Firefly Face Tattoo

[Mudd]

Hello folks!

I saw this tattoo on the face of a character in a TV show called Firefly. I know it's not very clear, but can anyone read it?

 

[lling]

（？）不敢加價

[Mudd]

Shiny! Thanks so much for the response! This community is amazing!

I typed those characters into Google Translate, and it gives me, "Can not increase." Does that seem right to you?

 

And just so that I'm understanding this right, it's the character closest to her mouth that's hard to read, yeah? I didn't realize the image would post so small. If you click on it, it should pop up much larger, though it's still hard to make out.

Thanks again, lling!

[lling]

不—— no, don't

敢—— dare

加—— increase, add

價—— price

不敢加價—— dare not increase the price?

The first word is like “手”（hand）、“年”（year）. I'm not sure.

[Lu]

That is one weird tattoo. If one gets a vertical tattoo in Chinese, one would write the characters in a vertical line, not to turn the horizontal text 90 degrees. The font is more suitable for a book than for a face (it's not ugly, but very business-like and not particularly aesthetically pleasing). And the meaning of the line doesn't seem to make sense.

 

And that while there are all kinds of cultures in the world that do face tattoos well. Even apart from some aboriginal tribes in Taiwan, there are tattoo enthousiasts in Beijing that have very Chinese tattoos (I have a book with photos). The one I liked best (as in, it's beautiful, not that I'd want a tattoo on my face) has a taotie motif fitted to a guy's face.

[Geiko]

 

 

Shou3 bu4 gan3 jia1jia4

• Simplified characters: 手不敢加价 / Traditional characters: 手不敢加價 [as shown in episode, first character’s horizontal strokes are off]
• Back-translation of Mandarin: The hand dares not hike the price
• Context: “Serenity, Part 1,” VISIBLE CHINESE, tattoo written left to right, but oddly up the face of Asian woman (list of written-Chinese errors), at Persephone’s Eavesdown docks, just after black-clad Asian [apparent] gang members are shown

 

 

From the Firefly-Serenity Chinese Pinyinary (sic).

[Mudd]

Oh wow. That's an awesome resource. Thanks for all of the help!

[roddy]

This is so much more fun than if they'd translated things properly. 

[imron]

Hey it's the future gorram it, I'm sure that in the intervening 500 years the language and meanings of certain words/characters has changed (and it seems, lost 4 tones)

[Mudd]

Hahahaha! Yes!

Their language skills may have been far from perfect, but at least they were recognizing how cool Chinese culture is?