Father-in-law wants a Chinese tattoo

[Dahuzi]

My father-in-law wants a tattoo that says, "serenity, acceptance, courage, wisdom". I've passed the HSK5, but I still struggle to find the best words to use. Can someone double-check these translations? The main one I'm not sure about is acceptance. Can 接受 convey the sense of acceptance as a state of mind, or is it more just to accept something?

 

Serenity: 宁静

Acceptance: 接受

Courage: 勇气

Wisdom: 智慧

 

Thanks!!!

[Weyland]

First time doing one of these "tattoo translations", so let me rant a little. 

First of all, 接受 is a verb. Also, acceptance is a rather broad term. When translating anything to Chinese it helps to give context. Acceptance could mean that you're happy with your lot in life, or that you've learned from your past mistakes and that you're now able to grow in life. One is resignation, the other is someone trying to turn over a new leaf by acknowledging his past mistakes.

Is the purpose of the words chosen for this tattoo to be intentionally vague? If I were to replace "acceptance" to something like contentment you could use: 知足, which means to know contentment (hence happiness). Courage in Chinese seems to be often accompanied by what you might call "lofty foolhardiness". As in that someone has to be bold to tempt their fate in life.The same goes for "wisdom". It's too broad. Are we talking about resourcefulness, wit, enlightenment, intelligence, ingenuity, vision, etc? 

Personally though, I've never been a fan of such tattoos. I find them superficial. That being said I still would like to give you an alternative; why not go for an idiomatic phrase.

e.g. "知足身常乐，能忍心自安。“ Lit. being content with what one has brings happiness; [one who] can exercise forbearance [will be] peaceful at heart.” 
> This sentence covers everything but courage, albeit in more context.


Or, ”知人者智，自知者名。“  Lit. [One who] knows others [is] intelligent; [one who] know himself is wise. Which is a phrase from Laozi's 道德经. 

[edelweis]

this wikipedia article might help

https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/寧靜禱文

 

[Weyland]

2 minutes ago, edelweis said:

神啊.

.请赐与我宁静，好让我能接受，我无法改变的事情

.请赐与我勇气，好让我能改变，我能去改变的事情

.请赐与我睿智，好让我能区别，以上这两者的不同

So the Wikipedia article you linked has a nice structured version by Hong Songxian (洪宋弦), if @Dahuzi's father doesn't mind getting the entire poem inscribed on his body.

But then again... 
 

Quote

"You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor tattoo any marks upon you: I am the LORD"  - Leviticus 19:28

Though, if it's for AA then I guess it's fine.

[Shelley]

Lots of good information but honestly whats the point?

 

If you want to share these ideas/feelings with other people ( and presumably you do as you going to have a tattoo, mind you I suppose you could be putting it somewhere people won't see it, but then again whats the point? ) then why not have it done in your own language in a lovely font that can help to convey the message.

Then people can read it without having ask what it means, or just not bother and therefore not know.

 

Chinese characters do not impart anything special or magical.

 

As you can see a lot is lost in translation, all you have is a disjointed list of words that mean nothing out of context. This type of thing does not come across in the same way as it does in English.

 

Please consider choosing something else.

 

Before you ink think and think again and again.

[Dahuzi]

Thanks so much, Weyland and Edelweis! You guessed right about it being an AA related serenity prayer thing. I had a feeling 接受 wasn't really a synonym for "acceptance," but couldn't think of any word that worked. I'll run getting the whole poem as a tattoo by him. He might not want to give up the geometry of having eight big characters tattooed on him, but I think the whole tattoo would be better. I hadn't thought of that as an option.

 

If it were my body, I wouldn't get any tattoo, and if I did get a tattoo, it definitely wouldn't be Hanzi. If I had to get a tattoo, it'd probably be a wrist watch with the face blank so I can write things like "party," "smashing" or "to go" on it with a sharpie and then point at it and say, "it's party time," "it's smashing time." or "it's time to go." This is why I don't have a tattoo. But I've been well trained and generally don't question my in-laws' decisions.

