Cross-Lingual Jokes

Sono Ichi: A couple nights ago the word "dong" came up in conversation, whereby I realized for most Americans it means "penis," though for many Korean-Americans, its foremost definition is "poo." To this day I hear "dong" and visualize a dick made of poo.

Sono Ni: Concurrently, I'd seen a book cover at Barnes & Noble, and appalled by the F.I.T.T. premise of the story-told-in-the-jacket-image, I turned the book over to examine its publication information and discovered the poor human who had to design this cover was cursed with the name...Hoo Ha. [I've recently decided not to link up information on books I don't want people to buy, so I'll leave it at that until the book goes out of print and I can do a proper report on it. If however the hemorrhoid of your curiosity burns burns burns, feel free to write me.] [And if you're Hoo Ha, you should definitely write me.]

Sono San: Back when I was a kid, my mom had a fellow Nikkei-mom friend who carpooled with us in an ancient Volvo. And when I say 'ancient,' I mean I'm certain that if she'd kept it and tuned it up, it would fetch a nice museum premium. But, back in the 80's it was a Piece O' Shi* hoopdy. And because we were all talking Japanese, we nicknamed it The Boroboro, which sounds like Volvo, and means, well...POS hoopdy. I still get a good kick out of that. Like I almost want to buy an ancient hoopdy volvo just to call it my "boroboro."

Sono Yon: Similarly, during The Dream Team heyday, Angelenos in my quarter were proscribed by law to diss Michael Jordan/The Bulls. This was easy for Jap-Am's too because with the accent, Jordan became "jo-dan" which means "joke." Like, "Stop Michael fucking with me," or "you've got to be Michael kidding me," or "is this a Michael joke or something?" or "that's not Michael funny."

[Anyone named Poon Tang or Christian Bale should feel free to write me also.]