上帝興你常在 shangdi yu ni chang zai God Is Always With You — a singer's Chinese tattoo, the Bible's blessing rearranged
This is a philological study of 上帝興你常在, five Chinese characters that rearrange the Bible's blessing "God is with you" from a pop singer's own tattoo. It traces the line from the 1919 Chinese Union Version's own wording, through the tattoo's rearrangement and a 2011 linguist's reading of the photograph, to a single character where a later copy departs from the tattoo's own text.
Abstract
上帝興你常在 is not itself the sentence a Chinese reader would call a blessing: as five characters it does not parse, because 興 (rise, flourish) is not 與 (with). Read with 與 in its place, the line says God is with you, always — a rearrangement, made on a singer's arm at about sixteen, of the Chinese Bible's own formula 與你同在, with, present together, with always closing the sentence where the Bible's own always would open it. A 2011 reading of the tattoo's photograph confirms the character there is 與, not 興; the substitution of one for the other is the kind made when a Chinese line is copied by matching shapes rather than read. Two Chinese dictionaries agree that neither reading of 興 carries any sense of with.
Overview
The sense. In Chinese, Shàngdì yǔ nǐ cháng zài; there is no Japanese reading, because the line is not Japanese. Read as the tattoo has it, with 與, the sense is one: God is with you, always.
The words. 上帝 is God: the character pair is older than Christianity in China by two thousand years, first the high god of the 易經, then the sovereign, and only third the Christian God [1]. It is the word of one of the two Protestant editions of the Chinese Bible, the 上帝版; the other, the 神版, writes 神 with a reverent blank before it, and the Catholic Bible writes 天主. 與, yǔ, is with: 漢典 gives it as equivalent to with, together with [2], and the Ministry dictionary lists it among fourteen senses of the character, the verbs give, follow, befriend, and a preposition to, toward [3]. 興, xīng, is the character a later copy has instead: rise, flourish, undertake, set in motion, and at its other reading, xìng, interest, enjoyment. Neither dictionary gives 興 any sense of accompaniment, at either reading [4][5]. 興 and 與 share their outline, the two hands at the sides and the 一 beneath; they differ only in the component the hands hold, 同 in 興 and 与 in 與, and anyone setting Chinese by shape can take one for the other. They are different words. 你 is you, not a character Japanese uses. 常在 is always present: the dictionary's 時常存在, with the 易林's 福祿常在, blessing and rank ever present [6]. In the Chinese Bible it is the verb abide, and it takes an object; with you in the Bible is not 常在 but 同在.
The text in English. God is with you is the plain rendering of the blessing the tattoo rearranges, behind the King James Bible's own I am with you alway and God with us.
The historical record
1919. The Chinese Union Version, 和合本. The Protestant Bible whose Chinese every later blessing quotes. I am with you always, even unto the end of the world is 我就常與你們同在、直到世界的末了 (Matthew 28:20); the LORD thy God is with thee is 耶和華你的神必與你同在 (Joshua 1:9); Emmanuel, God with us is 以馬內利繙出來、就是神與我們同在 (Matthew 1:23) [7]. The formula is 與 for with and 同在 for present together; 常, always, goes in front of it, as in the Matthew verse.
About 1999. A singer's tattoo. The line was tattooed on a pop singer's upper left arm at about sixteen; it had been meant for the back of the neck, and the needle on the bone moved it to the arm. Two pages that report this date the tattoo only by her age: one quotes an interview in which she regrets the placement and not the line [8][9].
2011. A reading of the photograph. One page transcribed the characters from a photograph and read them as Chinese: 上帝與你常在, Shàngdì yǔ nǐ cháng zài, God is with you [10]. Its writer's own judgment: the grammar seems a little strange; the sentence I'm used to hearing is 上帝与你同在, and 常 marks a continuous state, not quite the always the English means. A commenter counted 常在 through the whole Union Version, sixty-four times, always with an object. Three photographs of the tattoo, checked against this transcription, confirm the character is 與: the crude hand of the tattooist does not change which character it is [11].
2014 to 2016. A later copy. A design was set with 興 by the file date of December 18, 2014, and a page describing it was posted on August 29, 2016 [12][13]. No witness before this carries 興; the tattoo does not, and the Bible does not.
What is not a source. The Bible verses are the source of the formula, not of the sentence; the tattoo is the source of the sentence, not of the character. Japanese is not a source of anything here: Japanese has its own words for this blessing, 神は常に汝と共に, or the Emmanuel line of the 文語訳, and neither is what this line is copied from.
The word in English
The King James Bible. I am with you alway (Matthew 28:20), I am with thee (Isaiah 41:10), God with us (Matthew 1:23) [14]. The singer's own gloss, as the celebrity pages report it, is God is always with you or God is with me always; the 2011 reading gives God is with you.
Today. What a rendering of the tattoo must keep is always, the one word the tattoo adds to the Bible's formula; what a rendering with 興 in place of 與 cannot honestly claim is that its five characters say it.
A reading
The line is a Chinese Protestant's God is with you, rearranged on a singer's arm so that always present closes it, which a Chinese reader notices and an English reader never will. That oddity belongs to the tattoo: a reader asking for the tattoo is asking for that line, not for the church's. The character 興 does not belong to it. The tattoo and the Bible write 與, with; 興 for 與 is the kind of substitution made when a line is set by matching shapes, and it turns the blessing into five characters that do not parse. Two dictionaries agree on both characters, so a Chinese reader has not been asked; the question, if one is asked, is a single character.
References
- 「上帝」, 教育部國語辭典, at moedict. https://www.moedict.tw/raw/上帝
- 「與」, 漢典, at zdic. https://www.zdic.net/hant/與
- 「與」, 教育部國語辭典, at moedict. https://www.moedict.tw/raw/與
- 「興」, 教育部國語辭典, at moedict. https://www.moedict.tw/raw/興
- 「興」, 漢典, at zdic. https://www.zdic.net/hant/興
- 「常在」, 教育部國語辭典, at moedict. https://www.moedict.tw/raw/常在
- 聖經 (和合本), 約書亞記 1:9, 馬太福音 1:23 and 28:20, at Chinese Wikisource. https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/聖經_(和合本)/馬太福音
- Capital XTRA, list of tattoos, entry for Nicki Minaj. https://www.capitalxtra.com/features/lists/rappers-tattoos/nicki-minaj/
- Steal Her Style, tattoo entry 46042. https://stealherstyle.net/tattoo/46042/
- John Pasden, "Nicki Minaj's Chinese Tattoo," Sinosplice, December 1, 2011. https://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2011/12/01/nicki-minajs-chinese-tattoo
- Three photographs of the tattoo: the Complex studio photograph, embedded at Sinosplice via Flickr; two Steal Her Style photographs of 2012, one a close crop of the arm.
- The house's design as set, Takase Studios, dated December 18, 2014.
- The Wayback Machine, snapshot of November 18, 2019, of a page posted August 29, 2016. http://web.archive.org/web/20191118192822/https://www.takase.com/inspired-by-nicki-minaj-chinese-tattoo/god-is-always-with-you/
- The King James Bible, Matthew 1:23, Matthew 28:20, Isaiah 41:10.