Strength or Courage... or is it just a Big Mistake?

Jorg sent the image below and asked the following question for a friend who had the tattoo done in Berlin:

"1) Apparently they were meant to mean: strength, courage or determination, or some such thing.
2) on the back, on the right shoulder blade
3) no further tattoos.

Some Chinese people who saw the tattoo said the two characters mean "dog" and "pass" or "good mannered dog" and "pass", where "pass" by itself makes no sense."

Hi Jorg,

I hate to disappoint you, but unfortunately it doesn't mean "courage". In Chinese, the design consists of two characters that look really smashed together (the dot on top should be in the middle closer to the character to the right; if the dot is read together with the character to the left, it means dog, but then the character on the right without the dot will be incorrect and non-readable). The tattoo reads "major demerits", or "serious mistake".

I've seen this design being misinterpreted a few times before. For reference, please see http://www.starchamber.com/2006/04/tattoos-sacred-and-profane.html and http://www.tattoodonkey.com/chinese-tattoos-that-include-authentic-characters-and-symbols-can-form-/chinasuccessstories.com*wp-content*uploads*big-mistake.jpg/

If you get a chance, please let me know where you found this design (in a book? at a tattoo parlor?) It seems someone is distributing some bad information.

Thank you!

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I never obtained any information on which parlors are distributing the incorrect information. If anyone has any knowledge of the origin of this design, or has seen it in a sample book at a parlor, please feel free to email me at mail at ChineseTattoos dot com and let me know. Thanks!

A Dragon named "Feist"? Or a crossbreed dog...?

Tim sent in the Chinese tattoo confirmation below:

"It was part of a dragon, you can see three claws on the picture.
It´s on the left body-side.

Waiting for an answer :)

Thx for translating."

Hi Tim,

According to my research, it looks like the characters are an incorrect version of the name "Feist".

This obviously is a name, as they are merely characters that are close to English sounds, and by themselves don't have any meaning.

If this is, indeed, the name "Feist", please see the attached for the correction version (read from left to right).

Note that Feist in English also refers to a small hunting dog. But I assume that this is a name rather than the name of a croosbreed dog..?

If it's not Feist, let me know what the intended name was and I'll see if it's anywhere close.

(Tim never responded to the above answer. Hope it was what he was looking for!)