Chinese Tattoo Designs

As body modification has been becoming more and more popular lately, so has the use of Chinese calligraphy in tattoos.  One could surmise that even though such a person may not understand Mandarin, they like having an aesthetically pleasing character written on their skin that is from a “exotic” and “mystical “culture” that is full of deep meaning.  But what does it all mean?

 

 

Movie star Megan Fox has the character “力” (lì) tattooed on the back of her neck; the most common perception being that 力 represents strength, and that Fox wanted such a representation to go along with her other many tattoos.  力 can mean strength to a degree, but it is mostly used in Chinese as a word for “physical force”.  As well, 力 used by itself is a noun; if we want to use the Chinese characters for “strong” to describe someone (as in “Megan Fox is strong,”) we would use the adjective 强壮 (qiángzhuàng).  Used in a sente