Oriental Wisdom For Your Tattoo

One little question for you first: What number does every snooker player dream of? It won’t be hard as long as you enjoy playing snooker a little. Right, the answer would be 147, the highest score one can get in a snooker game, which requires every single shot to be extremely precise. For this reason, there are still many excellent professional players who haven’t achieved 147 in public matches.

yi si qi, 147 in Chinese

壹肆柒 stands for 147, which is a formal way of symbolizing numbers in Chinese.(一四七 also stands for 147, which is just informal in writing).

Do you love snooker? If you’re a big fan, I guess 壹肆柒 would be a pretty nice idea for ink, with which you may be blessed to actally achieve 147 someday.

In this post I’ve got a slogan for your new inking suggestion, which I think will be super-cool to demonstrate in the public. Well, if you have a smoking habit, then I won’t encourage you to get the ink, unless you’ve firmly made up your mind to quit smoking in the very near future. Otherwise others are likely to see you as a walking sarcasm, since you’ve got the ink saying “Smoking is harmful to health”.

“smoking is harmful to health” in Chinese

吸烟有害健康 is the equivalent for “smoking is harmful to health”. Like western countries, it’s a legal binding in China that every single cigarette producers should print this warning on the cigarette packing. Since the population of smokers in China is gargantuan, 吸烟有害健康 is literally being read by millions of Chinese every passing second. That being said, 吸烟有害健康 is what that’s more than deeply “inked” in Chinese people’s minds, which means it’ll be pretty cool to have it inked outside the mind, and on the human body.

I was a smoker, yet sometimes I still am when there’s too much stuff messing with me. So I’m not advocating “stop smoking” in this post. What I provide you here, from my perspective, is a cool tattoo idea you may be interested to ink. What’s more, I’m 100% sure that’s what blows people away, especially Chinese.

Smoking is normally linked with the idea of “masculinity”, about which I’ve provided some cool tattoo ideas in the post “Top 10 Masculine Chinese Idioms for Your Tattoo”. Check it out if it intrigues you.

What do you think is the sweetest thing of life? Well, the way I see it, LOVE would be the unquestionable answer. Personally, I have always believed in the saying that “love is everything”.

爱就是一切 (love is everything)

This is how to write “love is everything” in Chinese. Like English, 爱(love) doesn’t mean love between lovers alone. It also inculdes friend or family love. To exemplify this, I’d like to take my favourite TV show FRIENDS for example. In Friends, 爱(love) is what between Ross and Rachel (lovers), between Ross and Monica (family), and between Ross and Phoebe(friends). In the show, it’s so sweet to see Ross finally get them all, after such a long long story with Rachel.

Well, enough about my attitude toward love. What’s yours? If you are like:”Gee, that’s exactly what I think!”, then go to a tattoo shop, and get inked! 爱就是一切!

One thing to mention, if love means to you most in a romantic way, you may be interested in my older post Top 10 Romantic Chinese Idioms for Your Tattoo. Check it out.

520 is a very popular “number code” in China which has the same meaning as 我爱你(I love you). Similar to the pronunciation of 我爱你(I love you), 520 (wu er ling) sounds like 我爱你 a lot. Instead of saying 我爱你, people demonstrate their love via typing 520 on-line or via cellphone messages, which is cool and sweet.

Interested? Here are the four choices for you to ink: 1. ink 520 2. ink 我爱你(I love you) 3. ink 五二零 4. ink 伍贰零 

520 in formal Chinese character for numbers

520 in normal Chinese characters for numbers

我爱你(I love you)

The guy’s name is 武松(Wu Song),  a fictitious hero from Water Margin, one of the four most famous classical works of Chinese literature.

In the novel, Wu Song slayed a fierce tiger with bare hands. Later, he avenged the murder of his older brother, killing his sister-in-law who committed adultery and poisoned her husband to death.

Wu Song is definitely a superhero in the eyes of Chinese, which gives you a good reason to ink. Indeed, it’s a symbol for justice and righteousness.

ao tu you zhi (hot body)

In Chinese, this 4-character phrase describes somebody with an enviable figure. Simply put, it is for females with stunning measurements(as the lady in this picture). Now, before we go any further about this phrase, please take a look at the phrase word by word once again, it’s OK even if you don’t know any Chinese language. Done? Well, now take a wild guess of what the two words 凹 and 凸 might mean. Here’s the hint: they are used to describe shapes.
Have you got the answers ? Here they are. In Chinese, 凹 means concave while 凸 means convex. I guess most of you have got the right answers since you are very likely to be inspired by the interesting shapes of the two characters. Congratulations.
Well, after this little explanation, you may well figure out why 凹凸有致 is used to describe girls with hot figures. That’s right. Nice body figures are usually featured by a nice curve with both concaveness and convexness. I’m quite convinced that there are no other words with such vividness. As it turns out, this phrase is currently very common among girl magazines in China, since hot figures are never obsolete for girls.
Strange as it may be, I seldom see this phrase other than in China. Well, this may be a good news for you. If you are planning to get a tattoo, why not try this one ? I’m sure with its cool shape and meaning, you will surely be a star among your friends.

