I Can Read Your Tattoo

I’ve always punted around an idea of a tattoo with kanji in it. Not only do I like the way kanji looks, but I also speak enough Japanese to really know what I’d get tattooed on me. The current and long-time front runner is this: 七転び八起き which means “Fall down seven times, stand up eight,” and has been a Thing for me for a while, since before I even left for Japan.

Everyone has seen or heard about someone with a wacky-ass kanji tattoos that are highly misinformed. (“It means ‘love friendship sexy!’ The Japanese have a character that means ALL of that together!”). My previous experience with this was riding a bus in college, when a girl in front of me sat down and the back of her shirt rode up, revealing large kanji inked across the small of her back. Upon the marginal expressed interest of her seatmate, she began to yammer on about how she got the tattoo during a hard point in her life, it means so much, and it’s Japanese for “Power of Myself.” Someday she’s going to find out that the three palm-sized characters of 米の力 mean “Power of Rice.”

Which brings us to more recent events. I was in the comics store stocking up on new essentials (as you do), and the cashier had a kanji tattooed quite boldly on his inner arm, about halfway between wrist and elbow. I recognized the kanji and was so thrilled about this realization that I almost blurted it out… before realizing that if someone was going to tattoo this on themselves and know what it meant, they would have to have either a strange sense of humor or some deep need for permanent irony.

I ask him what it means. It turns out it is an obscure Chinese character without a direct translation to English, though the closest meaning would be “courage.” I thanked him, took my comics, and exited to hustle to a friends house and make damn sure the kanji meant what I thought it did. I was right.

So yeah, if any of you wind up at Dreamhaven Comics down on Lake Street, and see the friendly guy with black hair working the counter, take a good look at his tattoo. I didn’t really have the heart to tell him that this:

 

… actually means “strawberry.”