By Li Hongmei

The dangers of getting a Chinese character tattoo when the subject - or the tattoo artist - does not read Chinese are by now well-known.

Recently, a tattoo artist of Thai nationality in Sao Paulo, Brazil has been arrested for giving his customers tattoos that were far from what they asked for.

A female customer from Germany asked the artist for a tattoo on her shoulder of the Chinese translation for "You are responsible forever for that which you tame," a quote from The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. This would have been a lengthy and probably ill-advised translation in any case, but the woman got far worse - the three Chinese characters that mean "chicken noodle soup."

She was not the only victim of the renegade tattoo artist, whose motives are unknown. Another woman asked for "fire, strength, faith" and went away with the words "Thailand church tree" engraved on her body.