HanselMinutes

Hanzi Smatter was mentioned in the latest episode of HanselMinutes with Scott Hanselman and Carl Franklin. For those who do not have the patience to sit through over twenty minutes of geek talk, the clip starts at time mark 26:30.


audio: clip 517 KB mp3 or entire show22.5 MB mp3

I use Macromedia Fireworks (now Adobe Fireworks) for most of the graphics work, and Sony Vegas 6.0 for audio and video editing work.

The character in Computer Zen's logo is 善, typically "zen" is referring to 禅.

House M.D. - Nonconformity

Andy from Texas Tech sent in this screen capture from episode 19 of Fox’s drama series, House (or is it “House M.D.”?).


video: windows media 3.95 MB or mirror

Dr. Roger Spain (First Applicant): Wow, I thought you'd be the last person to have a problem with nonconformity.

Dr. Gregory House: Nonconformity; right... I can't remember the last time saw a twenty something kid with a tattoo of an Asian letter on his wrist. You are one wicked free thinker! You want to be a rebel; stop being cool. Wear a pocket protector like he does, and get a hair cut. Like the Asian kids that don't leave the library for a twenty hours stretch. They're the ones that don't care what you think.

Dr. Gregory House: Sayonara

Many places including tattoo shops advertise 和 as "harmony, peace; peaceful, calm". In modern day Chinese, it only means is frequently used to represent "with" or "and".

Love Loyalty Truth

From June 29th's postings in BMEzine's gallery, this young man from Lithuania got what supposed to say "Love Loyalty Truth" tattooed on him by a tattooist known as "Blackwo".


http://www.bmezine.com/tattoo/A60629/high/bmepb296741.jpg

The middle character looked like a botched 竜 or 帝, which is nowhere near "loyalty".

This young man should have read the March of 2005 issue of FHM Lithuania edition.

Kim Maher's Tattoo

Yusuki Toyoda and I are both scratching our heads about the meaning of Kim Maher's tattoo posted in Sports Illustrated's website.


original photo

As far as I know Kim Maher is not in any way related to Bill Maher, who has commented about the trend of Chinese character tattoos. Her tattoo of 康女止功流 is loosely translated as "healthy woman stops achievement flow".

Tattoo Spotted in Russian Night Club

Magazeta in Livejournal.com is a community site about China and Chinese culture written in Russian. Its owner named Ma Yuxi emailed me this photo today:


http://community.livejournal.com/magazeta/68903.html

I have no idea what the second character is supposed to be.

The Five-Dollar Fools

While I was walking through Seaport Village in San Diego last weekend, I saw many places that were advertising these "henna tattoo" or "henna painting" along the beach.



I laughed at their Chinese characters sections because most of them is either incorrectly written or the translations are way off.

I was tempted to inform one of the shop owners about the mistakes, but I was amazed by the gibberish character henna’s popularity, she was too busy to satisfy customers' $5-per-piece consuming needs.







None the less, there were many young ladies with gibberish painted on their bodies.

The good news is that they will look like fools for only a week or so, and then the henna paint would wash off.

From Finland with Love

Jukka from Finland has emailed these two photos to me from a shop called Tattoo Heka.

The first one is a couple’s tattoo. They had tattoos that say 猴愛狗 (Monkey loves Dog) and vice versa. Assuming Dog and Monkey are their zodiac signs respectively.


http://www.tattooheka.com/kuvia/tribal74.jpg

Unfortunately nobody in the shop, including the clients and the tattooist, has realized that the character for “love” 愛 has been placed upside down.

I have seen the exact same Asian gibberish font used in tattoos twice before, and one of them was in Finland. But, it was too late for this Finnish young man.


http://www.tattooheka.com/kuvia/tribal50.jpg