potemkin
Inactive
http://www.zug.com/pranks/tattoo/
The Chinese Tattoo Prank
by Whistler
I get easily bored at work. One of the ways I amuse myself is by playing little tricks on my co-workers. The more elaborate the prank, the longer I'm able to remain amused, so I have no qualms about going to extraordinary lengths for a gag with the most minimal payoff. The punch line is not the point; it's the journey there that keeps me going.
My most recent scheme involved tattoos. I noticed how many people were getting tattoos of Chinese characters, and wondered why Americans of European descent think there is some special magical property to all things Asian. Buddhism, acupuncture, kung fu, feng shui: if this crap originated in Germany, no one would care.
So I got an idea. I started by talking to the delivery guy from the Chinese take-out near my office. I made up a few fake Chinese phrases from words I saw in a Chinese newspaper, and started throwing them out at him. Now, I have no idea how to speak Chinese. I couldn't figure out how to pronounce the stuff I had, or how to make sentences out of it, or what dialect it was, but none of that really mattered. What mattered was having the proper Charlie Chan accent and loud, confident delivery.
"Wan shang an!" I'd shout out when he came in. "Hao chi bao fan jin wan?"
The guy would respond, sometimes in English, I think, but no one can understand him, so sometimes I think he responded in Chinese. Once I think he said, "Crazy," in English, but I can't really be sure.
"Song bie!" I called out as he left. And he never failed to wave.
Naturally, some of the people who work for me asked if I knew how to speak Chinese. "Not really," was my response.
Anyway, we're in the middle of the busiest time of the year at work, and we have about 100 temps working for us. It is out of this group that I pick my mark: a young woman, probably 20 or so, and very pretty, in a kind of higher-class New Jersey trailer-park way. Sort of a skinnier, dirty-blonde version of Jessica Alba. She has a little haze of pot smoke around her, and a Chinese character tattooed on her bicep.
<img src=http://www.zug.com/daily/journal/graphics/040904_tattoo02.jpg>
She's working in our bindery, and the first copy of every job off the binding line has to come to my desk for approval. Eventually everyone has to come in here. Finally, my victim arrives.
My victim, the 20-something girl with the Chinese tattoo, has just walked into my office. "Hao dan!" I start.
"Huhnwha?" she replies.
"Wu zhuang diao?"
"Are you talking to me?"
"Mei yu sheng han?"
She stands there, looking confused.
"You don't speak Chinese?" I ask.
"No, why?"
"Well, I saw the tattoo, and I thought you must."
"No."
So I launch into the questions: what made her decide on a Chinese symbol, who was the artist, were they Chinese, everything except what the symbol stood for. She stammers through the answers, which boil down to no real reason for the Chinese, no real interest in Asian culture or language, just got the tat from some white American dude in a shop in Sayerville. Then she launches into an explanation of what it means: inner peace or some nonsense.
"No," I tell her, "it says 'hao fu,' which means bean curd."
"What?"
"Bean curd. You know, like tofu. Kind of sounds like tofu -– hao fu, tofu, tofu, hao fu. Pleased to meet you!"
"There's no way," she says, "it means inner peace."
"Did you bring the art to him, or did you pick it from a book at his shop?"
"He had a bunch of them on the wall."
"Well, I think the guy is having you on," I tell her. "He probably copied a bunch of symbols from a take-out menu and hung them up on the wall."
"I don't believe it," she says.
"Well, believe what you want, but I spent six years in mainland China teaching English when I first got out of college, and I picked up a little bit of Mandarin while I was there."
"Oh, shit."
"Here, don't believe me, let's look at a menu." I lift up the blotter on my desk, and underneath it is a utili-jac (kind of a glassine envelope) filled with take-out menus. About halfway through the stack is one from The Great Wall.
"Here it is, vegetarian meals, bean curd, HAO FU!" I hold out the menu, and there, in black and white, is the exact symbol she has on her arm (well, pretty close).
<img src=http://www.zug.com/daily/journal/graphics/040904_tattoo03.gif>
Now, you don't have to be trained as a graphic artist, or working for a company on the cutting edge of printing technology, to be able to scan and doctor a take-out menu. But if someone you know is, you might want to be a little wary of any printed documents they show you as proof of something.
"Oh, shit."
"Look," I tell her, sympathetically, "it's not as if anyone will know. Outside of actual Chinese people. And it could still mean the same thing to you that it always did. Wow! I better get back to work. And you better get that sign-off book back out to your operator."
As she left the room, I called out cheerily, "Song bie!"
I looked back and everyone in the room was looking at me, silent.
"You guys think she bought it?" I asked.
"Shit," said my assistant, Sam, "I bought it."
General hilarity ensued, and many congratulations, and much admiration of my mad, leet graphix skillz, and passing around of the phony menu. Only Roberta, one of my project managers, was unimpressed. She thought it was mean. And started making me feel guilty. So I went out to the bindery to 'fess up and apologize.
The poor girl was sitting in a chair, surrounded by four or five of her co-workers, crying hysterically. She started threatening to drive down to Sayerville and stab the tattoo artist, or to just slice the tat off herself. The permanent staff in the bindery had agreed that I was probably fluent in Chinese. It took me nearly three quarters of an hour to convince her that the whole thing was a joke. I had to take her back in the office and show her the original menu, and the doctored version on my computer, and finally to call my mother on the phone and have her verify that I had never been to China.
So the joy of my successful prank has been pretty well dulled, and I'll probably be facing disciplinary action for this, but at least I got an article out of it.
