Hong Kong eateries welcome dogs as city relaxes ban

HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong dog owners and their four-legged friends have gained new freedoms after the city relaxed a decades-old rule, allowing the pets to join them at eateries.

Since 1994, only guide dogs and those performing statutory duties were allowed in restaurants under the city's food business regulation. But the policy change aimed at promoting a pet-friendly culture kicked in Thursday, covering over 900 approved restaurants in the measure's first phase.

It is the city’s latest step toward building an animal-friendly society. Hong Kong now allows pets on certain ferry routes and some metro trains serving rural areas, and public hospitals have started permitting pet visits for palliative care patients.

According to the government, more than 240,000 households in the city keep over 400,000 pet cats and dogs, accounting for about 9% of the city’s households.

At Wan Land Cafe, owner Kelvin Chan proudly put up a poster saying his establishment can welcome dogs. Previously, dogs were only allowed in its outdoor area, making it tough for the animals during the hot and humid Hong Kong summer.

Chan doesn’t think the new policy will bring a spike in business, but as a dog owner himself, he hopes that it will cultivate a more pet-friendly society. He noted that while dog lovers welcome the change, it might be a challenge for those who are not used to eating out with dogs around.

He hopes that responsible pet owners in restaurants and other public spaces will eventually help nonpet lovers warm up to the idea and understand that being inclusive of pets is a progressive move.

“It could become part of our lives,” he said.

Franco Li, a regular at this cafe, said his Shiba, named Piku, is happy to have embraced a new way of living that allows it to join Li around the dining table and play with other dog friends.

“This is such a great step forward for civilization,” Li said, holding Piku in his arms.

To prepare for the change, some dog owners have been taking their pets to “dog dining etiquette workshops."

Heyton Lee, a dog trainer for 19 years, was particularly busy ahead of the new measure. His two-hour program that simulated a restaurant setting started with dog owners walking around the restaurant to encourage their pets to stay calm and not get overly-excited when they see their dog friends.

Lee also demonstrated some hand signs which are commonly used to instruct dogs to behave. The main goal was to teach dogs to be calm and show them how to take part in human society. For example, helping them understand that when people walk past them, the humans do not intend to kick them, he said.

“If a dog is just at home, when it goes out, it could get very nervous. Even if it’s just that people want to touch them, they might not want to let people do that,” he said.

Under the new measure, dogs must be kept on a leash not exceeding 1.5 meters (5 feet) that must be held by an adult or tied to a fixture. The dogs should also be kept off tables, and may not consume food directly from reusable human utensils.

Dogs considered to be among the “fighting breed” by government standards are not allowed in the establishments at all.

Restaurants cannot cook food for the dogs but can offer prepackaged food to the pets.

Many eateries have also geared up to welcome their furry customers, with some of them hoping it would help boost their revenues.

Old Fung Teahouse, a dim sum restaurant, invested more than 10,000 Hong Kong dollars ($1,276) in its preparation, installing an air purifier and setting up simple partitions to separate an area for tables serving pet owners. It also provides pet strollers and cleaning products. Its operators hope opening up to dogs might bring up to a 15% increase in business.

Ma Ke, a tourist from mainland China, was happy with the restaurant’s handling of the new measure.

“By separating an area for dogs and their owners, this restaurant is managing the situation well, because it makes it easier for customers who are not that used to being with dogs to accept the situation,” he said.

A customer feeds his dog inside the Wan Land Cafe on the first day dogs are legally permitted in restaurants in Hong Kong, Thursday, July 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Chan Long Hei)

Wan Land Cafe owner Kelvin Chan sticks a poster inside the cafe indicates that dogs are legally permitted in dining premises in Hong Kong, Thursday, July 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Chan Long Hei)

A customer holds his dog inside the Wan Land Cafe on the first day dogs are legally permitted in restaurants in Hong Kong, Thursday, July 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Chan Long Hei)

Dogs sit leashed on their owners at a dining table inside the Wan Land Cafe on the first day dogs are legally permitted in restaurants in Hong Kong, Thursday, July 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Chan Long Hei)

A dog sits on its owner at a dining table inside the Wan Land Cafe on the first day dogs are legally permitted in restaurants in Hong Kong, Thursday, July 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Chan Long Hei)

LONDON (AP) — After almost 1,000 years, the Bayeux Tapestry is back on English soil.

In scenes like a heist movie in reverse, the priceless Medieval artwork was spirited into the British Museum on Friday in the dead of night, after a high-tech, tight-security operation where any slip-up could have spelled disaster.

On loan from its home in France, the tapestry will go on display at the London museum from Sept. 10 until July 2027. It's a public homecoming for a vivid visual record of the 1066 Norman invasion, the last successful conquest of England.

