Eye catching headlines from China's English language paper of record:

Grand prize:

The nipple debate rises from breasts of liquid gold (March 21)

Runner up:

She was "he" with two "she" spending on "he-she" (March 23)

This week's grand prize winner is actually a ringer, reprinted from entertainment magazine City Weekend, but the headline has been embellished from City Weekend's succinct “The Nipple Debate”. It's reasonably sober article about a local entrepreneur's attempt to revive the ancient practice of wet nursing and the implications of China's infatuation with baby formula. You gotta give the China Daily sub-editor some credit for the re-intepretation.

The runner up comes from China Daily's regular “China Scene” page, which is, without question, the best part of the newspaper. China Scene falls after the usual lineup of protocol-order recounting of the pronouncements of central committee members, breathless praise of recent legislation  and hand-wringing over the dismal state of the coal mining industry (one of the topics currently approved for national self-criticism). It is a page of single-paragraph summaries of man-bites-dog stories gathered from far-flung provincial newspapers. If you are facing a long subway ride, it alone is often worth the 1 yuan the paper costs. If you are so compelled, China Scene can be found online under the paper's home section. Scroll to the bottom where you'll see the four regions listed: north, south, east and west.

Reading the China Daily is a bit like reading The Onion. At first glance it often looks like real news.