decided that one day when I’m 85 years old, I didn’t want to have a bird tattooed on me. Instead I started looking at Chinese characters. I found the character for pheonix, but it wasn’t very pretty. I decided on the character for “to transform, to change” which is absolutely beautiful. I would like to modify it with an adjective - I’ve picked out several gorgeous choices. “Glorious Transformation” is the context I’m going for.

I would like to stack the two characters vertically on my left shoulder blade (each character around 1" square). I need verifiation that what I’ve planned actually has meaning in Chinese - or did I put two words together and create a third non-related (and possibly unsuitable word)? I also have no idea if an modifier goes before after a noun in Chinese.

So, I know I wrote a whole lot here, but if anyone is fluent in Chinese and could help me out with permanent body art (do NOT want to mess this up) I would appreciate it. Here are the characters I found:

變

/to change/to become different/to transform/

Modified with one of the following 4 adjectives. I prefer the first or second one, based on appearance, but whichever one makes the most sense in context would be the top choice.

爍

/bright/luminous/
燦

/glorious/bright/brilliant/lustrous/resplendent/

燁

/blaze of fire/glorious

耀

/brilliant/glorious/
If there isn’t anyone on the board who can help, I would greatly appreciate suggestions on where one could find a Chinese speaker to help with an issue like this (university?).

2

China Guy is the person I think of off-hand who would be the most help.

I know a little Chinese, but I don’t want to be the one responsible if it’s wrong :smiley:

My suggestion: Go to a tatoo artist that normally writes Chinese. The characters have to be written in a specific order and way, otherwise they won’t look right. If the artist hasn’t ever written the character before, it’s likely it won’t come out too pretty.

3

Two great suggestions! The second one is brilliant, I hadn’t thought of that aspect. I really appreciate your help.

4

I wish I could help more, but trust me, you want someone in here who knows what they are talking about!

5

I’m not Chinese nor an expert on these matters but I looked up the characters you suggested, and I have some comments:

  1. For ‘change/transformation’ don’t use the one you wrote, because although the meaning does mean ‘change’ it does also mean ‘strange’ ! My suggestion instead is the following which means change, to be transformed :

渝

  1. Regarding ‘glorious’ etc. I checked the ones you supplied and the following I like:

燦

or, if I may come with my own suggestion:

輝

which means basically the same thing.

6

Ouch - that’s a toughie and may cause me to re-think the whole idea. I loved the original “transformation” character I found, but think your #1 is hideous :\

7

Sorry, there are lots of others though. I just picked the one that seemed to be most ‘spot on’ in meaning.

Check out this dictionary:

http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/jwb/wwwjdic?1B

Select “English meaning” from the Selection Type box, and then enter the word you want to find a character for.

8

I’m not an expert at the language, but I know a little bit of it. I don’t think any of those characters can modify the character for “change” the way that you want. The end result looks bizarre and I don’t think it’s gramatically correct (but to the real experts out there, feel free to correct me if I’m wrong).

All that aside, are you sure you want to have Chinese characters tattooed onto you? As a Chinese speaker, I have to say that this fascination with characters seems like a really strange fad. Imagine the opposite situation… some guy in China loses 52 lbs (congrats on that, btw) and decides to get “ULTRA BLAZE TRANSFORM!” tattooed on himself. It’s just weird :slight_smile:

9

Hmmm, let me try to explain why it is appealing.

Something significant and life-changing happened to me, something so profound I feel compelled to keep a record of it on me forever - to both remind me of what I’ve accomplished and to remind me not to blow it.

I can’t just write “I’ve lost 50 lbs” on my back - I need a way to symbolically represent what I’ve experienced. It was a transformation, a metamorphosis, a rebirth. How can I represent that feeling, that emotion, beyond stark text? Butterfly - too cutesy and obvious. A pheonix - actually very tempting, a rebirth in fire is very close to what I want to say.

To me, Chinese characters can be incredibly beautiful, I look at them like art. I know the characters represent words, but they are so lovely with their lines and graceful brush strokes, I love to look at them. A Chinese character for “transformation” would be like tattoo of a butterfly or a pheonix to me, a symbolic representation (in beautiful art-like form) of something meaninful I am trying to say about my life.

Is there a Chinese character for the experience of a caterpillar turning into a butterfly? That’s kind of the meaning I’m going for, but none of the online dictionaries seem to have a character for “metamorphosis”

As far as your analogy of the English words on a Chinese speaker - who knows, maybe someone in another culture would find the foreign shape of English words pleasing to the eye. An English sentence doesn’t look beautiful to me, but perhaps I am inured to it because I have seen English words my entire life and the appearance is too common and unremarkable to have value.

10

This actually might be closer - according to two separate dictionaries, it means “transfiguration”

改變形像

According to Webster’s, a transfiguration is:
1 a : a change in form or appearance : METAMORPHOSIS b : an exalting, glorifying, or spiritual change

That’s really kind of what I’m going for. If it could be represented as 2 rows of 2 characters each (a box shape) that would be ideal.

11

For the love of Og don’t just pull something out of the dictionary. My wife just howls when she is in the States and see’s some of these “cool” tatoos that are nonsensical or just plain stoooopid.