 

[mungouk]

I've been surprised how many young people here in Beijing have tattoos... seems it's a global trend currently, although maybe less so in some places than others (e.g. Japan). 

 

Not that a capital city is indicative of the rest of the country, of course.

 

Also, interesting to see that some of the young Chinese choose to have their tattoo in Arabic or Hebrew.  The attraction of the "other" is also universal it seems. I don't see why we should demonise the aesthetic of other written scripts though.  If the translation is accurate, fair enough.

 

 

 

 

[Tomsima]

4 minutes ago, mungouk said:

The attraction of the "other" is also universal it seems. I don't see why we should demonise the aesthetic of other written scripts though.

Well put - I'm sure for many of us here the first draw to learn Chinese was precisely this, the aesthetic of characters and wanting to understand the unknown

[mungouk]

@Tomsima — thanks, I think that's a big part of it.

 

I'm a typography nut, and the writing systems of Asia — particularly South / South-East Asia, of which there are many — have been a lifelong obsession. 

 

Then, when you start to learn how to read the scripts and the aesthetic attraction turns into grasping meaning... you lose something of course, but gain something much greater. It's such a rich experience.

 

 

[Shelley]

@mungouk and @Tomsima I agree with you both on the aesthetic appeal of characters and I too appreciate and enjoy them and yes other writing scripts too are appealing.

I have no objection to chinese character tattoos per say, but they do not always lend themselves to the ideas people want to express. Yes, a lot gets lost in translation.

Apart from the actual translation you have the problem of the skill of the tattooist and their ability to write characters correctly and beautifully, this is the reason we appreciate them and when done badly it becomes ugly.

 

I just want to advise people to think again before making such a permanent decision.

 

 

[mungouk]

No problem @Shelley... I wonder how many tattooists would be able to render the beauty of, say, Tibetan or Burmese? Oh but how wonderful that could look!

I think you hit the nail on the had with the translation part... pithy or traditional sayings can be very difficult to translate, no matter what the language. Maybe steering people towards related and/or appropriate chengyu is a better approach?

I do wonder sometimes if suggesting to fellow adults that their decisions might be "wrong" is a little patronising, though?  Just my own personal opinion. 

For the record, I have no tattoos and no intention of ever having one. But I do enjoy seeing those which are well-executed... art is art after all.

 

Peace!

 

[Shelley]

37 minutes ago, mungouk said:

I do wonder sometimes if suggesting to fellow adults that their decisions might be "wrong" is a little patronising, though?

 

Yes, but they have come to ask advice, admittedly not about the  ethical aspect of tattoos, but it is part of the whole thing.

 

I also really don't expect a fellow adult to pay any attention to my advice if it is not what they want to do. Random advice from strangers on the internet will always be ignored more than taken.

 

I really hope the OP's father-in-law gets what he wants and it brings him the help he feels it will.

[mungouk]

7 minutes ago, Shelley said:

Yes, but they have come to ask advice,

 

Well, with all due respect, they have come to ask for help with a translation, and not for lifestyle advice.

 

Personally I find it a bit of a shame that most of them sign up, log in and then disappear with an answer. Rather than learning more about Chinese culture etc.

 

But I think I understand where you are coming from. 

I appreciate your wisdom – thanks @Shelley!

 

 

 

 

 

[Lu]

17 hours ago, mungouk said:

Well, with all due respect, they have come to ask for help with a translation, and not for lifestyle advice.

Many people who come here for tattoo advice don't know much more about Chinese characters than that they look cool. Many have never considered that they can be written wrong or in an ugly font, or that the tattoo artist can get things wrong. Occasionally someone comes here with a tattoo idea and in the end decides against getting the tattoo after learing more from people like Shelley, or decide to do more research into the tattooist before getting one. Sure, people come for the simple 'what characters to get' part of the advice, but the rest of it is valuable too and I don't think we should stop doing it just because the asker is a fellow adult.