Published by Swiss James on 28 May 2008 at 05:12 pm
A sense of security
Recently- following either the recent bus explosion, the Tibet protests, or just general Olympic related paranoia, the transport cops have been getting really antsy.
At a lot of subway stations there are guys checking anyone with a heavy looking bag to see if it’s full of plastic explosive or popping candy. At the Maglev station, they recently started X-Raying my laptop case，(although not KFC bags I notice).
There’s also a cool set of posters up around the place- the ones where the letters S-E-C-U-R-I-T-Y spell out the Chinese equivalent “平安” are my favourite. Ironically，I’ve stolen about 8 copies of that one.
They also have these new safety videos running on the subway trains with a pig doing all sorts of unsafe behavior like rollerblading in the station, piling his belongings in the subway doorway and not “minding the gap”*
*That’s a Hong Kong-ism imported from the UK
That security sign looks like something Xu Bing would make, he’s an artist that works mostly (completely?) with calligraphy and Chinese characters. One of his main works is painting Chinese-looking characters that are actually made up of our regular Latin alphabet. You can see a couple examples here: http://lib.hku.hk/friends/reading_club/bt2003_6.html
Talk about sense of security it is kinda hard for most Chinese ppl to have recently…especially with those freaky forecast and rumors spreading around,, here is my favorite one: the five Fuwa ( the Beijing Olympic mascots) ,, on one’s head is a kite( Shandong is famous for kite) ,, there was the train accident in Shandong ; on another’s head is Tibetan antelope, there was the riot in Tibet; on another’s is Olympic torch, there was the torch relay drama; and another is panda, then here is the earthquake!!! so one left is the fish…. anyone living beside the sea should be careful… haha… maybe including Shanghai!!
ok this is not funny and it is always easy to make stories AFTER the disater…but I just respect these ppl’s imagination…
so James since u have 8 pieces can I borrow one to hang at my door so I can sleep tight!!
there’s going to be a fish disaster? oh crap, I just had sushi for lunch.
My days are numbered…
T- that crazy pig, I’m always watching his adventures on the subway and shouting out
“Leave your phone! Don’t chase it onto the tracks!”
have you seen how much orange pop he drinks too? Oh he keeps me up at night.
Tora- cool calligraphy stuff, I’m going to have a good look at that later, cheers
Rita- I like that rumour a lot, it means there’s only one problem left. Fish sounds like it’ll be Qingdao next time, although I suppose Shandong has already had its problem
dingle- best stick to sausage and mash, you know where you are then
Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made - Otto von Bismarck
Rita - Very imaginative. It’s lucky one of the mascots isn’t George W Bush, because it would be a pity if he suffered some kind of disaster.
Actually it would be - because then Dick Cheney would be the President of the United States, and that, would be much worse, because then we go from Chimpy McFlightsuit of incompetence to the pure, unadulterated evil of Cheney.