Glory are you looking for 4 characters or 2 characters? If it’s 4, I think what you actually want is not a dictionary translation of transformation but a Chinese proverb (called a chengyu in Chinese). Traditional Chinese proverbs go back hundreds if not thousands of years, and some are widely used today. Mao came up with some that were quite popular with the 60’s crowd. Kinda like latin sayings in the US. But it will be something “real”, “literary” and have “history”

I don’t have a chengyu book but google is your friend, here’s a page http://www.openface.ca/~dstephen/chprov.htm#107

from this site: http://www.wku.edu/~yuanh/China/proverb.html is an example that might fit: Add a flower to a bouquet. (Chinese original: 锦上添花。) Eg, Make improvements upon something good with an attempt at perfection.

Find a few that you might like, and I’ll ask native speakers for their opinion.

Also, you should find a tatoo artist that writes Chinese to get it right.

Finally, get someone to use the traditional Chinese characters. They are more complicated but more asthetically pleasing. If it’s too difficult then the fall back would be simplified.

12

Whatever you get, make sure it’s something that won’t get mocked by these people: http://www.hanzismatter.com/

13

蛻
變
How about this phrase? It means to transform, or a metamophosis. It’s not the exact term you would find in the dictionary for “metamorphosis,” though. The dictionary entry for that would be:
變
態
…and it does mean “perverted” sometimes, so I wouldn’t recommend tattooing it on your back.

14

Pinkerbloo, how can you have only 3 posts in 2 years? If it’s correct I’ve got to put you down on the next ultimate lurker thread.

15

Hey Chinaguy, I really appreciate your feedback. I do like the idea of the proverb and the characters are really gorgeous. It does fit what I’m trying to say but it’s not quite…GLORIOUS enough for the feeling I’m trying to convey. I’m definitely keeping it in my mind as an option.

I’ll look carefully through your proverb link. I do like your advice about choosing something real and literary. My computer at home doesn’t have language packs installed so I can’t see the characters on that site from home.

The meaning I’m trying to convey is “Glorious Transformation”. Something that became better through some great event, a positive change based on hard work, an amazing metamorphosis.

Is there a translation of Glorious Transformation into Traditional Chinese
If that is not an option, is there any other way to say what I’m feeling with Traditional Chinese characters - anything about amazing positive change, metamorphosis, beautiful butterfly, rebirth, pheonix from the ashes, anything to convey a spectacular, life changing positive event.

I totally get what you’re saying about looking up words in the dictionary, this is really important to me and it’s important that it be meaningful and make sense.

I haven’t thought about selecting an artist yet, but your advice about choosing someone with skill with calligraphy is really logical and was something I hadn’t considered, so thanks.

Terminus Est - Thanks for the hilarious link, it did a good job convincing me how serious this is and how easy it is to really really mess this up.

Pinkerbloo - Thanks for breaking your lurkdom to post in my thread!! :slight_smile: I like the characters you noted, but I would have to bow to the expertise of someone like Chinaguy before I consider them :slight_smile:

16

I’ve just got to throw in two cents and say that I got a kanji tattoo when I was nineteen and I really regret it. As far as I know the meaning is correct (cross checked it with a speaker) but it brings up all kinds of weird cultural appropriation issues. We as Americans see no problem with commodifying and packaging other cultures, even though doing so denigrates that culture and brings it down to the level of a fad, ignoring the culture behind these “symbols.” Even when done with the best of intentions, things like kanji tattoos are indirectly a form of white American imperialism. If you search on “cultural appropriation kanji tattoo” you can probably find opinions from people who are more eloquent than me.

Also, all I can see here is boxes. I probably don’t have the right language pack.

17

We will have to disagree then. I feel that cultures admire and borrow from each other all the time. I majored in French language and literature in college, I would not feel like I were stealing from France if I inscribed my favorite line of French poetry on my body.

18

I’m guessing you’ve never been to Japan. Popular culture there scrounges up and cobbles together any bits of other cultures that catches its eye and doesn’t give a flying fuck about “cultural appropriacy” or “imperialism”: I believe the fancy term is bricolage.

If you told a Japanese kid at a hip-hop show over there with his cap on backwards over his do-rag and a sink-plug chain around his neck that the T-shirt he was sporting which read “Let’s Velocity For Sport Lifestyle” was “commodifying and packaging other cultures”, he’d look at you like you had a fish sticking out of your head, so I figure it works both ways.

I wouldn’t get a kanji tattoo either, but that’s only because I don’t know enough characters to be sure that my left tricep wouldn’t be reading “I blow leprous sailors for small change” if the tattooist was drunk or vindictive.

19

Chinaguy, I followed your advice and found several proverbs that are close to the spirit of what I’m trying to convey:

  1. Grind an iron rod into a needle, perseverance makes anything possible
    鐵杵成針

  2. Seize the opportunity
    時不可失

  3. Learn from past mistakes to avoid future ones
    懲前毖後

  4. Dripping water can eat through stone - Perseverance will lead to success
    滴水穿石

  5. Turn over a new leaf
    改過自新

  6. Wholeheartedly, with complete devotion
    全心全意

  7. To turn stone into gold;
    to change something worthless into something of value
    點石成金

It’s tough - not only do I have to find the words that fit, the characters must all be aesthetically pleasing and beautiful to look at. Currently, I like 1, 3 and 4 the most.

20

Well, I’ve been content to bask in the wisdom of my fellow Dopers so far, and felt more comfortable squatting in a corner, so to speak…

But seeing as a tattoo is pretty permanent, I couldn’t resist tossing in my two cents (I am Chinese.)

Glory, I think that out of the seven new phrases you posted, the fifth is more appropriate given the context. But I still think the one I suggested suits you best :slight_smile: