Is Tian Chinese? Because I have never heard “Ai Meng” to mean “wet dream”. As far as I know, it doesn’t mean anything.

Wet dream is “Xing Ai Meng”.

June 20, 2005 @ 3:46 pm | Comment

Tian is Chinese — I am counting on him to be right! Tian, are you there? He keeps a site dedicated to the subject of incorrect hanzi tatoos.

June 20, 2005 @ 4:09 pm | Comment

Richard, I think you must have the most scholarly bunch of readers of any blog I’ve ever seen!

June 20, 2005 @ 4:19 pm | Comment

Oh no, please readers! Do not click on that link to Tian’s ‘translating tattoos’ page! I beseech you all!

Gordon from Horses Mouth will very very embarrased!

June 20, 2005 @ 4:22 pm | Comment

Hi, as a chinese, I think Richard and Tian can understand these two characters that way with a little ambiguity. But they better be XING(SEX) MENG(DREAM) in chinese to completely correspond to “wet dream”.

June 20, 2005 @ 4:33 pm | Comment

He shoots, he scores!

Thanks Lin.

June 20, 2005 @ 4:34 pm | Comment

And given the location of the tattoo is it that hard to imagine the young lady might have that very meaning in mind? {guessing it’s a lady by the underwear line, but…}

June 20, 2005 @ 6:19 pm | Comment

Tian just sent me an email referring readers to some sources:

here is the japanese reference of “wet dream”

and here is the Chinese reference of “wet dream”

June 20, 2005 @ 6:20 pm | Comment

夢精 is the Japanese site and 梦遗 is on the Chinese site.

I’m confused.

June 20, 2005 @ 6:38 pm | Comment

The medical term for “nocturnal emission” or “nocturnal discharge”, aka. “Wet Dream” is 遺精.

Other various terms include 性愛夢 （[sexual] love dream), 夢遺 (dream residue/discharge), 溼夢 (damp dream) and 夢愛 (dream love).

The young lady shown in the photo did indeed wanted “love” and “dream” tattooed on her lower belly, unfortunately Chinese slang would translate it otherwise.

June 20, 2005 @ 6:43 pm | Comment

I’m hoping Tian will come over and straighhten things out.

June 20, 2005 @ 6:44 pm | Comment

Ah, there he is. Thanks.

June 20, 2005 @ 6:44 pm | Comment

Lin’s being generous. Show that tattoo to as many Chinese people as you like and ask them what it means. None of them will say wet dream, slang or otherwise. I guarantee it.

Wet dream is 性愛夢. 愛夢doesn’t come close.

Now I know why Paul SMS-ed me at 5:30 this morning. I thought he was trying to explain something to his girlfriend. Never a dull day in GZ. I’m going to kill him.

June 20, 2005 @ 6:57 pm | Comment

Um Paul,

That is a different Gordon. Nice try though.

Certainly there aren’t as many ‘Gordon’s’ running around in the world as there are ‘Paul’s’, but there are more than one. hmm..I’ve even met a Chinese named Gordon.

Ha!

June 20, 2005 @ 7:18 pm | Comment

well, Gordon, Paul kind of had me going since you DID mention that you’d recently gotten a tattoo!

June 20, 2005 @ 7:26 pm | Comment

Richard,

After I started studying Chinese, I used to get a real kick out of seeing the ‘Hanzi’ tattoos that people would get. In fact, the last time that I received a tattoo in the States (not Hanzi), I browsed through his selection of ‘translated names’ into Chinese and he indicated that that a lot of people choose to have their names tattooed on their body in Chinese.

He took them down after I pointed out that 95% of the characters he had listed on the wall did not mean what they were stated as meaning because that’s a potential lawsuit against him if the people he tattooed ever found out.

BTW, my latest tattoo was done in Chinese, but I don’t have to worry about it being incorrect. I translated it from Latin to English to Chinese and it was designed by a Chinese artist in the States and finally placed on my skin here in China. You wont be seeing my name on Tian’s site.

