关公 · guān gōng
关公 · guān gōng
Word · Power
What it means
Duke Guan — the god of loyalty, sinified from a historical general, and the most tattooed figure in China with the most rules attached.
关公：忠义的护法，由一位历史将军神化而来。全中国被纹最多、讲究也最多的一位。
Where the character comes from
Guan Yu died in 220 AD. Nobody in a Chinese tattoo shop calls him that — he is 关二爷, Second Master Guan, spoken of the way you would speak of an elder of the household. The face everyone pictures — crimson, long-bearded, the Green Dragon Crescent Blade across the shoulder — was cast by a thousand years of temple statuary and opera stages.
A personal name and a rank-style honorific, later abbreviated to 关公 in speech. The 關公 form carries the posthumous title.
- Official historyRecords of the Three Kingdoms
- Literary noteRomance of the Three Kingdoms
- Folk practiceTemple statuary
How it gets misread
Guan Yu (personal name only) → 关公 / 關公
In a tattoo shop the honorific is the name. 关羽 reads as a historical general; 关公 reads as the deity.
Simplified Guan, traditional Gong → One script throughout
For this design the script must be consistent across the pair even though the two characters differ in complexity.
Before you ink
The five-foot-two Green Dragon Crescent Blade is not optional — it is the attribute that identifies him. Red face, long beard, blade across the shoulder.
The eyes are narrowed and the beard is the long three-strand opera kind. A friendly smiling Guan Yu is the single most common error in this design.