The tapestry's arrival in London has been widely anticipated, but due to security concerns all details of when and how it would arrive have been kept under wraps.

“It feels extraordinary that after so much work and planning and care and thought that it’s actually happening,” British Museum Director Nicholas Cullinan said as he awaited the arrival after a secrecy-shrouded journey.

“It’s the first time in 1,000 years that such an important piece of British — French too — history is going to be on these shores,” he said. “It’s incredibly exciting.”

The 70-meter (230-foot) tapestry was folded accordion-style in a climate-controlled case that was placed inside a shock-absorbing cradle. That went into a truck that crossed from France on a vehicle shuttle train through the Channel Tunnel.

After an 11-hour, 350-mile (560-kilometer) trip, escorted by police, the truck backed slowly into a loading bay at the museum, where workers gingerly eased the container, the size of a small car, to the ground. Museum staff and British and French diplomats who had been watching in hushed silence broke into applause.

The priceless cargo will spend several days acclimatizing before it is carefully unpacked and unfolded for an exhibition that the museum expects to be one of the most popular in its history. Some 100,000 tickets were sold in their first day on sale this month.

“It was like trying to get tickets to Glastonbury,” Cullinan said. “I don’t take for granted that people care that much about a 1,000-year-old embroidery. I think that’s an amazing thing.”

Stitched in wool thread on linen fabric, the artwork depicts the events leading up to the Battle of Hastings in October 1066, when William, Duke of Normandy defeated King Harald’s Anglo-Saxon army. The invasion ended Saxon rule and made William the Conqueror the first Norman king of England.

Historians believe the tapestry was commissioned by Bishop Odo of Bayeux, William’s half brother, and was probably sewn by women in England — possibly nuns — before being taken across the Channel. It has spent most of the last millennium in the town of Bayeux in northwest France, apart from two short periods at the Louvre in Paris.

The tapestry symbolizes the sometimes fractious, intertwined histories of France and Britain, and securing the loan was a high-stakes diplomatic mission. It was announced during a state visit to the U.K. by French President Emmanuel Macron in July 2025. The loan coincides with renovations at the museum in Bayeux that houses it.

In return, the British Museum will loan treasures from the Sutton Hoo hoard — artifacts from a 7th century Anglo Saxon ship burial — and other items to museums in Normandy.

Retired British diplomat Peter Ricketts, who helped secure the deal as the U.K.’s special envoy for the tapestry, said “it’s an extraordinary mark of friendship and confidence in the U.K. to entrust this object to us for a year.”

“Macron, when he offered us the tapestry, I think he understood that it would have far more impact in the U.K. than it does in France, because it’s more fundamental to our national story,” he said. Everybody (in Britain) knows 1066.”

It features 627 people and 737 animals and tells its story in 58 scenes brimming with vivid and sometimes gory detail. There are scenes of hand-to-hand combat, mutilated bodies and the unlucky Harold, felled by an arrow through his eye.

“It has an emotional richness that is really difficult to get from written sources,” said Millie Horton-Insch, project curator for the British Museum exhibition. “It just brings people closer to this history than any other object can. It’s not the same as reading a text. You are looking at something that was handled by the people who lived through it and felt compelled to record these events in this way. “

She said the document’s survival for 10 centuries despite myriad dangers — “moths, mice, mold damp, fire” — is miraculous, and may be partly due to its humble materials.

“It’s not really made of any blingy fabric,” she said. “It’s not gold, it’s not silver. There wasn’t the same temptation to cut it up and make it into vestments or repurpose it for anything.”

Some French cultural figures opposed the loan, arguing that moving the tapestry was too risky. Cullinan said the expert teams went to great lengths to ensure its safety, including making two trial runs of the journey to show it would not cause the fragile item too much stress.

“Such care has gone into it. I can’t think of a level of care for any other museum loan,” he said.

He said he understands why there are concerns.

“The tapestry arouses great interest and passion,” he said. “Which is a wonderful thing."

FILE - This photo taken Sept. 18, 2019 shows the 11th century Bayeux tapestry chronicling the Norman conquest of England, in Bayeux, Normandy, France. (AP Photo/Kamil Zihnioglu, File)

A British Museum worker unloads objects out of a truck at the British Museum in London, Friday, July 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Kwiyeon Ha)

British Museum Director Nicholas Cullinan standing in front of a truck that carried the Bayeux Tapestry from France at the British Museum in London, Friday, July 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Kwiyeon Ha)

Workers unload a box that contains the Bayeux Tapestry out of a truck at the British Museum in London, Friday, July 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Kwiyeon Ha)

Workers unload a box that contains the Bayeux Tapestry out of a truck at the British Museum in London, Friday, July 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Kwiyeon Ha)