Vexed

[muckefuck]

Saw the most curious neck tattoo on the way into work this morning. Actually, I've seen it before, but couldn't read it. As it happens, I've been carrying my Chinese pocket dictionary with me lately (to help maintain the pretense that I'm finally going to finish working my through Lu Xun's 《故鄉》), so I was able to look up the characters this time. They are (definitions courtesy of Lin Yu-tang):

煩 fán Troublesome, bothersome, confusing; vexed, troubled.
魄 pò The baser animal spirits of man, contrasted with finer elements 魂 hún, the two together conceived as animating the human body.

In general, I find the only way to understand these tattoos is to work back to their literal English translation. So I'm guessing that what he was aiming for was "troubled soul".

But, as always, there are problems with the characters he chose. First of all, Chinese verbs aren't generally marked for voice. They can have either an active or passive interpretation depending on what best fits the context. You can see what that means for a verb like 煩 fán, whose basic meaning is active "trouble, vex". As a modifier, it can mean "that which is troubled", but an active interpretation, i.e. "that which is troublesome", is not only possible, but--I would argue--more common overall. Of course, it really depends on what the modified element is. A phrase like 煩心 fánxīn I would naturally interpret as "troubled heart/mind" and it would take a mighty unusual context to get me to accept "heart/mind which is troublesome".

Now look at the second element of the tattoo again. The 魄 pò is not the "soul" as those in the Western tradition would conceive of it. In fact, a number of Daoist techniques are dedicated to "starving" the 魄 pò in order to purify the body before death. It's more like an id that helps animate the body. According to supernatural lore, it can even do this without the assistance of the 魂 hún, but you know what you get then? That's right: A 殭屍 jiāngshī or Chinese vampire. Given that, are you more likely to interpret 煩魄 as "vexed spirit" or "vexatious spirit"? Personally, although I've still never seen Mr Vampire, I find it hard to imagine that the title character is afflicted by many cris de conscience à la Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula.

Could this implication be deliberate? Could the tattoo's intention be bad-ass rather than emo? Perhaps, but in that case 煩 fán is still unfortunate because--as the translation "vexing" implies--it refers to petty irritations rather than serious torments. For instance, it forms the first element of several terms which imply fussiness, like 煩細, 煩碎, and 煩瑣. A 煩魄 strikes me as ghost whose vileness would consist of hiding your pens and making your beer go flat rather than, say, sucking all your cerebrospinal fluid out through the soles of your feet.

So now I'm vexed. How did he come up with this? And is there any way to ask him about it without coming off as a condescending know-it-all?

Comments

[dilletante.livejournal.com]

even before i read most of your analysis, i was assuming that he meant to say he was troubled by his base desires, rather than melodramatic angst. maybe he's often horny.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

But why would you advertise that on a very conspicuous part of your body? Why not just get "POOR IMPULSE CONTROL" tattooed on your forehead?

[that-dang-otter.livejournal.com]

Now THAT would be hot. ;-)

Didn't I read that in some science fiction novel?

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson.

[dilletante.livejournal.com]

i dunno, some people are into the mortification of the flesh. i'll be his flesh is totally mortified. :)

[that-dang-otter.livejournal.com]

Do you think that when the Japanese integrated Chinese characters into their writing system that they made similarly strange gaffes? Already, their use of English is nonsensical to us but often meaningful to them in ways we don't appreciate. The difference between comical and cultural is often just a matter of time.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

The Japanese didn't integrate Chinese characters into their writing system; they had no writing system at all until they adopted Chinese characters. Their native character sets (i.e. kana) developed out of Chinese characters by a process of simplification.

[that-dang-otter.livejournal.com]

Right, I didn't phrase that very well... but still, isn't their use of Chinese characters equivalently weird? More serious, obviously, but my point is that cultures claim things from other cultures and make them their own all the time. The thing that makes the Chinese tattoos silly is not so much the mis-appropriation as the superficiality and lack of concern.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

I was with you up until the last bit. Isn't it the superficiality and lack of concern that makes these "misappropriations"? When someone does their homework and has a thorough understanding of the connotations and associations of a phrase or design from a foreign culture, we simply call that "appropriation"; whether it's harmful or not is a more abstract discussion of power dynamics, Orientalism, and what-not.

In the specific example of the Japanese, they wrote polished Classical Chinese for several centuries before attempting to use characters to record their own language. (Even then, they used them for their phonetic values, so the form of appropriation was much different.) Eventually they did coin many thousands of neologisms--just as English has with Greek and Latin roots--but their novelty has been obscured by the subsequent adoption of many of these by Chinese-speakers. (Cf. the importation of Western technological terms into Modern Greek.)

In other words, there's a completely different dynamic to that relationship. You know what I think should give these young appropriators pause? The Chinese and Japanese themselves don't get character tattoos. Given the highly-developed Japanese tradition of tattooing, that's really saying something!

[bunj.livejournal.com]

In other words, there's a completely different dynamic to that relationship. You know what I think should give these young appropriators pause? The Chinese and Japanese themselves don't get character tattoos. Given the highly-developed Japanese tradition of tattooing, that's really saying something!

I imagine they don't get poorly-spelled Engrish tattoos either. Though it would be pretty ironic if they did.

I say dragons and clouds for everyone.

[areia.livejournal.com]

I suggest: "Hey, great tattoo. What does it say?" I've yet to meet someone with a foreign language tattoo who was not eager to gush over it when asked.

[fengshui.livejournal.com]

Yup. You can always then segue into "where did you get it" to get more information about the character choice.

[grunter.livejournal.com]

Questions of this type are generally more palatable after an impromptu hummer.

Of course, then there's the small problem of getting him to put out on a crowded "L" train. I'm not suggesting it can't be done, just that it might be a tad awkward.

[ursine1.livejournal.com]

Those Chinese tattoos are popular here too. And I have not seen them on the Asians that live here.

Chuck

[richardthinks.livejournal.com]

So now I'm vexed.

So his tattoo is exactly accurate. How many people do you think can possibly get this reaction out of seeing him (rather than a simple wry smile at the follies of the West)? Is it possible that you're being specifically targetted?

Also, I figure this item is far enough down the list that I can ask without being too public - are you irritated/bored by my comments? This isn't a great medium for social cue-reading. I probably wouldn't have to ask if I met you face to face. Feel free to answer yes, and you can be free of another source of vexation.