For the record, her random assortment of Chinese tattoos says: “independent”,

For the record, her random assortment of Chinese tattoos says: “independent”, “heartless”, “curious” and “cunning”.
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I don't about Chinese, but Japanese people do sometimes have English words either as tattoos or as clothing print. It's for the same reason as people in West: they find English to be cool and exotic.
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It's funny that the guy chose 'water.' I do happen to think the symbol for it is pretty cool: 水

I get the sentiment, but there are a lot of English speaking people with English words tattooed to them as well as French and Spanish and whatever language they want to say whatever thing on them forever.