It’s been very gratifying to read all the encouraging comments and emails from ye blessed carpetbagging readers! Thanks! And yes, I’m blessed to have such beautiful kids. Especially in the following cases:

My nephew Jordon asked me today, “Uncle Jon - do you remember my dream last night when we were both kids and we played together?” I thought it was cute that he’d dream of us being the same age and playmates, and that he expected me to remember it. Time to up the Ritalyn!

My daughter was throwing a tantrum at a friend’s restaurant. I took her outside to calm down and to look at the live animals on display. I asked her what she wanted to eat, she screamed and writhed. i asked her,

“How about some ice cream?”
“No”
“Well, what, then?”
“I want to eat — THAT!” and she pointed directly at the cutest bunny rabbit in the cage. At least I know she’s really Chinese. Bless her heart. And yes, Thumper tasted like chicken.

Back to the show. Note: I am sitting on the mother-lode - something so rife with comedy I had tears streaming down my face. Expect that in the next few days. It will take some time to edit the pics.

the SGM stands for Super Guts Machine. 3 in 1 guts, to be exact. I think it was a transformer. I think they should work a Super Guts Machine into “Saw III.”

a what’s who? I keep expecting the waitstaff to speak the gibberish they’re putting on the signs. Imagine a nation of people educated with this kind of English? “Crooked on Phonics.”

Quick, let me ask if this is a restaurant or a massage parlor before my wife throws something at me. too late. It doesn’t sound cheap. ouch!

With a name like that, I bet they don’t have a big selection.

“I wonder why our stuff doesn’t sell well overseas…”

I expected the Store Master to come out in the traditional kung fu outfit, then challenge me to a fight to save face. “My Finity Fist will destroy your ‘Golden Swallow.’” Yeah, I need help.

Let one person understand this English. Let it known to world. (By the way, Foshan is where I live, at least when I’m in China.)

When you don’t just have one acne, you have them all.

you could make me happy to…what? This was a Coca-Cola clock, by the way. Since when do corporations start speaking in the first person?

somehow, of all things, modesty gets the shaft most in translation.

a partial catch - spotted in the corner of the previous pic - the “Satisfied Gulf Restaurant.” An evocative, if overstated, name.

it was a model car, not a gold-plated life-raft, as the packaging suggests.

“Be the first on your block to own the Surmount Truck!” And since when did friction power anything? OK, did I just come off as retarded? Let’s move on…

an apt name. I wasn’t sure if they meant the person or the place.

when I saw this my first thought was of Jame Gum dancing in the basement in Silence of the Lambs

impossible to read the label plastic thus