A Queer Discovery

Here's something I stumbled across on the Internet. As I mentioned previously, I used to live and work on Tongzhi Street (同志街), a commercial area known for its fashionable clothing stores and large number of street vendors. Now, tongzhi literally means "comrade," not unusual given the number of roads and streets named after old Communist party ideals. What I didn't know is that tongzhi is also Mandarin slang for homosexuals, roughly equivalent to the English term "gay."

I could make any number of cracks about living on Gay Street, but I'm trying to keep a little class here. Instead, let me just say that this is why you need to be super careful when speaking in another language. You don't always know what you're really saying.