Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Wrong Chapter from Tao Te Ching

道德經, or Tao Te Ching, is one of the oldest exemplars of classic Chinese literature. Millions, perhaps billions, of people have read it since it was first written by Lao Tzu (or Lao Zi) around 600 BC.

For some, it is considered to be the Chinese equivalent of the Holy Bible. It has formed the foundation for Chinese philosophies such as Legalism, Neo-Confucianism, and Taoism. Thus, if someone decides to get sections of Tao Te Ching tattooed, he better do some serious research.

However, this person and/or his tattooist did not:


http://www.bmeink.com/A70313/high/bmepb474982.jpg
http://www.bmeink.com/A70313/high/bmepb474981.jpg
http://www.bmeink.com/A70313/high/bmepb474980.jpg


Three photos titled with “This is one of the TAO proverbs. So far I have 88 charaters. (by Jeniffer, Liberty Tattoo's, Sacramento Calif.)” were posted in BMEzine’s gallery on March 13, 2007.

Most of the text was from Chapter 64 of Tao Te Ching, which should read:

其 安 易 持 , 其 未 兆 易 謀 。
其 脆 易 泮 , 其 微 易 散 。
為 之 於 未 有 , 治 之 於 未 亂 。
合 抱 之 木 , 生 於 毫 末 ;
九 層 之 台 ,起 於 累 土 ;
千 里 之 行 , 始 於 足 下。
民 之 從 事 , 常 於 幾 成 而 敗 之 。
慎 終 如 始 , 則 無 敗 事 。


However in the photo shown above, the section circled in red is actually from a completely different chapter.

Chapter 29 reads:

將 欲 取 天 下 而 為 之 , 吾 見 其 不 得 已 。
天 下 神 器 , 不 可 為 也 , 不 可 執 也 。
為 者 敗 之 , 執 者 失 之 。
是 以 聖 人 無 為 , 故 無 敗 ﹔
無 執 , 故 無 失。
夫 物 或 行 或 隨 ﹔ 或 噓 或 吹 ﹔
或 強 或 羸 ﹔ 或 載 或 隳 。
是 以 聖 人 去 甚 , 去 奢 , 去 泰 。


The mistake would be less noticeable if he did not have the chapter title tattooed near his butt cheek.

Saturday, March 10, 2007

Chicago Tattoo Typo Lawsuit

A few days ago I got a tip from Marisa of Needled.com about a man in Chicago suing his tattooist for misspelling his tattoo.



The client, Michael Duplessis, wanted "CHI-TOWN" to be tattooed in capital letters as a tribute to the city of Chicago. However, the tattooist Sam Hacker of Jade Dragon Tattoo & Body Piercing gave him "CHI-TONW".

In a bizarre twist, even when Sam Hacker admitted his mistake and offer to repair the tattoo, a group of his friends are supporting him by getting "CHI-TONW" tattoos.

When I took a quick peek at Jade Dragon Tattoo's gallery, I saw this:


http://www.jadedragontattoo.com/slow/tattoos/oriental/index.htm

I am curious if Mr. Duplessis did win the lawsuit, will I be called as an expert witness to testify at series of lawsuits about botched Chinese character tattoos?


Related: Needled.com, Chicago Tribune, Google News, Yahoo News