r/Chinese:

u/TheBodyPolitic1

If those characters were shown to a native speaker would they understand them as meaning “doing without doing”? I’m thinking of all of those jokes on the Internet where people get foreign language tattoos ( I have no intention of that ) only to discover that the meaning is far from what they intended.
u/TheBodyPolitic1

Is 無爲 the most direct equivalent of ” do without doing” ? Would more Chinese people understand it with the traditional or simplified characters?
u/TheBodyPolitic1

無無爲 – would this translate to “do without doing” or would it sound like nonsense to most Chinese people?
u/TheBodyPolitic1

So those characters you posted are Mandarin? “Do nothing” is a more direct translation that “do, without doing”?
u/TheBodyPolitic1

Very interesting! Thank you!