Oh well, Coulda Woulda

I wanted to find out some Japanese kanji words that mean completely different things in Chinese. For example, 汽車 (steam car) means train in Japanese, but regular automobile in Chinese. This one is even better: 手紙 (hand paper) means hand-written letter in Japanese, but toilet paper in Chinese. I thought this would be a good cultural note for my students to learn during warm-ups.

And then I came across this thread in some Japanese language forum. There's really no need to go there and look through it, but it's basically a bunch of people asking "What's X in kanji?" Just bunch of idiots actually, who don't bother to learn the difference between kanji, hiragana and katakana, but still want some chinese characters that look cool, most likely as tattoos on body parts from which they derive most of their self-esteem. People were asking questions like "What's 'Forever love, Matt' in kanji?" or the kanji words for Love or Hate or Truth or Strength or Sorrow or Death or Dragon or any other symbol-laden words with trivially abstract meanings that make the tatoo wearer seem like a slightly more sophisticated bloc to another less sophisticated bloc without the kanji tatoo.

I immediately looked for the "Reply" button, and looked up the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese characters for "Idiot" so I can type it in.

Imagine the potential hilarity.

Then imagine my disappointment, upon finding the thread closed and no longer active. Not to worry though, there will be plenty of fools on this list.