Yeah, you could say the same thing about butterflies or skulls or flags or pretty much anything else that people get tattoos of.
Japanese used to be written vertically and from right to left, i.e.
4 1
5 2
6 3
When writing in a one-character tall space like a hachimaki (head band) or a shop sign, it would still be written right to left:
3 2 1
But in modern times (post-WWII, I believe) Western customes were adopted, and people started writing in the same direction as English.
Today, both vertical and horizontal left-to-right (Western style) are commonly used. Newspapers and novels are usually written vertically. Technical and scientific writing is usually horizontal. Horizontal right-to-left is extremely rare. The only place it’s still used is on the right side of certain vehicles (mostly commercial trucks) because they think front-to-back writing looks better.
Wrong. Katakana is also used for emphasis, quite like underlining or italicizing is in English, so it’s possible to see one word written in kanji and an adjacent word, not of foreign origin, written in katakana. Now, if you’re talking about not mixing kanji and katakana in the same word, then I believe you have it right.
Furigana is also interesting. That’s when hiragana is written to show the pronunciation of the particular kanji being used.
I find it pretty hilarious, a lot of the kanji or Chinese characters are completely nonsensical. My wife and I get a kick out of 'em every time we are in the US and see some person proudly sporting a tat that essentially says “dumbass”
Woohoo! I learned something from this thread! 
I’ll have to read up on that.
I have an alternate theory on why people like ideographic tattoos–one which does not presume their supreme idiocy. I have no tattoos or other body modifications myself, but that’s because I don’t want to symbolically lock my persona, not because I have anything against those who choose to wear tattoos.
There are many methods of conveying meaning with a two-dimensional image. English words are relatively clear and concise, but they tend to lack metaphorical depth. If you get the word “power” tattooed on you, you look like a total dork. Do you mean electric power? Political power? Real ultimate power? In English, words are supposed to be used in sentences, not just sitting there. On the other hand, you could get a picture of a tiger or a lightning bolt. But pictures have other connotations. Tigers are messy eaters, lightning bolts go off too quickly, whatever (this is off the top of my head). But Chinese characters express untainted concepts without dragging in unwanted symbolism. The strong, pure symbols are very attractive to (English-speaking) North Americans, who are inundated by advertisements with iconic language, but who are unable to express concepts out of context with their own written or spoken language. Thus, teenagers doodle crosses, astrological symbols, swastikas, and brand logos in their margins, and a certain caste of people (whom I would offensively call Stairmaster Hippies) have Chinese ideographs tattooed on themselves.
For those without a good grasp of the Chinese language (like myself), Chinese characters seem to go deeply into the brain–below the surface level of contextual language and into the spot where the “real” ideas are stored. The images and ideas the characters express seem to be primordial rather than specific. Instead of an object that is “red,” an ideograph signifies the soul of “redness” that has existed, it seems, since the beginning of time.
As a ready example, think about emoticons, like the smiley pictures used on this forum as well as the ones made from ASCII. These are ideographs (or perhaps ideograms). They express something that would take many words to explain. Sometimes it is impossible to explain it in words. Instead of using a winking smiley, can you imagine writing, “I intend this comment to be taken lightly, perhaps including the possibility of humour, not disregarding any biting satire that may be found therein, but hoping that no serious offense will be taken”? And it might not mean the same thing next time. But people will generally get your drift if you use the smiley.
Chinese characters allow the tatooee to express a concept in a vague and mutable, yet powerful way. The fact that a real language is attached to it gives it the credence of an established symbol, but its lack of secondary connotations ensures that the purest possible meaning is achieved.
However, in spite of my theory, I admit that these tattoos often (usually?) look silly to those who can read Chinese because the symbols do, in fact, carry secondary connotations unknown to the wearer. I suspect the foolish choices of the tattoo-wearers derives from a kind of “noble savage” idea. Those who speak incomprehensibly–and who are therefore associated with the “savage” archetype–are assumed to carry some hidden wisdom that can only be understood through introspection.
Of course, the Chinese and Japanese languages are just as complex as English. Japan shows us with its silly English phrases that linguistic romanticism works both ways. Apparently, some Japanese people like the sounds of certain English phrases. I’m not proposing a linguistic continuum with symbol at one end and sound at the other; these are merely isolated examples. My mind boggles with imagining the tattoos we’ll see when the whole world is online and displaying their wacky alphabets all over the place. Russian is next, mark my words.
“The big yank doesn’t read Chinese, but he tips well.”
That’s one of the reasons I have no tattoos.
I want a T-shirt that reads “I am so stupid that I wear a shirt with a message I cannot read.”
Here ya go. Can I have a cookie?
substatique: My barracks roommate was quite worried when I mentioned furigana to him! His response was, “What? There’s another kind of kana?” After showing him what it was, we both had a good laugh over his reaction.
InquisitiveIdiot: The reason I didn’t provide a link to the J-List site is because it has two “enter” choices: one for “non-adult” items & another for “all items including adult items.” Some (well, a heck of a lot) of their items are porn. OTOH, they are the best bet for getting your favorite Japanese calendar if you’re living out of Japan.