Friday, October 15, 2004

"White Wrist" or "Naughtiness"





I am a bit confused about this tattoo. If the characters are translated individually, one means "wrist" and the other means "white". Except, if they are translated as a phrase, in Chinese, it would mean "wrist is white", and "naughtiness" in Japanese.



= wrist (Chinese); arm (Japanese)

= white, snowy, empty, blank, bright, clear, plain, pure, gratuitous (Chinese); white (Japanese)



3 comments:

  1. 腕白=a naughty [mischievous] boy (Japanese)

    ReplyDelete
  2. This phrase is discussed at length here:

    http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/phorum/read.php?3,21262,21344#msg-21344

    ReplyDelete
  3. This may be a little late to post this but. . .

    Mormon missionaries who serve in Japan develop their own sort of lingo; and "wanpaku" is altered from the original Japanese (naughty) and used to describe someone who doesn't exactly follow the strict rules of being a missionary. Since tattoos and earrings are frowned upon by the church, this individual would definitely be "wanpaku".

    ReplyDelete