I know a lot of people look down on Chinese lettering for tatts, but long story short, my daughter is adopted from China and I would like to get her Chinese name inked vertically down the back of my arm. I have quite a few documents with her name in Chinese, but I wondered if Chinese is read the same vertically as it is horizontally if the letters are rotated a quarter turn?
Also, her Chinese Zodiac symbol is the monkey. I thought it would be cool to have her Chinese name vertically down the back of my arm with a monkey climbing the letters. Does anyone have any pictures of a cool tribal monkey?
Hi
Yes it can be read both ways in traditional characters and if you want the name translating my friend worked as translator in HK and mainland China and is fluent in Mandarin, Cantonese and the trad Chinese.
He has done some name translations for other ppl on here – the main thing is that some modern (western) names only translate into a ‘sounds like’ as opposed to the exact spelling.
Take Care
Matthew
I know chinese tattoos get alot of stick, but the main reason for that is people get them as ‘flash’ kanji, tattoos, which although looks a bit like chinese writing actually means nothing, I think as Long as it means something and you really actually know what it means then go for it. I would like a chinese tattoo sometime in the future ( I’m hoping to study chinese at university) but I’m a bit put off by the amount of Kanji tattoos going around, that ppl might take me for someone who jus got a random picture permanently inked on me ( not that impulse tattoos are an amazingly terrible thing).
I think it would be very meaningful to get a tatt that shows off part of your daughters heritage, and of course if it’s on the documents it should be 100% correct. Would love to see a pic when its done, and it should be able to be read either way, its jus your decision which way depending on the placing.
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