Chinese Writing For Tattoos

The use of Chinese writing for tattoos is an excellent way to get an individual, meaningful, and genuine piece of art on your skin. Lets look into ways to find the perfect Chinese writing tattoo.

An acquaintance of mine, many years ago, had the Chinese symbol for "love" tattooed on his upper arm, or so he thought. A few months later, two Chinese girls did nothing to hide their amusement as they openly pointed and laughed at his new tattoo. When asked why they were laughing, one of the girls said the symbol did not represent "love" but was a closer translation to "potato". Needless to say, a cover up tattoo was done to hide the embarrassing mistake.

The main thing to consider when choosing Chinese writing for tattoos is a proper translation, preferably done by an expert. The Chinese language spans a time period of over three thousand years, consisting of around sixty thousand characters, with variations of symbols and meanings covering countries including Korea, Japan and Taiwan. When translating from English to Chinese great care must be taken to make sure the exact meaning and context is translated properly. It is not just a matter of substituting symbols for letters as mistakes can be made all too easily.

The next thing to consider are the many different styles and scripts available to make your Chinese character tattoo truly unique. The Chinese language has a number of scripts that could be used to create your tattoo. Some of these scripts are still in use today and some are obsolete, but all can be used and translated for a truly unique tattoo. Grass script, seal script and clerical script are all Chinese language variations to consider. Chinese calligraphy also gives you many styles to choose from. Using Chinese calligraphy for your tattoo is a great way to turn an average looking design into something that is truly a work of art.

By Richard Genber