Bill says he’s lived in the same building in Shenzhen, China for four years, “and the place still cracks me up, daily.” The latest from his building’s noticeboard:

related: Beware of falling hairballs

Kat is currently living abroad teaching English in Japan, and although she speaks to her parents every week, that’s apparently not cutting it with her Dad, who’d prefer more detailed letters.

Rather than communicate this directly to Kat, however, Daddy dearest decided to use the family’s new kitten, Faisal, as his mouthpiece. The result? The finest in super kawaii emotional manipulation!

Now somebody get that man a wasabi-flavored Kit Kat, stat.

related: I can has guilt trip?

Our submitter, an English teacher in Thailand, received this letter from a parent so notorious at the school for notes like this that she has her own nickname among the staff — “SS, as in nuttier than squirrel shit.” The exasperating part, our submitter says, is the mother’s uncanny ability to “correct” non-mistakes in her daughter’s essays. (“As you may guess from reading, the daughter’s English is better than her own,” she says.)

And as tempted as she was to correct the mother’s grammar in her note, “I had to stop, for fear of my head exploding.”

If that note left a bit of a bad taste in your mouth (or you’re one of those short-attention span “TL;DR types,”) not to worry: enjoy this end-of-the-year note written to a first-grade teacher in Atlanta. No, it’s not passive-aggressive…just adorable.

related: Sympathy for the Devil

Juliet from Los Angeles came upon this sign near the summit of a 12-km hike up Turrialba Volcano, in Costa Rica. “As I stared down into giant crater of the active volcano, dotted with sulfur pools, I realized the sign was right. Swimming in those pools probably wasn’t worth the expense.”

The dryly practical approach seems to be a popular one at tourist locations around the world — especially zoos, such as this one on Langkawi Island:

Meanwhile, this resort in the Bahamas adds its own whimsical twist:

related: You don’t need a cell phone to talk to God

“There are many ethnicities crammed into a fairly small area here,” writes John in Singapore, “and sometimes there are…frictions. The red bin referred to in the note (at the bottom of the photo there) is an incinerator for firing up offerings to various deities/dearly departed by Chinese Buddhists. They are all over the place here in Chinatown, and everybody knows what they’re for.”

Without a doubt, John says, “The Korean gentleman using it as an ashtray is provoking his neighbors deliberately.” How…how…what’s the word I’m looking for here?

related: it’s not a race (it’s a social construct)

Caitlin at Ontario College didn’t write this note, but she feels for the person who did — she and four friends on her floor also had panties go missing from the dorm laundry room. “The thief seemed to particularly prefer black thongs,” she says. (Unlike the notewriter, however, they don’t necessarily want them back.)

Since then, however, it seems the thief may have (ahem) moved south of the border. The female residents of Alexis’s apartment building in Seattle are now facing a similar problem.

And then…well, then there’s Japan. Jason spotted this note in Tokyo when he was staying there a few years back. Unfortunately, he never got the whole story, but that might be for the best.

related: Are you there, Margaret?

extra credit: Panty thief busted, then busted up [the smoking gun]
Panty thief jailed for laundry larceny [msnbc]

Which clip art catastrophe raises the most new and troubling questions in your mind?

Is it exhibit a, from New York’s West Village?

(Think about the designer’s thought process here for a moment. Why the sunglasses? And not just any shades…but electric blue? Ditto, the sunflower.)

Exhibit b, From a casino in Cambodia?

(Does no crossed out mean…yes?)

Or exhibit c, from a pharmacy in Berlin?

(Trust me: speaking German is no help here.)

If you can’t decide, remember that your first instinct is usually the best choice (um, except when it’s not).

related: clip art crimes

Finding funny-haha Engrish signs in Japan is almost too easy, but Biella from New York didn’t settle for cheap laughs during her trip. “Your English is good,” one might say, but this club’s “advisory” about the Tokyo police is pure paranoiac gold.

extra credit: Uniformed vigilantes patrol tokyo streets to intimidate slackers [boingboing.net]

This note is from an the Philippines, but don’t try and write this off entirely as a “cultural thing.”

Camille in Manila says she finds “do not step on the toilet bowl” quite baffling, too, adding “stepping on the toilet could also mean probably stepping ‘into’ the toilet bowl itself, which is rather, uh, gross.”