The Ladies Cannot
Resist Skinny Skin
Monkey
hey don’t do it so much anymore, but
the Chinese entertainment media of an
earlier generation used to sometimes refer
to American celebrities by special, locally-
invented nicknames.
Some of them were a little insulting — for
example, Frank Sinatra was known as
“Skinny Skin Monkey”
瘦皮猴
in reference to the very slim Sinatra of the
1930s. To this day, Sinatra is called by this
name in Chinese.
Likewise, Elvis Presley’s Chinese name is
“Cat King”
猫王
He was called this because of the
screaming bands of teenage girls that
always surrounded him.
And Elizabeth Taylor was called “Jade Girl”
玉女
I’m told this was because of the color of
her eyes, though they were closer to violet
than green.
Nowadays, there seems to be much less
enthusiasm in China for coining inventive
names for famous foreigners. It’s more
along the lines of “Ah-nwo” (阿诺) for
Arnold Schwarzenegger, just in an
approximation of his name.
That said, former U.S. President George W.
Bush ended up for a while with the
unfortunate Chinese name “Little Bush” (小
布什 – shao-boo-shur), though really he
was just called that to distinguish him
from his father, “Old Bush” (老布什 – lao-
boo-shur). In any case, a few years into his
presidency he became known as just
“Bush”. On the other hand, the name of
John Quincy Adams gets rendered
phonetically, rather than calling him “Little
Adams”, but that’s likely because almost
no one in China (or anywhere else outside
the U.S.) has ever heard of John Quincy
Adams.