Inked to compete

Chinese fans have watched soccer players take the World Cup field with their calligraphic tattoos with a mixture of appreciation and merriment

China's national soccer team once again failed to qualify for the FIFA World Cup this summer. But fanatic Chinese fans who have stayed up all night eyes glued to star-studded stadia in Brazil have seen one sight that's very familiar.

Many top players like to show off their masculinity with tattoos in Chinese characters. Their inked beliefs on their necks, arms or wherever can be entertaining or even a little bizarre for Chinese spectators cheering in front of TVs on the other side of the Earth.

Some of these are broken Chinese sentences that are difficult to understand at first sight. Some have mistakes ranging from grammatical errors to incorrect strokes.

"Tattoos written in Chinese characters have been popular in the Western world for many years because many Westerners have a strong curiosity about this country," says Wang Qingyuan, who leads the China Association of Tattoo Artists. "And funny mistakes have occurred for an equally long time."

According to Wang, encouraging slogans and Chinese proverbs are among the most popular, but he explains that literal translations lead to the errors.

In many Westerners' perspective, Chinese characters resemble pictures, he says. So, they often chose some single characters which look beautiful. But since few tattoo artists working overseas originally are from China, those who don't know the language can only copy shapes of characters. Mistakes are therefore inevitable.

"And even artists who know Chinese may not be good at calligraphy, which will make their work look awkward," he says.

Another twist: Many artists inking Chinese character tattoos in Western countries are from Japan and will make a sentence according to their understanding of kanji, neglecting different meanings of the same word in two languages.

Plus, some artists deliberately write the characters on their brochures to avoid piracy by competition.

Apart from Chinese characters, the dragon, the phoenix, and the peony are also among the most commonly inked Chinese-themed images in Western tattoo shops. But even "third-tier artists" in China could make better pieces on these themes than top Western ones, Wang says, smiling.

"When Chinese artists create works using Western themes, they will also make many funny mistakes," he says.

"Cultural differences lead to funny misunderstandings, but still they help spread the culture."

wangkaihao@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily Africa Weekly 07/11/2014 page26)