Cool.  A good friend of mine's family lives in Beijing, or as his mother calls it, Peking.  I think the worst threat is respiratory illness and water/food born pathogens. 

Just what ever you do, watch out for "Firepot."  I don't remember what they called it in Chinese, but I had a run-in with a really good, but really bad dish at my friend’s house.  They invited me to come over for some traditional Chinese, family-style eating.  I agreed.  She laid out several types of fish, meat, vegetables, mushrooms, dumplings and unknowns in bowls on a table.  My personal favorite was "squid balls."  They looked like donut holes made of mashing squid parts together until it formed raw balls.  She would take some shrimp, random fish, squid balls and whatever else her little hands could grasp and throw them into a rice cooker (full of boiling water) in the middle of the table.  Then we all reached in to a central rice dish w/ our hands or chop sticks and grabbed rice and some special spicy sauce.  The first course was delicious, but it went downhill from there.  Your little bowl didn't hold enough for the entire dinner, so the expectation was that you just reach in (with your slobbery chopsticks) and get what you want throughout the meal.  The problem was, she would periodically throw new uncooked items into the mix, at random intervals.  The result was that you never knew if what you grabbed would be cooked.  I don't think I'll forget my first raw squid ball, and shrimp isn't so rockin' raw either....not sushi grade...  There was no dumping bowl for bones or shells, so everyone just piled their scraps up on the table...interesting.  We were having a good time and I was adjusting to the cultural rhythm of the ever-so-often thoroughly cooked squid ball, when the hostess (Yen-Yin Wang) asked if I would like dessert.  I wiped the eel drip and rice off my little beard and politely asked what she had in mind.  She replied, "We a haveen Reeches."  I said, "Did you say Leeches?"  "Yes, Reeches."  My friend (and her husband) Jian Feng Wang said, "Oh! Reeches. You wir rike reeches."  Not to be outdone by my friend who apparently could stomach more than our old dog, I sucked it up and said that I would like to try a leech.  Going through my mind was fishing with my grandfather in Southern Missouri when I was a kid and using leeches for bait.  They were squirmy little nasty wormlike bloodsuckers and I was about to join ranks with the fish that ate them.  Much to my surprise she brought out some bowls full of delicious tropical fruits called Leeches (I think pronounced Leecheese).  I was relieved, but that too was short lived.  I left my friends little apartment and headed home.  It wasn't more than 3 miles out of 15 before a little red emperor inside me started on his conquest.  I pulled over for an emergency pit stop at a very unlucky Ruby Tuesdays and rode for 8 on their pristine porcelain.  All I can say is that I was just relieved to get home.  Moral of the story, I don't know....Beware of the Firepot?!

Marc