Every country has stereotypes attached to it. Canadians are supposedly polite. Italians supposedly talk with their hands. Americans supposedly are loud and overly proud of their country. And the French? Well, they’ve heard the “rude tourist” stereotype more than once.
Any of those stereotypes may or may not be true. But what’s equally important and unfortunate is that some travelers seem determined to live down to the stereotypes people already have about them. That not only perpetuates these stereotypes but also reinforces what others think about people from those respective countries.
It is what it is.
However, as negative as those stereotypes may be, they sometimes lend themselves to some funny stories. Like this one I found on Reddit the other day.
The story, written about petty revenge against some French tourists, was written by a Redditor who goes by the username Gordorioaquino.
Anyway, Gordorioaquino shared a story about something that happened to their father years ago. And while I generally don’t condone getting revenge via permanent body art, I have to admit this one made me laugh.
For context that you’ll need in a little bit, the poster’s father is Chinese-Indonesian.
Gordorioaquino said that back in the 1990s, their father spent a couple of weeks backpacking around Europe. Along the way, he developed a little tradition: in each country he visited, he’d get a small tattoo as a souvenir. Nothing elaborate, usually just a flag or some other simple symbol to remember the trip.
While in Helsinki, he stopped at a tattoo shop to get a Finnish flag tattooed on his back. But when he arrived, there were already a couple of French tourists ahead of him.
According to Gordorioaquino, these weren’t exactly model customers. Instead, they appeared determined to reinforce every negative tourist stereotype imaginable.
They were loud. They were rude. They talked over people. They apparently believed the rules of polite society applied to everyone except them. Meanwhile, the tattoo shop staff somehow managed to remain professional despite what sounded like a heroic test of their patience.
Anyway, at one point, while one of the tourists was getting tattooed, one of the Frenchmen struck up a conversation and asked Gordorioaquino’s father if he was Chinese.
He replied that he was.
That turned out to be a mistake.
The French tourist excitedly explained that they had always wanted a tattoo of a Chinese character and asked if the poster’s father would write down the Chinese symbol for “love” so they could use it as a reference.
Now, at this point, a better person would probably have written down the correct character.
The poster’s father was apparently not feeling particularly charitable that day.
Instead of writing the Chinese character for “love,” they wrote down a completely different set of Chinese characters that absolutely, positively did not mean “love.”
The tourist happily handed the paper to the tattoo artist.
And here’s where things get even better.
According to the poster, the artist either didn’t verify the translation or had simply reached the point where they were willing to tattoo literally anything if it meant getting these customers out of the shop faster.
Either way, the tattoo was completed.
Successfully.
Permanently.
Forever.
To this day, Gordorioaquino’s father has no idea whether the French tourist ever discovered what the tattoo actually said.
Personally, I’d like to think there was a moment years later when someone fluent in Chinese saw it and asked, “You know that doesn’t say ‘love,’ right?”
Gordorioaquino said their father still laughs whenever the story comes up, all these years later.
And honestly? Given the combination of arrogance, blind trust, and complete failure to do even the most basic fact-checking before permanently tattooing foreign-language characters on one’s body, I can see why.
What did the tattoo say?
We typically don’t go beyond a PG rating here at YMMV. But the tattoo was in Chinese, and we’re going to assume that the vast majority of our readers can’t read Chinese, so we don’t feel so bad about posting it, even though it’s decidedly NOT rated PG.
For those of you who are curious, the tattoo reads “傻屄”.
Gordorioaquino said it roughly translates to a very vulgar insult. We checked it in Google Translate and got essentially the same result.
So….yeah. 😉
The internet responds
Of course, there were plenty of responses to the Reddit thread, including similar stories others have heard or experienced. However we also discovered a few fun websites among the replies that our readers might appreciate:
- A Chinese YouTuber who translates “Chinese” tattoos (they all start with “Westerners’ Chinese tattoos be like…” LOLOL!)
- Engrish.com
Getting back to the story of Gordorioaquino’s father, there’s probably a lesson in there somewhere.
Actually, there are two.
The first is that being rude to strangers isn’t always the best strategy, especially when those strangers possess knowledge you’re about to rely on.
The second is that if you’re going to permanently put something on your body in a language you don’t speak, it might be worth getting a second opinion before committing to it for life.
Because while most acts of petty revenge fade with time, this one may have been following someone around for the better part of three decades.
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This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary
