China has some hilarious 'slightly insulting nicknames' for American pop stars

North American pop stars is that they're global icons. So, naturally, people around the world have fun with them.

Like in China.

In a post highlighted on Kottke, ethnographer Christina Xu collected a number of Chinese nicknames for pop stars like Drake and Nicki Minaj.

The results are hilarious and telling. Many of them are transliterations, where the letters of a word are imported into a new language.

Highlights include:

Nicki Minaj: ??? (má lÀ ji). "A slant transliteration of 'Minaj.' Means spicy chicken (ma la is a spice combo commonly used in Sichuan cooking)," Xu says.

Justin Bieber: ???? (bi buó jie jie). "Sister 'Bi buo,' a hyper-feminine transliteration of Bieber," Xu says.

Kanye West - ?? (kan yé): "A transliteration of Kanye," Xu says. "In Beijing dialect, this means someone who brags a lot with no actions to follow it up. (I actually love Kanye, but this is still damn good wordplay.)"

Go to Xu's Tumblr for her full list. The Kanye one is clearly the most hilarious.

Other Chinese celebrity nicknames are "Fruit Sister" (Katy Perry), "Lord of Butt" (Jennifer Lopez), "Pikachu" (Leonardo DiCaprio) and "Queen of Starbucks" (Britney Spears).