Chinglish, or Chinese-ified English, is one of those quirky aspects of living and traveling in Chinese-speaking countries that brings a smile to my face. In general, the best Chinglish can be found in mainland China, where, not coincidentally, the level of English is the lowest. In Taiwan, you have to look a little bit harder for the really good examples. But they’re out there.

The simplest type of Chinglish involves printing really obvious — or sometimes not quite so obvious — spelling errors or other typos. As a student in Fuzhou, China in 1999, I remember being really pumped (dated pun intended) about buying really cheap Reebok sneakers. On closer examination, they were actually “Rebeok” brand. (In Chinese knock-off land, Chinglish printed on the product itself or its packaging is a particularly bad omen. Those sneakers lasted less than a week.) At one store, also in Fuzhou, I bought an “Aew Yorr Knicks” basketball jersey. (Didn’t you know? The Aew Yorr Knicks are a caber-tossing team from the Shetland Islands.) And my favorite was a T-shirt I saw in one mainland Chinese clothing stall. I think the design was an imitation of a University of Arizona shirt, but perhaps it was copied from a blurry photo, or by a severely vision-impaired person, because the manufacturer seemed to have replaced about half the letters with random x, q, k, and other letters that any native speaker of English would instantly recognize as not going together. The result was almost completely incomprehensible, but, sort of like pretentious Americans or Britons who like to sprinkle French phrases into their conversations, I think young Chinese like to wear clothing with English (or Chinglish) logos on it because they think it makes them seem worldly and sophisticated.

However, the truly sublime examples of Chinglish are those that transcend mere spelling and grammar problems and leap fearlessly into the realm of complete absurdity. Enjoy these two. And you’re welcome.