oops

Hanzismatter always stands as a warning to westerners who fuck around with a language that they don't understand. The warning reads if you get that Chinese tatoo, you might be hilarious for the rest of your life.

A few of our friends have gotten bitten by hanzismatteresque tatoos. One now possesses a tatoo which we are reliably told reads "the American version is also acceptable." And we know a girl who now has "mayonnaise" tatooed in hanzi accross her breasts.

Chinese is not to be trusted. Chinese can be tricky even to native speakers. An example follows.

I have a child in a clas whose name is 天花.

天 means lots of things, including heaven and day. 花 also carries a number of meanings, mostly centered around flowers.

Yesterday I was loooking up a couple words formed from character 天
and I came accross the translation of smallpox.

smallpox: 天花 (tiān huā)

Aim for heavenly flower, get smallpox.