# Why do people get Japanese or Chinese character tattoos? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 15, 2007, 10:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-get-japanese-or-chinese-character-tattoos/396018 "2007-03-15T10:36:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![MrJackboots](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@MrJackboots](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrJackboots)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2007, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-get-japanese-or-chinese-character-tattoos/396018/41 "2007-03-17T01:31:56Z")
[thread=369779]Paging SaintCad[/thread]… Did you get it? Would you like to join in here? **Sleel** , I like your notion that the different styles might have contribute to the aesthetics of character tattoos, but I’ve seen probably a hundred done in dyslexic-third-grader-with-palsy handwriting for each one in master-artist calligraphy. Do you think this is a case of “Can’t find the good stuff” or “don’t care what the good stuff is, just so long as it looks pretty”? ---
**Author:** ![Elysium](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3be4f8/32.png) [@Elysium](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elysium)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2007, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-get-japanese-or-chinese-character-tattoos/396018/42 "2007-03-17T01:56:45Z")
[QUOTE=Autolycus] Wow, are you sure you’re not the co-worker mentioned in [this thread?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=412494) Because, you know, that would be pretty awkward. [/QUOTE] I’m not! But yeah, that would be awkward. A Japanese exchange student that I was in theatre with in college translated my tattoo as “forever,” so I know that my research was correct. ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2007, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-get-japanese-or-chinese-character-tattoos/396018/43 "2007-03-17T01:58:19Z")
Classical Latin doesn’t use the letter “U”. Nor lower case. The motto should read: FIAT IVSTITIA RVAT CAELVM ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2007, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-get-japanese-or-chinese-character-tattoos/396018/44 "2007-03-17T02:17:40Z")
[QUOTE=Sleel] I don’t have any tattoos and I have no intention of ever getting one, but I can see why people would want to get a character tattoo; _kanji_ are frigging sweet! The different kinds of calligraphy in particular are very compelling as an art form. [/QUOTE] I think you’re on to something. My best friend made me a stain glass of the character for “Friendship” and it is really interesting. I personally think it looks like a three-legged man running 🙂 If you look at old books written in English there’s often an effort to decorate the first letter of a chapter, but many of the Asian characters people choose for meaning or decoration are already artistic in comparison. Maybe familiarity breeds indifference… ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2007, 11:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-get-japanese-or-chinese-character-tattoos/396018/45 "2007-03-17T11:04:32Z")
[QUOTE=Miller] It’s part of my [family crest](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clan_Cameron), which is what made the tat important to me, more than the specific meaning of those words. [/QUOTE] _heraldic nitpick_ I just wanted to let you know that there is no such thing as a “family crest”. _Cameron_ of Lochiel (“Cameron of Cameron”) is entitled to the arms and crest of Clan Cameron, no-one else is. It’s called “Usurpation”. You’re welcome to use the motto, of course. Just a pet peeve. ---
**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2007, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-get-japanese-or-chinese-character-tattoos/396018/46 "2007-03-17T16:44:22Z")
[QUOTE=Miller] Interesting. I’ll have to check him out. I mean the author, not your boyfriend. Unless he’s cute? [/QUOTE] My brother, not boyfriend (although yes, my boyfriend (husband!) is cute!) My brother’s not too shabby, but I don’t think you’re his type 😛 Personally, I liked Murakami’s “Sputnik Sweetheart” best. If you want to read “Dance Dance Dance”, I’d suggest you read “A wild sheep chase” first, since it does involve some of the same characters (though the stories are only somewhat intertwined… not really a sequel, but Dance takes place a few years later, with the same main character. “Kafka on the shore” is next for me, and then I think I’ll reread “Hard boiled wonderland and the end of the world” since I don’t think I quite grasped Murakami’s style when I first read it (the first of his that I read). ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2007, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-get-japanese-or-chinese-character-tattoos/396018/47 "2007-03-18T15:58:58Z")
\ There’s something I meant to ask before: is kanji a proper noun? I can’t tell if it’s supposed to be capitalized or not. \ ---
**Author:** ![Sleel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/73ab20/32.png) [@Sleel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sleel)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2007, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-get-japanese-or-chinese-character-tattoos/396018/48 "2007-03-19T01:49:23Z")
I’ve rarely seen it capitalized. To me, it feels like the words “character” or “letter” in English. You wouldn’t capitalize those, so I wouldn’t treat _kanji_ as a proper noun. Oh, another thing, I think that _kanji_ should be treated as a non-count noun by default. I’ve seen people write “kanji **s** ” before and it grates on me something awful. First, Japanese doesn’t have plurals, second, English has a precedent with things like rice, water, and bread having a different usage pattern from ——s. It’s not like I’m the God of English Referents for Japanese, but in my opinion, it should be “hundreds of _kanji_” not “hundreds of kanjis”. Notice I deliberately left off the italics with the plural s form. As far as I’m concerned, if you’re using English grammar to transform the word, it’s not a foreign word anymore, it’s English, and doesn’t deserve the distinguishing italics anymore. This anal-retentive interlude was brought to you by the _kana_ “ku” and “so”, and the _kanji_ “ba” (horse) and “ka” (deer). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-get-japanese-or-chinese-character-tattoos/396018.md?page=2)