How Chinese Writing Works
Or rather, why does my clueless American neighbor’s “cool” Chinese tattoo actually say, “Evil Butt”?
One hot summer afternoon, I walked past the front of my neighbor’s house (or rather, as they say in German — Wohngemeinschaft — basically a flatshare, but German-style) and immediately burst out laughing like a maniac. The young dude, freshly arrived in hip East Berlin from North Carolina, was fixing his bicycle shirtless. What immediately jumped to attention was that he had the most horrendous Chinese-language tattoo across his chest. The words were entirely in black ink and visually stood out against his pale white skin, so no mistaking what I read.
The four characters read — “Evil Butt”. Dear Lord. Another alternative translation could be “Rotten Buttocks” but my brain was too busy having a laughter-induced seizure to make that semantic connection.
The poor fellow had no idea why I was suddenly roaring in laughter like a madman, pointing straight at his chest. After I calmed down, which understandably took a while, I asked him where on Earth he had gotten that tattoo and whether he knew what it meant.
Apparently, he had gotten it done in Friedrichshain (another ultra-cool, hipster-café-infested Berlin neighborhood) quite recently. And it was supposed to…
