Frank Shyong: How Asian-language tattoos have helped me feel at home in my own skin
The Chinese language is difficult, and perhaps no one has struggled more with it than the inkers and bearers of America’s Chinese-character tattoos.
Most infamous was probably the tattoo on Britney Spears’ hip, which intended to be the character for “mysterious,” but ended expressing something closer to “strange.”
Another popular choice is the Chinese character for “freedom,” which mistranslates to mian fei, or “free of charge.” I’ve also seen tattoos intended to represent the Chinese character for “power” represented as dian, which means “electricity” rather than “strength.”
I got my first tattoo in 2014 at My Tattoo in Alhambra, a road map of Los Angeles in black and red. My second came from a tattoo parlor in a neon