Tired of tattoo designs that are mediocre and boring? Need something wild?  Maybe.

Well, if you are looking for something exotic as tattoos, you don’t want to miss this post. I’ve got the names of the ancient Chinese divine beasts for you.  Sounds interesting? The characters here are so complicated that they are beyond most Chinese people (including me as well) to figure out. From a Chinese perspective, I’m confident to claim that they are absolutely cool for ink with which you are ready to blow people away. Check it out.

麒麟 qi lin

Qilin is a creature with the head of a Chinese dragon, the antlers of a deer, the skin and scales of a fish, the hooves of an ox and tail of a lion. Besides, it is often depicted with what looks like fire all over its body. As a righteous creature, Qilin is usually associated by people with luck and prosperity.

狻猊 suan ni

A lion-like creature that is usually seen in temples. Suan ni is awe-inspiring and is associated with Buddhism by people.

趴蝮 ba xia

A gracefully-shaped creature that is usually used to decorate the pillars of bridges.

椒图 shu tu

A clam-like creature that is usually seen painted on doors. As shu tu often likes to close its mouth so tightly, people have such wish that by painting it on the door, dangers won’t be able to find its way through the door.

狴犴 bi an

Bi an is a tiger-like creature with tremendous strength. It usually appears on the gates of prisons to thrill the convicts.

赑屃 bi xi

Bi xi is a huge tortoise-like creature that is good at carrying weights. It’s mostly seen in temples, and is said to bring good luck to those by touching it.

饕餮 tao tie

A wolf-like creature that is seen as a gobbling evil beast. While in nowaday time, 饕餮 is a pretty cool word to use for Chinese and is seen a lot on commercials. Personally I highly suggest this one because it’s cool in shape and quite common in daily usage among Chinese.

睚眦 ya zi

A jackal-like evil beast known for its sanguinariness. It appears a lot on the sheath of daggers or swords to indicate cruelty. Again, it would be a nice one for ink, because the characters look cool, and the meaning doesn’t make Chinese uncomfortable at all, judging from my point of view.

Do you like tigers? Have you ever been thrilled by its tremendous power and awe-inspiring look? Here are two famous Chinese proverbs on tigers. They are tough in meaning and are absolutely cool for tattoos. Go ink!

bu ru hu xue, yan de hu zi (Without entering the tiger’s lair, how can one catch the tiger’s cub ?)

Beyond the literal meaning, a famous western phrase may conjure up the same imagery: “Nothing ventured, nothing gained”. I believe this would be a nice tattoo for those who have a determined soul and never cave in times of difficulties.

Ok, here comes the second one.

ming zhi shan you hu, pian xiang hu shan xing.(go deep into the moutain, despite knowing that there are tigers there.)

This proverb is also firm in meaning, which is similar to the phrase “Take the bull by the horns”. Personally I see this attitude an indispensable quality for a man to acquire. In real life, if we can avoid a confrontation, we wisely avoid it. But if we can’t, we are gonna just take the confrontation, instead of quail like a coward. Again, consider this as a tattoo if you value fortitude a lot. 

Just in case you don’t know, the Chinese character for tiger is 虎(hu), which may also be a nice one to ink.

hu (tiger)

Have you ever been crazy about those film superheroes such as Batman, Superman or Spiderman? If you have, how about have their names inked, in Chinese? I guess that would be pretty cool, huh?

Followings are the Chinese names for the five film superheroes. Be my guest and choose one to make your tattoo artist busy.

钢铁侠(Iron Man)

蜘蛛侠(Spiderman)

绿巨人(The Hulk)

蝙蝠侠(Batman)

超人(superman)

zheng fu(to conquer)

I came up with this word during bath. It seems lots of guys want something manly for their first tattoo. Well, this one would be excellently qualified.

ps.There was this song called 征服(zheng fu) that once became extremely popular in China for some time. The artist’s name is 那英(Na Ying), by the way.

Later on I will work on a series of two-character-word that conveys a macho meaning. And you may see Top 10 Masculine Chinese Idioms for Your Tattoo for some four-character-word.