Why, mannequin? Why???

 ...if you're anything like me, you're frequently captivated all over again, as though for the very first time, by the appearance of such things as were common enough back 'home', mannequin bits for instance, and how China manages to interweave them into public space in an entirely unexpected way...
    
        

What I mean is this delightful slice of imminent assembly/disassembly in progress would almost certainly never occur on a sidewalk in Kanuckistan, while here it's as common as 你好。。。photographs like this throw themselves at you by the dozen.

I took this last year in Kunming. Two hours later I walked by in the other direction, and manly mannequin was just as you see him here, all in his untogetherness, laid out with an odd sort of precision, unmoved, a monument to patience...
        

Thanks Maifeilan! The mind Boggles!  Maybe they heard something about Italian men. Rather than locking up their daughters, they decided to tie up the men.

It's Jimmy Hoffa!

Thanks Stil. How nice of them to strategically place that hand and block the view.

Thanks for the photos Stil! I'll leave the comments for the first one to the guys. In the second one, my comment is "Now that is what I call a Peter warmer!"

Looking at the second last pic (two pair if legs in an alley), I have to wonder if this is how third world mannequins end up when they've been kidnapped and had their organs harvested.

I think this bloke has had an organ harvested. Stil, do you know what is written on the paper stuck to his torso?

Must have been a zombie attack.  He lost both of his brains.

Stil, do you know what is written on the paper stuck to his torso?

It looks like

出售模特共有四个 chūshòu mótè gòng yǒu sìgè

There are 4 of the mannequins for sale.

I definately don't want the one on the far right

When I took this photo in 2007 my interest was not in the mannequin. It was taken while  I stood in the street and admired the painstaking workmanship of the signage.

   "Hong Bin, skilled artisan and signwriter of No.61 Work Group, finished the final curlicue with a flourish and stepped back to admire his work. While the signage was limited to a small shop window there was some satisfaction to be gained from the knowledge that he was the first in the city to complete a sign in the English language. Only a Master of the craft would have had the necessary skills to accomplish such a task.

For all that, there was something about the signage that niggled away in the back of his mind. There had been no problem replicating the English letters - the simple letters of the barbarian language were, as it turned out, easily copied. No, his feelings of uneasiness had started when inscribing the few Chinese characters that introduced the phone number.

A muffled scream shattered his reverie. He turned in time to see Shop Boss snatch up a cleaver from his desk and advance towards him ..........."