Tattoos. Don't get em...in Japanese.

I have a good story to tell y'all today but it's not SUPER fitness related (even though I'm gonna make it seem like it is) so first just a quick update on progress.

Things are going great!

Okay.  Now for the good stuff.  For those of you who may not know, I live in Okinawa, Japan and am surrounded by Japanese people almost all day every day no matter where I go.  Even on base, there is still a good amount of Japanese people around because many of them work on base.  Well, I workout at the gym on base so there are always a ton of Japanese men and women there as well.  

Now that I've established this, let us take a small trip back in time.

Pretend that flashback voodoo music is playing...

It's the year 2000.  Summer.  I had just had my first child, Jakob, and I'm loving my new life as a mom.  One of my best friends had also recently had her first baby and she called me up to propose an idea.  She had decided that she wanted to get the kanji symbol for "mother" tattoo'd on her back and she wanted to know if I would go with her and get the same tattoo.  "Get the kanji for MOTHER?!  My new role in life?!  My pride and joy?!  HECK YES!"  I was in.  She told me she found the kanji character online and would bring it to the tattoo place.  I didn't question her research, I was so excited.  I mean, this was about to be permanently etched under my skin for eternity, why...WHY would I ever think to make sure it was the correct kanji?    

She got the tattoo on her back and I got the exact same one on my shoulder.  I felt so rad walking around with this tattoo that crowned me as being a MOTHER.  Here I am as a brand new mother with my baby, Jakob, sporting my badge.

  

I had the tattoo by itself on my shoulder for about 10 years when I decided that it just wasn't enough.  I had this teensy (well not teensy but I felt like it was teensy) little kanji on my big ole shoulder and long limby arm and I wanted to make it more into a short sleeve.  Sticking with the Asian theme, I decided to add some cherry blossoms and made the kanji look like it was written on some sort of scroll.  After it was done, I hated it.  I hated how random it all looked.  Nothing flowed, there was a huge blank spot under the kanji I already had on the scroll, and it wasn't anything near a short sleeve.  YES I saw it before he put it one me.  NO I didn't object.  Shutup, I don't know what I was thinking.  I tried to find a picture of it but I don't think I took many because it was so hideous and I didn't keep it like that for very long.   

SO. 

To remedy this, I visited the best tattoo guy in town, the one and only, Oliver Peck.  You know, Kat Von D's ex husband?  He had a tattoo show?  No?  Okay.    

I showed him my arm and told him to work his magic.  I also needed to pick another kanji character to go in the blank spot under the one I already had and after careful consideration (like 2 minutes of "uhmmmm...?") I decided on the kanji for the number 5.  Mother.  Five.  Mother of five.  Get it?  Ya know, in case I lost one or two and I needed to remember how many I started with.  

When he finished it looked 100x better.  I was super impressed and satisfied and I went on my merry little way.  

THEN.

I moved to Japan.  

Home of people whose first language consists of kanji characters.  

I made a lot of fun new Japanese friends right away and one night, we all went out to dinner.  We happened upon the subject of Americans getting Japanese tattoos that mean something completely different than what they think they mean and I had this bright idea to show them MY tattoo to make sure it did indeed say, "mother of five".

So I whip up my sleeve and flash my shoulder in their direction and to my great dismay, their already tiny eyes scrunched up even more to try and decipher the top kanji.  Then they kind of looked at each other mumbling something in Japanese, and then at me, and then at each other again and then asked me, "What do YOU think it means?"  Well hell.  Did it even matter now?  Clearly it didn't mean anything even remotely close to what I thought it meant judging by the look on their faces.  Then they proceeded to explain that the bottom kanji is of course, five.  Phew, I had that one right.  

BUT,

the TOP kanji actually meant "daughter".  And having been friends of mine, they KNEW that I only had ONE daughter.  Not five. 

"..."

That was basically my reaction.  What in the sam hell do I do now?  I tried to laugh it off and say, "Well maybe I can say I'm one of five daughters?  Or maybe I can say I WANTED five daughters?  Or maybe I can say I wrote a book and it's titled "Five Daughters"!"  

No.

 Nope.

  I can't even do that because it doesn't even say five daughters.  It says

DAUGHTER FIVE.

Mother frickin daughter five.  

If only I would have just left the dadgum thing alone in the first place I'd be totally fine with just having the single "daughter" on my arm.  But nooooo.  I had to go and jack it all up to make absolutely ZERO sense.  Like ZERO.

I went home that night to finally, almost 15 years later, look up the two different kanji to see how things went wrong.  This was all I could find.  Although very similar, still NOT the same.  How.  How did I not check this first?!?

So back to me tying this story into my fitness.  I go to the gym almost everyday, usually in a tank top, and I get to enjoy all the Japanese people squinting their eyes, trying to nonchalantly read my tattoo that says, daughter five.  Then they look at me.  Then back at my arm.  Then back at me again and I see it in their eyes.  That inner giggle.  Look at the stupid American who not only got the equivalent to LETTERS on her arm, but it also makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.  Ahhh, good times.  Go away you Japanese man.  I know you're laughing at me.  

I KNOW IT'S WRONG!!!  SHUTUP!!

I do have a wonderful Japanese friend who works at the gym named June (pronounced joo-nay) who I've had this entire conversation with just so he doesn't secretly judge me.  I needed him to know that I KNOW in order for us to continue our friendship.  This isn't a picture of me and June although I wish it were.  June wasn't at the gym the day I needed the picture so I stopped another random Japanese man to fill in for June.  

He's judging me.  I know he is.

When can I move back to America?