Balat Sa Pwet

In case you've been wondering what "Balat Sa Pwet" is in English, it's called a Mongolian Blue Spot. Or, quite simply, a birthmark in your buttocks. I kind of pity the Mongolians to have such a mark in your body that only appears in the buttcheek region be named after their race. I mean, shit, they could just have named it "blue spot of awesomeness that is not awesome" for all we care. But no. It had to be mongolian.

Seriously speaking though, these birthmarks are limited to people of Asian descent, particulary the mongoloid subspecies of man (i.e. people with slanted eyes). A racist birthmark, yay! They're supposed to disappear after a while too. It's like marks of God kicking you in the buttocks just before you enter earth, so you know by preview what to expect if you screw up.

One odd local tradition about these things though is that the old people from the provinces deem birthmarks as unlucky signs. When something goes wrong they'd say "Sino ba dito may balat sa pwet?" (Who in here has a birthmark in his ass?")

That shit is just wrong. I mean, how did they find out that a birthmark in the arm is not as unlucky as a mark in your butt? Did they do trial and error on this one? I can imagine now:

Village Elder: Another villager died from a falling tree today.
Villager: uhuh.
Village Elder: That's the third one this week.
Villager: Maybe we should stop cutting trees using knives so they dont fall on us.
Village Elder: That's retarded. What will you be suggesting next? Serrated foot-long blades?
Villager: But...
Village Elder: Who's your village elder? I call the shots here.
Villager: ...
Village Elder: Have you checked the corpse for funny marks?
Villager: There's one dark shade in his buttocks, sir.
Village Elder: Eureka! I think we've solved our problems.

For the record, I had a birthmark when I was a kid and yes, I was so damn afraid of showing it to other people because they will inevitably blame me for anything from natural calamities to their own stupidity, with emphasis on the latter.

For me, I think these blue marks are just proof of nature that being alive kicks ass.