Ouch.

The other day I got an email notification that I had received a comment on my blog from a name I did not recognize. And I was all, Oh super! I see what's happening here! Obviously strangers are reading my blog and love it so much, they feel compelled to leave me comments! So in the midst of my giddiness, I logged onto my account and realized that the Mystery Fan's comment was in some sort of foreign Chinese-ish language. Maybe it was Japanese? Mandarin? Vietnamese? Forgive me, I really don't know. But it was the sort of language that uses those crazy symbols for letters. At first I was really disappointed, because there was no way of my translating a word here and there (as I could have with Spanish. Or Pig Latin), and NOW how in the world was I supposed to know what my Secret Admirer loved the most about my blog? How can I connect with my sweet little International Reader if I can't understand his/her feedback? This was a quandary.

And then I made the discovery that their comment was clickable! Hooray! A link that would surely bring me to a whole new world-- theirs! Perhaps it would even lead me to their blog? And I could learn a little bit more about my Secret Admirer? I could see what we have in common, what our common interests were, what led them to my own blog?

Or, Just Kidding.

Turns out it was just spam. The pornographic kind. Good old Chinese/Japanese/Vietnamese porno spam.  Getting that smut in English is annoying enough, but in another crazy language? Ten times worse. So thanks for that, International Secret Admirer.

Bottom line: no one from China (or Japan or Vietnam) reads my blog. And for the record, it appears I'll be having a slice of Humble Pie for dinner. Delish.