Life on Nanchang Lu: For You! A Box of Assorted Chinglish

Small steps only please around the vintage car. Walking is OK, running is OK, goose-stepping is also OK, but kind of silly.

Thanks to the many requests from you over the last few months, here's another grab bag of China's best Chinglish to brighten up your Wednesday! The final, convincing request came from my eldest daughter, who would love it if her mum's blog could have something more 'awesome' than vegetables on it. Okay.

You always wondered how they got those bears into the bile farms, right?

Naive bears! This way please! Here's a Bear Paradise where you can drink honey juleps all day long!

All the wordly-wise and street smart bears gave this place a wide, wide berth.

Pete used to be allowed in, before he embarrassed himself by soiling the carpet.

With more lumber choices than Bunnings or B&Q, the well was enormously popular with home handymen and carpenters alike. Then one day - the timber just stopped.

I once had a dog....they say he was playing by the edge of the pond when an iron pillar leapt out of the water and grabbed him. Never seen again.

By an open window with a very low ledge. Four floors above the ground.

We've met this busy bee before, and it turns out he's helpful on all sorts of signs.

What exactly is he doing here though? Is he throwing a small black bee poo onto the ground? And is that scrunched up used toilet paper in his hand??

Danger! Dress watches falling from above!

In Yunnan they grow the world's most sensitive grass. Coddled like a baby, everyone has to tiptoe around the park at grass nap time.

Unlike the grass in Shanghai, where the neglect is obvious.

My own favourites are the Chinglish-ified shop names all over the country. Some are mystifying, some are just this side of a lawsuit, although I can't imagine any of the big names spotting their doppelgangers in far-off places like Harbin (above) or Kaili (below).

And yes, that's the shop owner frantically waving at me to stop taking photos. He fears copyright infringement - he's worried I might be a retail spy planning to open my very own Boebofry store in Shanghai.

Clever. No-one would ever know this place in downtown Kaili isn't the real thing.

Other shop names are not exactly wrong, they're just....not quite right. Who names their store 'Very Nice Woman'?

Or Densecity? (every time I see this shop I think of Back to the Future and George McFly saying to his future wife Lorraine - 'I'm your density. I mean, destiny')

Or why not pick some lotus seeds while shopping?

But the prize goes to this place. And no, it's not that kind of shop - it sells socks.

I mean, Gina is a pretty name and everything, and the cherry blossoms and love hearts are a nice touch, but if you're going to do something clever, it should never involve placing anything that looks remotely like the letter V before the name Gina. Just saying....