Sasha from New York in Miami Ink

An anonymous reader emailed me this screen capture from episode 12 in season 4 of Miami Ink.



It starts at 38:30, some person telling her story:

"Hello. I'm Sasha from New York and I've got this really cool tattoo on my back of a crescent moon surrounded a kanji, which is Japanese symbol and it's all me, it's my initial. And crescent moon is there basically to protect me, to make..."

Another sucker of the "Asian font".

"Kyan"

My friend Jon Rahoi (who runs a fantastic site about mangled English spotted in Hong Kong and various locations in China) has recently sent me a photo of his personal trainer's tattoo.



Jon says:

Hi Tian - my personal trainer showed me his tat today. He thinks it says "Kyan" which is his son's name. He said his Taiwanese-Okinawan friend wrote it for him. In Cantonese I think it says, "hei nguk mo" (happy house fight or brawl or something) and I'm guessing it would also be at least three syllables in Japanese, too. So I thought he was on crack. BUT when I put them into Google

喜屋武

I get 76,000 pages - mostly of a girl named Chiaki Kyan, who is a cosplay idol. I'm stumped as to where they're getting "Kyan," though. It's a mystery to this poor gwailo...

anyway, thought I'd share.

Red Maori

Another polynesian tattoo to add up to the list. But this time, its not the traditional black but full red. This is the very first time I ever did something so red !

I have related a topic on Polynesian/Maori tattoos in my previous post ( Sunday, August 26, 2007 )

As there is no writing in the Polynesian culture, the Polynesians used this art full of distinctive signs to express their identity and personality. Tattoos would indicate status in a hierarchy society: sexual maturity, genealogy and one's rank within society. Nearly everyone in ancient Polynesian society was tattooed.

Go check out : http://www.tahititatou.com/history.html

Koi

According to Japanese legend if a koi succeeded in climbing the falls at a point called Dragon Gate on the Yellow River it would be transformed into a dragon. Based on that legend, it became a symbol of worldly aspiration and advancement.

More generally, the Japanese associate koi (also known as carp) with perserverance in adversity and strength of purpose. Because of its strength and determination to overcome obstacles, it stands for courage and the ability to attain high goals.

Others say it means good fortune or luck.

The Koi Fish is symbolic in the Buddhist Religion, representing courage. Humans 'swim' through the 'ocean of suffering' without fear, just like a fish swims through water.

It is also one of the most popular and beautiful of Japanese tattoo symbols – a beauty which belives its symbolic meaning. Although Chinese in origin, the carp is now widely celebrated in Japan, particularly for its manly qualities.

In tattoo imagery, especially in combination with flowing water, it symbolizes much the same: courage, the ability to attain high goals, and overcoming life's difficulties

There are fourteen classifications that koi fish can be broken down into, separated by color and markings. One of which is the : Bekko. Bekko can be red, white, or yellow, but will have black markings, like the one I did.

DeadlyViper.org

Sacha G. has emailed me about a website called DeadlyViper.org. I tried to understand what the site is about by reading its About US section, then quickly got bored by all the vague catchy phrases.


http://deadlyviper.org/

However, both Sacha and I were curious about the significance of all the characters plastered on the site. For example, 加西生學由天誼 does not even form a sentence, but random characters placed together.

Luckily, after I emailed them, Bryce Green replied and confirming that "the characters are just random. They were selected by our designer because they looked compositionally cool."

Peony Flower

It was a very quiet day today at Immortal Tattoos. Everyone seems to be busy shopping due to the festive season around the corner. So, I carried on doing my own things around the shop, basically lazing around.

Just then, I had a lovely lady walk in today, wanting a Peony on her hip. She wanted to have it in black and grey but I talked her out of it and have it coloured instead.

The Peony is a flower with a history of cultivation and veneration that goes back thousands of years. In Japan and China, the peony is a floral symbol with meaning on par with the Chrysanthemum, the Lotus and the Cherry Blossom The Peony is regarded as a symbol of wealth.

As a tattoo design, the peony symbolizes wealth, prosperity, and good fortune. According to Japanese tattooing tradition, peonies also symbolize daring, risk taking and the gambler's or Samurai's devil-may-care approach to life. A gambler's next bet may be his last, a true Samurai according to the Code of Bushido, or The Way of the Warrior, lives each day as if it may be his last.

The peony is a potent symbol of beauty, of the fragility and fleeting nature of existence and the knowledge that acquiring great rewards comes only by taking great risks.