The Chinese Tattoo Prank
by Whistler
I get easily bored at work. One of the ways I amuse myself is by playing little tricks on my co-workers. The more elaborate the prank, the longer I'm able to remain amused, so I have no qualms about going to extraordinary lengths for a gag with the most minimal payoff. The punch line is not the point; it's the journey there that keeps me going.
My most recent scheme involved tattoos. I noticed how many people were getting tattoos of Chinese characters, and wondered why Americans of European descent think there is some special magical property to all things Asian. Buddhism, acupuncture, kung fu, feng shui: if this crap originated in Germany, no one would care.
So I got an idea. I started by talking to the delivery guy from the Chinese take-out near my office. I made up a few fake Chinese phrases from words I saw in a Chinese newspaper, and started throwing them out at him. Now, I have no idea how to speak Chinese. I couldn't figure out how to pronounce the stuff I had, or how to make sentences out of it, or what dialect it was, but none of that really mattered. What mattered was having the proper Charlie Chan accent and loud, confident delivery.
"Wan shang an!" I'd shout out when he came in. "Hao chi bao fan jin wan?"
The guy would respond, sometimes in English, I think, but no one can understand him, so sometimes I think he responded in Chinese. Once I think he said, "Crazy," in English, but I can't really be sure.
"Song bie!" I called out as he left. And he never failed to wave.
Naturally, some of the people who work for me asked if I knew how to speak Chinese. "Not really," was my response.
Anyway, we're in the middle of the busiest time of the year at work, and we have about 100 temps working for us. It is out of this group that I pick my mark: a young woman, probably 20 or so, and very pretty, in a kind of higher-class New Jersey trailer-park way. Sort of a skinnier, dirty-blonde version of Jessica Alba. She has a little haze of pot smoke around her, and a Chinese character tattooed on her bicep.
<img src=http://www.zug.com/daily/journal/graphics/040904_tattoo02.jpg>
She's working in our bindery, and the first copy of every job off the binding line has to come to my desk for approval. Eventually everyone has to come in here. Finally, my victim arrives.
My victim, the 20-something girl with the Chinese tattoo, has just walked into my office. "Hao dan!" I start.
"Huhnwha?" she replies.
"Wu zhuang diao?"
"Are you talking to me?"
"Mei yu sheng han?"
She stands there, looking confused.
"You don't speak Chinese?" I ask.
"No, why?"
"Well, I saw the tattoo, and I thought you must."
"No."
So I launch into the questions: what made her decide on a Chinese symbol, who was the artist, were they Chinese, everything except what the symbol stood for. She stammers through the answers, which boil down to no real reason for the Chinese, no real interest in Asian culture or language, just got the tat from some white American dude in a shop in Sayerville. Then she launches into an explanation of what it means: inner peace or some nonsense.
"No," I tell her, "it says 'hao fu,' which means bean curd."
"What?"
"Bean curd. You know, like tofu. Kind of sounds like tofu -– hao fu, tofu, tofu, hao fu. Pleased to meet you!"
"There's no way," she says, "it means inner peace."
"Did you bring the art to him, or did you pick it from a book at his shop?"
"He had a bunch of them on the wall."
"Well, I think the guy is having you on," I tell her. "He probably copied a bunch of symbols from a take-out menu and hung them up on the wall."
"I don't believe it," she says.
"Well, believe what you want, but I spent six years in mainland China teaching English when I first got out of college, and I picked up a little bit of Mandarin while I was there."
"Oh, shit."
"Here, don't believe me, let's look at a menu." I lift up the blotter on my desk, and underneath it is a utili-jac (kind of a glassine envelope) filled with take-out menus. About halfway through the stack is one from The Great Wall.
"Here it is, vegetarian meals, bean curd, HAO FU!" I hold out the menu, and there, in black and white, is the exact symbol she has on her arm (well, pretty close).
<img src=http://www.zug.com/daily/journal/graphics/040904_tattoo03.gif>
Now, you don't have to be trained as a graphic artist, or working for a company on the cutting edge of printing technology, to be able to scan and doctor a take-out menu. But if someone you know is, you might want to be a little wary of any printed documents they show you as proof of something.
"Oh, shit."
"Look," I tell her, sympathetically, "it's not as if anyone will know. Outside of actual Chinese people. And it could still mean the same thing to you that it always did. Wow! I better get back to work. And you better get that sign-off book back out to your operator."
As she left the room, I called out cheerily, "Song bie!"
I looked back and everyone in the room was looking at me, silent.
"You guys think she bought it?" I asked.
"Shit," said my assistant, Sam, "I bought it."
General hilarity ensued, and many congratulations, and much admiration of my mad, leet graphix skillz, and passing around of the phony menu. Only Roberta, one of my project managers, was unimpressed. She thought it was mean. And started making me feel guilty. So I went out to the bindery to 'fess up and apologize.
The poor girl was sitting in a chair, surrounded by four or five of her co-workers, crying hysterically. She started threatening to drive down to Sayerville and stab the tattoo artist, or to just slice the tat off herself. The permanent staff in the bindery had agreed that I was probably fluent in Chinese. It took me nearly three quarters of an hour to convince her that the whole thing was a joke. I had to take her back in the office and show her the original menu, and the doctored version on my computer, and finally to call my mother on the phone and have her verify that I had never been to China.
So the joy of my successful prank has been pretty well dulled, and I'll probably be facing disciplinary action for this, but at least I got an article out of it.