June 20, 2005 @ 7:30 pm | Comment

Other Lisa,

That occurred to me too and you couldn’t have been more surprised to read Paul’s statement than I was. He had me going for a second too!

June 20, 2005 @ 7:36 pm | Comment

Gordon, I do hope you’ll post a pic of yours!

June 20, 2005 @ 10:59 pm | Comment

Other Lisa,

I was going to do my tattoo blogging the other day when my hard drive crashed. Now all of my photos are being held captive on the that drive until I can find someone that can recover the data on it.

I’m really bummed about it, all my wedding photos were on there too. grrr…

June 21, 2005 @ 1:39 am | Comment

well, I’ll keep checking.

My one tattoo has no chinese in it whatsoever…

June 21, 2005 @ 1:58 am | Comment

I’m surprised how many of us have tattoos here. Mine were all done in the UK and, like Lisa, don’t have any characters.

I’ve found Taiwan is THE place for tattoos in Asia. Perhaps Japan as well but I’ve never been. I found a lady in Taipei whose tattoos will blow you away. Absolutely amazing skill. She never advertises and has no shop or any such.

I’ve paid the design fee and deposit for a big tribal tattoo, which includes a little island of Taiwan in the pattern!

Now there’s no hiding my splittist tendencies!

Gordon, I initially thought it was you on Tian’s sight as well as you did mention your new tattoo recently. But then I saw the photo of the tattoo on Tian’s site and realised it had to have been done by a non-Chinese so I had my doubts.

June 21, 2005 @ 4:29 am | Comment

I for one don’t see how “爱梦” become “wet dream”, especially when the two charactors are on different sides. It is a good choice of 字. “爱“ and “梦“ are two fun things in life.
Martyn, thanks for translating “此地无银三百两“. What about “窥一斑而知全豹“。

June 21, 2005 @ 6:40 am | Comment

Allen, the Japanese one is actually the traditional Chinese character and the “Chinese” one is the simplified character.

I have my own “wet dream” story. My chinese name is Mung (or Meng) Bai (white), the Mung was always for Mung-zi, Kong-zi (Confucius)’s student, but my ex-girlfriend’s uncle thought it would be cool to change it to the character for dream, which has the same pronunciation (Mung-4). Anyway, I got a lot of snickers because apparently this too is slang for wet dream.

I think the old boy had something else in mind: making a comment on his niece’s white boyfriend, the “white dream.” It’s a shame, because I quite like the character, since it shares a radical with wai, outside, as in waiguoren, foreigner. I kept the name, but I won’t be getting it tattoed on myself any time soon.

June 21, 2005 @ 7:16 am | Comment

I’m with the naysayers on this. I can assure you no mainlander will translate these characters as ‘wet dream’.

And anyway, who the hell wants to play smartarse linguist when they’re close enough to read ’em…?

June 21, 2005 @ 7:55 am | Comment

Hahahaha.

Oggie

I bow down to you and doff my cap appropriately my friend!

June 21, 2005 @ 9:08 am | Comment

So … then what is the background of Tian? Since the general consensus seems to be that people in the mainland wouldn’t translate it that way … and I’ve often got the impression Tian’s translations are heavily influenced by a dictionary, and not always alert to character combinations. Also, he seems just as aware (more aware?) of Japanese than of Chinese.

June 21, 2005 @ 9:21 am | Comment

He is definitely Chinese, born in the Mainland, moved here as a youth (not sure what age).

June 21, 2005 @ 9:36 am | Comment

“爱梦” is not the wet dream. No chinese can look at the tattoo and laughing. It is love dream or dream about love. Not rude or funny!

June 21, 2005 @ 10:47 am | Comment

When my wife wakes up in the morning, I’ll show her this post and ask her what she thinks.

How’s that?

June 21, 2005 @ 1:29 pm | Comment

What are you doing up at 4am??

June 21, 2005 @ 1:35 pm | Comment

The girl unfortunately does not qualify as a “tin belly” or “hard belly”. For those who do not know US slang it means a woman who has a flat belly with some stomach muscle development showing. This one is toned up.

June 22, 2005 @ 10:18 pm | Comment