Beijing Public Safety Dog

This past week in Beijing, in the taxi on the way to a meeting I snapped this fun picture. Two big ol' police dawgs riding in the back of a police truck. Two interesting things about this picture. First of all, on police cars in China, painted across the hood (only) of all the police cars I've seen there are "POLICE" (in English) and "KEISATSU" (or at least that's how the two kanji characters would be pronounced in Japanese) in Chinese. However, everywhere else on the car is the phrase "PUBLIC SAFETY." The second thing is that these puppies would be ILLEGAL in Beijing (if they weren't police puppies). I was reading an article in a local paper in Beijing this week that it is illegal (you cannot get a permit) to have a dog taller than 35cm at the shoulders. Illegal or not, I don't think I'd want to get in a mixup with these public safety dogs!

I had an interesting cultural experience the other day in Beijing, as well. Since I am on quite the tight budget on this trip, I have eaten twice at McDonald's. The Mickey Dees right across from the Beijing Railway Station (pic at right) that I ate at was really crowded, but I happened to find a spot at a two-person table, and I sat down. Shortly thereafter, some Chinese dewd (in China - go figure!) gestured to my table, inquiring as to whether or not he could also sit at the table. I gestured back that he could. He sat and we both ate in complete silence. This is interesting because it would SO NOT HAPPEN in Japan!!! Because of this, Japan has the mistaken perception that the Japanese don't like foreigners. Not so!!! In fact, they love foreigners, but they are embarrassed because they don't speak English (all throughout Asia, if a white person is present, it's automatically assumed he/she speaks English - another cultural discussion altogether). So to avoid the embarrassment of not being able to communicate, on trains, in restaurants... in all public settings, Japanese will tend to shy away from foreigners. So I thought it interesting that this Chinese guy would come up and sit at my table so readily.

With meetings in Japan on Monday and it being cheaper to stay in China rather than heading to Japan for the weekend, I had a free day in Beijing on Saturday. I've been to the Forbidden City and seen the Beijing Olympic venues, but I had never been to the Great Wall. As such, I was really looking forward to it!!! So I purchased a really cheap tour bus ticket out there and set out, in spite of weather in Beijing being a little bit questionable. But after the 90-minute bus ride out there, the weather was much worse. Went to the "Mutianyu" section of the Wall, which is quite high up (you take a cable car ride up), and even covered in snow during the winter. Especially up at the Wall, the rain and fog were so thick that at points I couldn't see more than 20 feet in front of me. This picture on the left is one of the better ones; you can actually see part of the Wall. It was still good to be there, though. Now at least I can say, "Been there. Done that." (but didn't get the tee shirt)

And finally, I just LOVE these little motorcycles you see all over China (pic at right). Or these cool, or what?!

I've posted 55 pics from Beijing to my Flickr account; you can check them out here.