Westerners have been getting Chinese character tattoos for decades, but not all of them mean what people think. Jessie, a language teacher and creator of the Chinese with Jessie YouTube channel, recently went viral for translating some of the most bizarre and mistranslated ink she’s come across. Her Aug. 11, 2025, TikTok, which has racked up 3.4 million views, featured her making fun of tattoos that translate to things like “low quality coal,” “refrigerator,” and “more failure.”
Featured Video“Coffin man,” for some reason, cropped up twice.
TikTok users in the comments debated which tattoos were intentional and commented on their favorite translations by Jessie. One commenter assured the thread, “I checked them with Google Lens. Girl says truth 😂.” People responding to the video shared other Chinese character tattoo errors made by non-Chinese-speaking westerners.
AdvertisementThe video was cross-posted to r/TikTokCringe where a similar conversation took place among Reddit users. u/dreamy_25 replied with a tattoo fail that encapsulated the special flavor of culturally appropriative uses of Chinese characters in Western tattoo culture.
They posted a screenshot from an old AskReddit thread titled “People who understand Chinese/ Japanese, what’s the dumbest thing you’ve seen tattooed on someone?” u/takatori responded that a man claimed his tattoo meant “Lover of Asian beauty,” when in fact the characters translated to “Foreign Pervert.”
The iconic screenshot has been widely shared on Instagram and across social media.
AdvertisementTeacher exposes the funniest mistranslated Chinese tattoos
Jessie read the Chinese characters off Westerners’ bodies. According to the TikTok creator, a large calf tattoo translates to, “cancer, family, mom, dad, older brother, younger brother, younger sister.” Jessie asked, “No older sister?”
“By the way, this is ‘cancer,’ not ‘Cancer,’” she added.
@jessiez888 Westerners’ Chinese tattoos be like #funny #chinese #tattoo ♬ original sound – Chinese with JessieAdvertisement
“😂🤣 Exactly why i would never get a Chinese tattoo.”
“I think the Chicken Soup guy knew what he was doing.”
Advertisement“Absolutely lost it at ‘low quality coal’ 😂😂.”
Chinese is considered the most spoken language in the world
Approximately 1.3 billion people speak Chinese as their first language. This represents about 17% of the global population. The language is spoken as a first language by people in mainland China and other countries and has the most native speakers of any language on Earth.
AdvertisementChinese encompasses a group of dialects. Approximately 900 million people speak Mandarin, making it the most widely spoken Chinese dialect. Other dialects used by Chinese speakers include Yue (or Cantonese), Wu spoken in Shanghai, Min spoken in Taiwan, and many more.
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