Cup of Cha
This is China

For some reason, a lot of people in Beijing have decided that it is really cool to paint things onto the side of their cars. I have a friend who painted a giant Yankees logo onto the side of his car in New York, which seemed pretty dumb. But he was handed two world series tickets at a red light in 1998, so maybe it has some upside. Here, Yankees logos are not that common. The most common thing you see is a Transformers logo, oddly enough. I guess that means drivers aspire to be eight year-old Americans circa 1985. If they were going to go that route, I’d have gone with the A-Team.

The other thing you see, less surprisingly, is English phrases. Sometimes they make sense, other times they are down right confusing. Like the one I saw with the menacing logo…and most generic text possible:

Given the number of college girls in America walking around with tatoos on the small of their backs that say “I love syphilis” in Chinese, I’m not going to critique the language skills of these drivers.

However, I saw one recently, that had perfect English–at least in that it made sense.

The message, on the other hand, may be a little telling about different views on the role of police in society. In most US cities, the police department motto is “To serve and protect” (see below for the good folks at the SD Police Department).

In China, at least on driver views the role of the police differently:

And yes, they were talking about the police, although I am totally baffled as to why they imply the police were founded in 1865.

And all the while, my understanding was that the Chinese PLA was supposed to be celebrating 50th anniversary of the liberation from enslavement of the serfs in far western China. I guess the policies are regional.

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