I just saw a photo of Justin Timberlake from the new film Alpha Dog, and noticed his left arm had a tattoo with Chinese characters you don’t usually see adorning human skin. So I checked the definitive source on faulty Chinese, the Hanzi Smatter blog. Perhaps Timberlake was thinking of winter activities in Beijing, because his tough guy character has a tattoo that reads “ice skating.”
Getting inked in a foreign language can be risky. Chinese characters are ripe for error, which Hanzi Smatter documents extensively. As for Justin Timberlake, maybe the tattoo news could add a twist to his movie. The New York Times says the film “has much the same entertainment value you get from watching monkeys fling scat at one another,” which I think is meant to be disparaging. But imagine watching ice-skating monkeys fling scat at one another. Now that’s entertainment.
–Austin Ramzy