Want a Chinese tattoo, might want to reconsider.

Science journal mistakenly uses flyer for Macau brothel to illustrate report on China
By Clifford Coonan in Beijing
Tuesday, 9 December 2008

A respected research institute wanted Chinese classical texts to adorn its journal, something beautiful and elegant, to illustrate a special report on China. Instead, it got a racy flyer extolling the lusty details of stripping housewives in a brothel.

Chinese characters look dramatic and beautiful, and have a powerful visual impact, but make sure you get the meaning of the characters straight before jumping right in.

There were red faces on the editorial board of one of Germany's top scientific institutions, the Max Planck Institute, after it ran the text of a handbill for a Macau strip club on the front page of its latest journal. Editors had hoped to find an elegant Chinese poem to grace the cover of a special issue, focusing on China, of the MaxPlanckForschung journal, but instead of poetry they ran a text effectively proclaiming "Hot Housewives in action!" on the front of the third-quarter edition. Their "enchanting and coquettish performance" was highly recommended.

The use of traditional Chinese characters and references to "the northern mainland" seem to indicate the text comes from Hong Kong or Macau, and it promises burlesque acts by pretty-as-jade housewives with hot bodies for the daytime visitor.

The Max Planck Institute was quick to acknowledge its error explaining that it had consulted a German sinologist prior to publication of the text. "To our sincere regret ... it has now emerged that the text contains deeper levels of meaning, which are not immediately accessible to a non-native speaker," the institute said in an apology. "By publishing this text we did in no way intend to cause any offence or embarrassment to our Chinese readers. "

But publication of the journal caused some anger among touchier internet users in China who felt the institute had done it on purpose to insult China, or that it was disrespectful to use Chinse as a decoration. But generally, the faux-pas sparked much amusement among Chinese readers.

On anti-cnn.com, a foreigner-baiting website set up after a commentator on the US broadcaster made anti-Chinese comments following the crackdown in Tibet in March, the reaction was mostly "evil fun". One wrote, "Next time, please find a smart Chinese graduate to check your translation", and another said they should try writing "I am illiterate".

The journal has since been updated online and its cover now carries the title of a book by the Swiss Jesuit, Johannes Schreck (1576–1630). The Jesuit text in question was "Illustrated Explanations of Strange Devices".

Chinese is a tonal language, which means words sounding the same can often have very different meanings depending on how they are spoken.

There are tales of drunken teenagers walking out of tattoo parlours with characters reading, "This is one ugly foreigner" or "A fool and his money are easily parted".

Another web-user wrote: "I recently met a German girl with a Chinese tattoo on her neck which in Chinese means 'prostitute'. I laughed so loud, I could hardly breathe."
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The way that I understand it is that they updated the web site version, but obviously not the magazine. It may be something to hold on to.
On the tattoo subject...lol...lol... I can just imagine going to a tattoo shop in China and especially being an American and them having a field day with the person putting different sayings on them that have nothing to do with what they actually want.
My wife always talks to me about Chinese writing and saying things in Chinese especially when her mom and dad came to visit us. There is a word in Chinese, can't remember what it is right now, but if you mispronounce it in Chinese you will be calling you're wifes mom an "old cow" instead of Aunt.
Trust me, this is in no means any racial remark, it is just another "strange" saying in Chinese. They have a word that when they say it, the word sounds like the word "*****" I think it means "have gone" or "have went somewhere", so you can understand how that would cause a little turn of heads when my wife has friends over and we go out somewhere to eat.


The word showed up as ***** and it is a awful word for a person of the black race.

 

I guess they trust the person that puts the tattoo on to be 100% honest with them about what it says, but I guess we can see that isn't always true.