Reiki Trinkets

What is the next trend after Feng Shui garbs and Zen tabletop sand gardens?

Reiki trinkets!

Reader Anonymous sent me this throw pillow for sale in Cafepress by Healing Threads.


http://www.cafepress.com/healingthreads.51822903

The product description says: “Hon Sha Ze Sho Nen heals across space and time working on problems in past lives and across great distances.”

Hon Sha Ze Sho Nen, or 本者是正念, literally means “I have correct sense” or “I have true belief”.

Too bad, I did not find any pillow that says “I am a gullible tool”. At least they are not Quixtar, or are they?

Update: March 31, 2006 - I read something about Reiki from Skeptic's Dictionary:

"Reiki is very popular among New Age spiritualists, who are very fond of 'attunements,' 'harmonies,' and 'balances.' Reiki apprentice healers used to pay up to $10,000 to their masters to become masters themselves.

The price has come down and, according to one correspondent, 'prices for first level are around $100, second level $150-300 and master around $600-800.' The process involves going through several levels of attunement.

One must learn which symbols to use, when to call up the universal life force, how to heal an emotional or spiritual illness, and how to heal someone who isn't present."

Why does this sound so familiar to another trend called "Life Coaching"? At least the paying large sum of money part.

Related:
1. more "Hon Sha Ze Sho Nen" crap for fools to waste money on
2. all the craptacula ways of "writing" it
3. CNN - Study: Prayer doesn't affect heart patients


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Tiger Tie by Burton

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The Stubborn Italian

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Ease of Gas Retention

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Bad Hanzi in Beijing

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"Wilson"

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"Rock On, Girl!"

Reader Allison sent me this photo of her fellow classmate’s tattoo.

The young lady has been bragging about it and claims her “Asian characters” tattoo means “rock on, girl!”


http://myspace-828.vo.llnwd.net/00312/82/86/312136828_l.jpg

Well, it is complete gibberish.

Ironically, the three characters do to some extent resemble 死枯石, “decaying stone/rock”. (Perhaps a little jab at the Rolling Stones?)

Since the term “rock on” is American/English slang, there is no accurate translation for it in Chinese or Japanese.

If you know a good equivalent of “rock on” in Chinese or Japanese, please feel free to comment or email me.

Update: March 22, 2006 - Rene Mykel Miniatt, owner of "rock on, girl", has emailed me with her side of the story.


(transcript)


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Downloadable Gibberish Asian Fonts

Patrick emailed me this fantastic find from Simplythebest.net.
It is a free downloadable “Japanese Font”.

(screen capture)

Notice the inconsistency of whether it is “Japanese” or “Asian” font between its title and first sentence in the description?

Anyone who has the very basic knowledge of Chinese or Japanese language would know there is no such thing as “Kanji alphabet”.

Plus, the font table is nothing but a bunch of random simplified Chinese characters. Not to be confused with the "example" shown above, font table looks like this.

Even though this is not the same font used in Marquis Daniels or that Finnish racist’s tattoo, it may explain why and how incorrect tattoos are generated with.


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New York Times and Tattoo Choices

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Marquis Antoine Daniels

Jimmy Tsai of Venom Sportswear emailed me about Dallas Mavericks’ player Marquis Daniels in the latest issue of DIME magazine.


(full size)

According to Daniels, the three “Chinese symbols” on his arm are his initials “MAD, Marquis Antoine Daniels” in Chinese.



Although the first two characters 康 and 女 are recognizable, the last character is only a partial that represents “roof”. Even if the characters were phonetically transliterated, they are still way off from “MAD”.

What does his tattoo really mean?

“Healthy Woman Roof”

Related: "NBA Body Art - Tale of My Chinese Tattoo" in Sports Illustrated.


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"Skin, Hair, Body"

http://www.bmezine.com/tattoo/A60307/high/bmepb236775.jpg

This tattoo was shown in March 7th of BMEzine’s kanji gallery without any caption.

The first character 革 (leather, skin) and last character 身 (body) are done correctly. I am having trouble on deciding if the owner wanted 亳 (capitol of Anhui province) or 毫 (hair, milli-) in the center.

As of right now, I think it should be 革毫身, which means “skin, hair, body”.

In a previous post, owner of a 亳 claims she was told it meant “carpe diem”, which is wrong.


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Interviews and Comics

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"Child Offering God"

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NBA Body Art - Tale of My Chinese Tattoo

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/players/02/28/tattoos0306/index.html

In the upcoming issue of Sports Illustrated, NBA players were interviewed about their Chinese tattoos.

When asked about why tattooing in Chinese, Marcus Camby replied: "I was into a lot of Chinese flicks, a lot of [kung fu] movies."

Jeff McInnis explains: "I got the dictionary and looked mine up. Some people don't know what theirs mean. They just get them because they look good."

What about Shawn Marion?

Update: An article in Chinese about NBA players' tattoos.


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