BEIJING – On Monday, a Chinese boy took the ride of his very young life. The 3-year-old was in the care of his grandfather when he decided that he wanted to see his mother, who works at a local KFC restaurant.

The kindergartener, from the city of Wenzhou in China’s eastern province of Zhejiang, waited until his grandfather had gone to the bathroom, then set off through the streets on a toy motorcycle.

The bike had been a gift of a relative who had left the battery out of the bike. But the boy’s grandfather, surnamed Peng, had decided to install the battery.

The child rode about 1.3 miles before arriving at a major Wenzhou traffic intersection.

Without pausing, the boy zipped right into the middle of the intersection, avoiding buses and other vehicles.

Boy shrugs off talk of fear
At that point, a traffic policeman named Zhang spotted the boy weaving through the cars and gestured toward him to stop the bike, then escorted him to the side of the road.

The boy didn’t know his family’s phone number, but his anxious grandfather – who takes care of his grandson while the parents work – was frantically looking for him on the streets and eventually came across them.

Asked later by Zhang whether he was scared at any point, the boy merely shrugged and said he had already learned how to cross a street.

No word yet whether Zhang cited the boy for traffic violations or let him off with just a warning and a little traffic school.

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BEIJING – For all the grief the Obama administration is getting from China for filing a complaint with the World Trade Organization about Chinese tariffs on American chicken exports, perhaps the president should be suing China for royalties instead.

We’ve seen Obama peddle chicken for Kentucky Fried Chicken in Hong Kong, so it was just a matter of time before he broke loose and got his own franchise here in the mainland.

Obama Fried Chicken, or at least what we assume OFC stands for, was found earlier this week in Beijing and comes with the slogan written underneath in Chinese: “We’re so cool, aren’t we?”

Indeed...

Thanks to the team at Shanghaiist for the photo.