Fili’s world

It doesn’t take a genius to see that I’m Taiwan home-sick. It shows on me, even if I don’t talk about it too much. My efforts in studying Chinese are one thing, but there’s more to that. I’ve adopted a few hobbies and habits that are Chinese related which I enjoy. Some people around me find those to be a bit peculiar.

The few times I did the mistake of going to eat at a “Thai”/”Chinese” sandwich-bar , where they offered something that’s suppose to taste like Asian flavor but didn’t even come close, I immediately sympathized with the Asian looking person who was in charge of the frying wok. I usually tried to ask the owners for the person’s origin and on some of those occasions they answered that he’s Chinese. I waited for the Chinese person to hand me my sandwich and asked him how he was doing and whether he was enjoying his job there, in Chinese. The Chinese folks all stared at me for a second or two, their looks suggesting that they were trying to figure out what the hell I was complaining about in Hebrew, but then they would realize that it’s in Chinese, put on the widest-happiest-smile ever, and answer me in a very excited long sentence of which I would not understand a single word. I then thanked them for making me that very nice sandwich. After that, it was pretty clear that for those few seconds I made those people feel very happy. As I would sit down, they would go back to their business, giving me smiley glances while making the next sandwich. I even thought about offering them a beer after they finish work, but the nasty looks from the bosses and their very shy responses made me think it wasn’t such a good idea. I still want to do that sometime.

When I walk around and notice a Chinese character it really cheers me up, and I take a photo to try and figure out what it says later on. The new Asian restaurant in Rehavia, a few blocks from my house, is a nice example (photo-link). I do believe there are a lot more Chinese/Japanese characters around in Israel nowadays, though it could just be because I’m more aware of them. The most interesting occurrences of Chinese characters, are, strange enough - in people’s tattoos.

There’s a funny website that I’ve been following for quite some time now - called “Hanzi Smatter” (link), which posts tattoos sent by readers wanting to check if the characters they had tattooed on their body were what they really wanted them to be.

So, I’ve developed a hobby of asking people to share their Chinese characters tattoos with me, and I’ve found some really interesting stuff. I had somebody fold up his pants, another one take off his socks and even one girl to take off her top to show a character hidden at a weird spot. Not all were willing that I take their photo.

Take this one tattoo, for example, that belongs to a Russian-origin Israeli who was doing construction in an office I was visiting.

Now, this guy said that they promised him his tattoo means “a warrior”, “a Samurai” or something like that. I told him I can spot “pig” in there, recognizing it from a component in the word “home”, but also that I have no idea and that I’ll be happy to check that out for him. So, checking it out with my source for Chinese character interpretation I was told that 豪 [háo] and 賤(S贱) [jiàn] actually mean something like “big bitch” or similar. Wenlin gave a few other suggestions.

Either way, it’s probably not a very positive thing, definitely not “a warrior”. Hmmm… I sent it to Hanzi Smatter, and I’m awaiting his checkup (do the Chinese/Taiwanese blog readers here have any suggestions?).

– updated a day later –
Tian of Hanzi Smatter has returned my email with his interpretation for the the characters. Here it is:

(Larger closeup photo - Link)

Tian has also responded with a referral:
“Thanks for the photos. see attach for the definitions.
here are the references:
http://www.unicode.org/cgi-bin/GetUnihanData.pl?codepoint=8c6a
http://www.unicode.org/cgi-bin/GetUnihanData.pl?codepoint=8ce4”

– end of update –

You gotta admit it’s neat stuff, right?