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Celebrities Chinese Tattoos
Meaning and Pronunciation

Many celebrites have chosen to put chinese tattoos on their bodies. Ever wondered what they mean and how they are pronounced?
David Beckham's Chinese Tattoo-

It means death and life have determined appointments, riches and honor depend upon heaven. It is one of the most meaningful chinese tattoo I have seen on celebrities. The tattoo was done by one of the best tattoo artists in hong kong called Gabe. Another good translation in English is "Life and death are decided by fate, wealth and honor are from heaven." In fact, this is a well-known saying originating from the Analects, a brilliant book noting the remarks of Confucius. To find meaningful chinese sayings as tattoo , see our list at Chinese Sayings Page

The characters from top to bottom are:
character 1= life . Prononced "xeng" in Mandarin, "sang" in Cantonese.
character 2=death. Prononced "si" in Mandarin, "sei" in Cantonese.
character 3=has . Prononced "you" in Mandarin, "yau" in Cantonese.
character 4=fate /determined appointments. Prononced "ming" in Mandarin, "ming" in Cantonese.
character 5=riches. Prononced "fu" in Mandarin, "fu" in Cantonese.
character 6=wealth and honor. Prononced "gui" in Mandarin, "gwai" in Cantonese.
character 7=from/depend upoon. Prononced "you" in Mandarin, "yau" in Cantonese.
character 8=heaven. Prononced "tian" in Mandarin, "tin" in Cantonese.
Nick Carter's Chinese Tattoo-

Backstreet Boys' Nick Carter uniquely combined Greek mythology and Chinese art. His Chinese tattoo is the Chinese tranlation for "Poseidon" - the god of the sea in Greek mythology.

From top to bottom:
character 1= sea. Pronounced "hai" in Mandarin, "hoi" in Cantonese
character 2=god. Pronounced "shen" in Mandarin, "sun" in Cantonese
Marcus Camby's Chinese Tattoo-

"I was one of the originators of the Chinese characters," said Camby, who broke into the NBA in 1996. " I want to be the best. And I've got a lot of love for my family." But why in Chinese? "I was into a lot of Chinese flicks," he explains, "a lot of kung fu movies."

From top to bottom:
character 1= strive to be the best/ encourage. Pronounced "mian" in Mandarin, "min" in Cantonese
character 2=clan. Pronounced "zu" in Mandarin, "juk" in Cantonese
Cher's Chinese Tattoo-

Even Marcus Camby is one of those celebrities who first displayed prominently kanji tattoos, Cher is definitely the pioneer. She had her Chinese tattoo done in 1983.
The character on her right arm is pronounced "li" in Mandarin, "lik" in Cantonese. She meant to have it mean "strength". It is the Chinese character which usually stands for for power. It is also the first character of a Chinese double character word for strength. It is best to use the double character if one wants to refer to strength. However, many people nowadays mistakenly use the first character only.
Larry Hughes' Chinese Tattoo-

The character means loyalty/loyal. Pronounced "zhong" in Mandarin, "jung" in Cantonese. Larry Hughes said "It's about loyalty to the game and loyalty to myself. "
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