“Tình Ti?n Tù T?i” – that’s what’s with it.
Someone asked me about the picture that illustrated the previous entry – copied here to the right.
“T T T T” on a curved line and in gothic script.
That’s a common tattoo among disaffected Viet youths. And by extension, among Viet gang members. They sport the tattoo on the top of their back, right below the neck where the spine sort of sticks out. Hence the curved line.
(Not that the match is exact – not all disaffected youths join gangs, not all gang members are disaffected, and they may or may not have this particular tattoo.)
T T T T are short for four words that supposedly describe their lives:
TÌNH: love
TI?N: money
TÙ: prison
T?I: crime
The Bolsavik has personally seen this tattoo on a few young people whose lives could have been made better by their families, their friends, and themselves.
But the Bolsavik has no idea if the gang member in the previous entry had this tattoo. On that blog entry, the “T T T T” is just an illustration.
Sometimes “TTTT” means “t? ti?n t?i t?i’ (from money to crime) or “t? tình thành thù” (from love to prison), instead of “tình, ti?n , tù, t?i” (love, money, prison, crime). Hehe
” “t? tình thành thù” (from love to prison)”
You mean “from love to hate”, right? hehe, that’s a good one; that happens to me a lot!
Let’s see if you can come up with some more good ones for TTTT. I remember there are some very good stories (quite long, too) with all words that begin with the same alphabet. Those crack me up!