Is My Tattoo Chinese: NBA Draft Busts
Every Tuesday, NiuBBall goes around the NBA in search of the many players with with Chinese tattoos on their body. Partly because we love Chinese language, partly because we love basketball, and mostly because we’ve never understood how a non-Chinese speaker can entrust his non-Chinese speaking tattoo artist with writing and combining Chinese characters correctly, we then grade these tattoos based on their calligraphy, structure and meaning.
Many will fail, a few will pass. But, just remember, even if your Chinese tattoo that you once thought was so cool and exotic turns out to be just a hodgepodge of gibberish, it could be always be worse: You could have “healthy woman roof” permanently emblazoned on your body.
This week, we take a look at some of the biggest NBA Draft busts of the last decade.
Name: Sean May
Drafted: 13th overall in 2005 by the Charlotte Bobcats
Throughout the entire 2004-05 season, it was pretty much a given that May would skip the 2005 Draft and return to UNC for his senior season as scouts had major concerns about his size, conditioning and athleticism. Then in March, Carolina ripped through everyone, thanks in large part to May, who picked up the Final Four’s Most Outstanding Player award, to win a national championship. May was a force on the block, using his combination of strength, soft hands and great touch around the hoop to score and rebound at will.
With his stock at an all time high, May came out for the Draft and was selected 13th by the Charlotte Bobcats. Four seasons and 119 games later, May is out of the League, likely never to come back. Microfracture surgery in October 2007 caused him to miss the entire 2007-08 season was no doubt a big reason why May flamed out early, but constant struggles with his weight and conditioning also plagued him throughout his career as well.
Tattoo in question: 可以; left shoulder
What he thinks it means: Unknown.
What it actually means: Learning Chinese is hard and one of the first challenges for a beginner is getting around the different ways to say “can” or “may.” 可以 (pronounced kuh-yee) means “can” or “may” as in 我可以帮助你妈？(Can I help you?) or 我可以请你吃饭吗？(Can I take you out to eat?) Using 可以 usually implies that permission needs to be given in order to achieve the act.
能 (nung) also means “can,” but it differs from 可以 because it indicates someone has the inherent ability to do something. For example in the sentence 他能来吗？(Can he come?), 能 is used because coming from somewhere is not an action you specifically learned how to do. This differs from 会 (hway), which is also used to indicate ability, but only when talking about things you’ve specifically learned how to do. For example, speaking a language or playing a sport would all be appropriate sentences to use 会 because you had to be taught how to do those things.
If it sounds confusing, well it kind of is, at least at first. For somebody who speaks no Chinese, understanding that there are three distinct ways of saying “can” and/or “to be able to” is difficult concept to grasp.
There’s two possible reasons why May could have gotten this tattooed on his body. First, since 可以 literally tranlate into “may,” maybe he thought those where the characters for his last name in Chinese. Alas, Chinese are not Westerners, and accordingly do not employ Western family names.
Another possible reason could be that May was going on a Nas “God’s Son” tip and understood the character as the translation for “I can.” He’d be wrong on that front, too because as we have just gone over, 可以 means “can” or “may” with permission as a prerequisite to completion of the action.
Final Grade: How ever you want to interpret it, this is a highly misguided attempt in Chinese tattooism. If he had asked someone who spoke Chinese for permission to get this tattoo beforehand, they would have answered “No you may not.”
失败 – Failure
Name: Marcus Fizer
Drafted: 4th overall in 2000 by the Chicago Bulls
Fizer was drafted in 2000 as one of that year’s top power forwards, despite Chicago already have a stud power forward, Elton Brand, firmly established as a starter. He started a mere 33 games in his first two years before tearing his ACL midway through his third season in 2002-03. With two Baby Bulls, Eddy Curry and Tyson Chandler, taking up most of the team spotlight up front, he played limited minutes the next year before being let go in the off-season. He played a year with New Orleans in 2004-05 before he signed with Milwaukee the following year, where he was cut three games into the season never to come back to the League again.
Fizer finished his career with averages of 9.6 points and 4.6 rebounds on 43.5% shooting.
Tattoo in question: 憎; right upper forearm and 爱; left upper forearm
What he thinks it means: From the Seattle Times: Marcus Fizer is a modern-day Michelangelo who has transformed his thick, muscular body into the Sistine Chapel to express his complicated and often conflicting beliefs
Shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, he had a tattoo artist sketch on his right calf an image of Jesus Christ holding an American flag with a caption that reads, “Hated by some, but loved by God,” to honor the victims.
The two Chinese characters, “hate” and love,” are obviously related to the tattoo mentioned above.
What it actually means: Exactly what he thinks it means. 爱 (aye) is the word for “love,” which is the precise antonym of 憎 (zuhng), “hate.” 爱憎 together literally means “love and hate,” but can also translated as “emotions” when used contextually in sentences.
Final Grade: 成功 – success
Name: Rafael Araujo
Drafted: 8th overall in 2004 by the Toronto Raptors
In the summer of 2004, the Raptors were undergoing a period of transition. The face of the franchise for almost a decade, Vince Carter, disgruntled with the franchises’ fall from Eastern Conference contention into perennial lottery ping-pong ball convention, was being phased out by management in favor of a highly promising young power forward, Chris Bosh. Deciding to pull the plug and build around Bosh, the Raptors eventually traded Carter to New Jersey for pennies on the dollar.
But, that all came after the Araujo pick, who was selected because the Raps were desperate to land a big center to plop next to the finesse oriented Bosh. The Brazilian out of BYU averaged a paltry 12 minutes a game for Toronto in his first two seasons before being traded to Utah for Kris Humphries and Robert Whaley in the summer of 2006. He played 28 uneventful games for Jerry Sloan and was out of the League for good by age 26.
Tattoo in question: 力; left shoulder
What he thinks it means: Strength.
What it actually means: Strength or power, albeit written very crappily.
Final Grade: Yeah, it’s readable and it makes sense in its singular simplicity. But, Araujo loses major points for unoriginality and for the chicken-scratch character quality. Naturally, the character is a favorite of muscle bound males who feel its necessary to have “strength” tattooed on their shoulder, which we can all see because they’re showing it off by wearing a sleeveless shirt. Also worth noting that Araujo went to predominantly Mormon BYU, an institution where tattoos are not only looked down upon, but sometimes airbrushed out altogether.
Final Grade: 失败 - Failure
I don’t claim to be totally fluent in Chinese, and if you disagree with my assessments feel free to comment at the bottom.
Want to see your favorite player on “Is My Tattoo Chinese?” Email me at jwpastuszek@niubball.com preferably with a clear picture of the tattoo in question and I’ll put it up in the next edition.
