The Shindog Blog
Beijing is a pretty grubby place ... theres always so much construction work going on ... you see these guys everywhere around the city picking up rubbish and sweeping up ...they're called 'sanitary workers'. They will either empty into a nearby bin or theres the mobile variety which sports a bin on wheels, (thats a push bike!).... they will empty the bins and transport the contents back to a central rubbish depot where its sorted and disposed of. They all have the same type of uniform and always wear the mouth napkin. I guess every city has there own flavour them .. the interesting thing here is they use STRAW brooms! It was interesting to watch the intense clean up effort pre olympics .. which has now lapsed a little... we were travelling home to liuliqiao last week ... laopo says ...'You see!! after olympic eveything messy again!' ...as a bunch of styrophoam balls blew past. But in general i think people are a little more keen to clean ... at least liuliqiao seems to get a sweep more often these days anyway. |
 |
| This is the police ! back to work! ...( i have to say that .. Chairman Mao is watching me! ) |
 |
| OK this is not the same worker .. and take a closer look .. she is a specialist sanitary worker ... that tool she is holding is not a broom... its a little picker thing ... its used to pick up cigarette butts and other small items of rubbish which get stuck in the cracks that the straw brooms can't handle. |
 |
| A BJ mobile recycling unit .. thats a 2 speed trike complete with dual broom sticks ... nhiiiice! ;) I'll find out what that says in chinese .. or can any of my readers enlighten me? Thats gotta be harry potters dream machine .. he'd have it crankin! |
 |
Now this is something that has just become one of those things that people have become used to but loathe ... its a subway entrance xray machine! They were introduced about a month before the olympics and everyone was waiting for them to be ditched post olympics but there still in operation!. There is at least one at every subway entrance staffed with 2 - 3 workers, every station has at least 2 entrances , and the busy subways often have 2 machines ... if you haven't seen my previous post about busy subway stations go take a look at the 24th october post. Beijing has more than 7 different lines with over 100 stations ... thats a small army of workers employed as bomb sniffers! Interestingly enough I can just cruise past them ... yesterday I had 2 suspicious bags full of electronics and what not .. i though i'd get pulled up for skipping the scanner isle whilst holding them for sure .. if any one looked like a bomber it was me! but no just waltzed past ... laopo says they're too shy to annoy the foreigners! Makes it easy for me to jump the scan queue! For tomorrows post i'll show you the bomb arrest units! (if i dont forget the L730 camera) ...just incase they need to stick a bomb somewhere they have these big blue bomb holder things on every subway platform .. just in case one gets through! |
 |
| This is your typical fruit stall seller in LiuLiQiao ... i call it 'shou ar de baba guo' (little number 2's dad fruit). The family lives behind the stall ... its another husband - wife operation and they have a couple of children one is called 'litte 2'. He is quite a cutey...he's about 4 years old now and i often give him some candy or ice cream ... he calls me uncle! .... in china an older person you are familiar with is often referred to as aunty or uncle ... i've seen the little guy get burn't by hot water ... he pulled some boiling water from a stove. He got a lot of candy. They have recently diversified into water sales and in the evenings they open up a small grill and sell 'sticks' ... pieces of meat on a stick ... stick sellers are everywhere!!! i'll save that for another days blog! |
 |
Shenme Dongxi!!!
"every day in china you see something (shenme dongxi) you don't see every day" [one billion customers; auth : i cant remember ... will find out tomorrow] . This little section is dedicated to that weird or strange thing which inadvertently you see everyday in china .. so to prove a point i'll see if i can find one 'mai tian do' (every day).Tai Chi Meets line dancing 30.10.08
| Ok todays shenme dongxi is from fruit park (guo yuan)... nearby our new apartment block .. we were on the way to the di tia jan (subway station) ...i've seen this sort of thing for a long time .. usually it's the elderly with a bit of time to spare ... or the stay home mums ... mostly you see it in the evenings and sometimes they are accompanied by live chinese style instruments ...cymbals, ar hu's...other times someone just puts down a ghetto blaster and pumps out some tunes ... it's 99% females ... and i have been known to sneak in a step ... or 3! |
 |
 |
 |
