Encounter with an Unknown "Dragon" Character

While browsing through Amazon.com for textbooks, I saw this Chinese dragon T-shirt for sale by ChoiceShirts. The odd thing is that the character on the shirt does not mean "dragon" (龍), matter of fact, I have never seen it before in my life.



The closest two characters I can find are these, which there is no connection with dragon:



遭 = come across, meet with, encounter

迪 = enlighten, advance; progress

Pointless Gibberish

From BMEzine's gallery, this is a prime example of someone who obviously did not do enough research or none at all. Not only the entire string of characters are gibberish, several characters are missing important dots,



貴 = expensive, costly, valuable

忍 = endure, bear, suffer; forbear



But they are mixture of Japanese Kanji, Traditional and Simplified versions of Hanzi.



栄 (Traditional Chinese 榮; Simplified Chinese 荣) = glory, honor; flourish, prosper

恵 (Traditional Chinese 惠) = favor, benefit, confer kindness

爱 (Traditional Chinese 愛) = love, be fond of, like

労 (Traditiona Chinese 勞; Simplified Chinese 劳) = labor, toil, do manual work



Granted, many Kanji and Hanzi are the same characters, but at least try to keep them in a consistant form.

Sacrificial Grasshopper Worshipping

(Thanks to Shannon Larrett's BMEzine.com)



I don't know if the person got this tattoo after watched Kung Fu too many times, where Kwai Chang Caine (David Carradine) was called "Young Grasshopper", or he has some kind of deep connection with katydids (grasshoppers). Regardless, his tattoo says he worships grasshoppers.



Here are what some of my colleagues have commented:



Brendan: "Perhaps 'hold a sacrifice to katydids?' It doesn't even sound like a plausible transliteration of anything, except maybe a really halfassed way of writing 'Jason'. (In Cantonese it's 'jai jung,' or something like that, according to Wenlin.) I dunno - maybe it sounds like something with a Japanese reading of the characters?"



Jeremy: "Sacrificial grasshopper? 'Cultists sacrificed a grasshopper on my underwear, dying it red with blood'?"



Angela: "I simply don't have a clue. Unless I'm too ignorant of the Chinese language, I believe the bottom character doesn't even exist! If I have to guess, this tattoo means 'worship a scarified/dead grasshopper'."



祭 = sacrifice to, worship

螽 = katydid, grasshopper

Eunuch

This tattoo was spotted at BMEzine.com. This person probably would never guessed his macho tattoo said "eunuch". For those who are not familiar with the concept or the term of "eunuch":

A eunuch is a castrated human male. The castration can be only of the testes, or also include the penis, known as a penectomy (often with a tube inserted to keep the urethra open, called a urethral rerouting). The practice was established before 700 BC and accounts of eunuchs are known throughout history.

In ancient China castration was both a traditional punishment (until the Sui Dynasty) and a means of gaining employment in the Imperial service. At the end of the Ming Dynasty there were 70,000 eunuchs (宦官 huàn'guān, or 太監 tàijiān) in the Imperial palace. The value of such employment—certain eunuchs gained immense power that may supersede that of the prime ministers—was such that self-castration had to be made illegal. The number of eunuchs in Imperial employ had fallen to 470 in 1912, when the employment ceased. The justification of the employment of eunuchs as high-ranking civil servants was that, since they were incapable of having children, they would not be tempted to seize power and start a dynasty.