Do you think asian kids think its fashionable to get their names tatooed in english?

Question

I asked this question in kind of a joking way, I mean you always see kids here with all sorts of asian tatoos and writting on themselves and on their cars, so I jsut started wondering, do asian kids do the same but in englsih? haha have fun with it.

Answer 1

ha ha ha. Thanks for the laugh. I totally took this as a witty question but it's really even funnier to see how many people took it seriously.

Answer 2

Reporting from Asia...
No such ridiculous fashion exists here. It's only cool for American kids to get their names or some phrases tattooed in any of the Asian scripts, for example Chinese, Japanese, Devanagari, Gurmukhi, Arabic, Hangul, etc.

The best part is that they often get it wrong. And the funny part with the Chinese characters is that each of the Chinese characters carries its meaning so they can make up a total nonsense with that tattoo. That's why, if you've ever watched any movie with Chinese subtitles, they never transliterate foreign names.

And many of those who ask "can you write my name in Arabic for a tattoo" (example) end up choosing a wrong answer as the best answer. They most commonly choose answer by someone who is a native speaker, although a native speaker's answer is rarely the best answer, at least when it comes to Arabic - why:
- many Arabs can't pronounce English/American names and especially surnames correctly, so they'll write their mispronounciation
- many Arabs tend to transliterate letter-by-letter, which again is wrong as they should follow the pronounciation
- many Arabs simply don't know how to spell foreign words
- many Arabs tend to put long vowels (ا,ي, و) when there are short vowels in English
- many Arabs can't speak english properly so your answer will be probably some silly patch-work
- so how do I know? I used to be an international student in Saudi Arabia, so I know very well how they spell foreign names by standardised spelling

I guess it isn't much different when it comes to other Asian languages. I know that my Chinese friends would spell my name differently since there are no characters to represent some syllables so they have to choose the closest pronounciation. And Cantonese readers wouldn't be able to pronounce my name if written by a Mandarine speaker. And since tattooes are lifetime insignia, Asians who meet them will be able to laugh those poor people for many decades...

Answer 3

Take a look at what Japanese kids put on their T-Shirts. A lot of times the words seem to be almost randomly chosen.


Oh and don't forget the famous picture from Iraq of the guy with the "Democracy Whiskey Sexy" T-shirt.

Answer 4

Actually, I know some Asian American kids. They get most of their clothes from relatives in Taiwan. Their clothes are so cute... just like we have clothes with Chinese letters and symbols, they have clothes with English phrases and words. Nine times out of ten, the sentece or phrase makes absolutely no sense and/or the words or names are often misspelled.

Answer 5

I think they think it is the coolest thing to do or stand out from all of the other Asian kids

Answer 6

totally NO!!
i'm asian kids 10 years old at indonesia
i'm not tatoo my name

Answer 7

Possibly, just like it's fasionable for us to get our names tatooed in Chinese and Japanese.

Answer 8

Haha, wow is this a serious question? I found it funny, pretty good question, they probably do.

Answer 9

It's totally unfashionable.

Some will walk around with strange english slogans on T-shirts but that's about it.

Answer 10

no it isn't ,they would never tatoo themselves in english.