Smiling Beijing Traffic Police

I've been in my current job for seven years almost to the week. When I joined, I hoped for a bit of travel around Scotland but never expected to go on a trip to China. Two weeks ago, I left for Beijing. One week ago, I returned and the question you might ask is, "Why has someone who suffers from Writers' Ego taken so long to get a piece about his trip out there for others to read?"

Arriving in Beijing during a photochemical smog that would make world news, I quickly decided that I'd have a wheen of  amusing things to say about Chinese driving. Cheating death under a bitter-lemon sky, I felt there was a lot that could be said about a nation that has gone from bicycle to car perhaps too quickly. There was a metaphor in there that, like an electric moped, I couldn't quite hear but which sooner or later would bowl me over. Then there were the signs. Beside the Path to the Tombs, "Cherish Flower and Grass to Care About Future". 

To my shame, when I first saw that, I marked the occasion with a slight twist to one side of my mouth. When we stopped to picture the Olympic Stadium, I spent more time trying to capture a gantry sign with two cartoon cops and the words, "Smiling Beijing Traffic Police".

After a week, "Keep of the Grass" seemed cold and harsh. There was nothing wrong with calling a pile of rocks in the garden of the Forbidden City "The Hill of Accumulated Elegance". When we arrived at a science teaching equipment factory to find our names in lights over the entrance, I knew that had I remained in Scotland and heard about this happening to colleagues, I would have laughed. And not necessarily in a good way. In Shanghai, no. 

Two factors were at play. First off, from the moment we met our mentor Mr Sun, as he stood holding a card with our names on it at the arrivals area of Beijing Airport, we were treated with warmth and kindness. To laugh at something that was yet another example of the thoughtfulness that characterised our dealings with Chinese colleagues would be a betrayal of our hosts. Secondly, it's all genuine. Perhaps the "Cherish..." notice clunks a bit due to translation, but it does the right thing, backing up the message about the way you should behave with the reason you should behave that way.

I do wonder, though, if the Beijing Traffic Police really do have much to smile about.

(Great visit - some non-business photos here if you're interested.)