Who would have ever thought
that the land that created Monkey Magic would
have genuine, popular, cool appeal? Lost in
Translation fascinated us, The Ring scared
the living daylights out of us, and The Last
Samurai showed us that Tom Cruise could just
about be one of them. Could it be that in the
eighties The Vapors were singing the truth?
Are we turning Japanese?
Some Japanese trends have
been fleeting, but it seems that some kind
of Japanese style is always in vogue. Tamaguchi
dropped in and out of fashion in the blink
of an eye, but now Gwen Stefani is singing
about eHarajuku girlsf. It seems that you canft
go wrong following the Japanese trend. Or can
you?
Many of us know people
who have made permanent statements about going
the J-way. You know the people, sporting elaborate
and exotic Japanese characters signifying everything
from courage to cry baby. Most people intend
these tattoos to bring them luck, but scarily,
quite the opposite can happen. The problem
is that, like the movie, it is likely your
deep and meaningful message has been lost in
translation. Think about it, Sexy Beast translates
to attractive animal, Big Daddy to Large Father.
Not quite the intended statementc
Takanori Tomita, owner
of DSFY.com - DeSign For You ? Japanese Symbolsa,
a site specialising in Japanese Symbols Tattoo
design, says that being lost in translation
is a common problem.
gPeople ask for the strangest things. Foreigners laugh at the Japlish (Japanese
English) on our t-shirts but these people are putting really weird stuff on
their bodiescpermanently!h
And even worse, many of these tattoos intended to bring luck are seen by the
Japanese as downright unlucky.
gThe stroke order of the kanji is really important; one stroke in the wrong
direction can change the whole meaning.h
gSome families even pay thousands of dollars to change their names to include
luckier kanji ? the number of strokes is really important.h
gIn some cases, you see tattoo artists who have no idea about kanji add extra
strokes and then call it eartistic licencefh he says. gThis can only mean one
thing in superstitious Japan - bad luck!h
So jumping on the J-wagon
is not as easy as it seemsc
Best check that your permanent
cool is not permanent fool
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