The Andis Kaulins in China Diary Entry for March 4 to March 10, 2014

Highlights

• Tony accompanied me to school on Saturday.
• My e-bike ran out of juice in Jiangyin on Sunday.
• I watched the 1978 AL East Playoff game.
• I had mixed feelings about Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Tuesday [March 4]

[Home Laptop]

• My shift today at school will be 13:00 to 21:00.
• Last evening, Tony and his buddy went to the Hui Shan Wanda Plaza unsupervised. It was a first for me to have my little guy in such a situation. That is, for him to go somewhere without an adult. Jenny worried that bad people would have tried to kidnap him. I told Jenny that when I was Tony's age, I went to school and back by myself, and that in the evenings, I wandered the neighborhood by myself. But that time, said Jenny, there weren't so many bad people.
• How would she know? That was Canada.
• I read Tony a story after which he said he had to go to sleep which he did in less than a minute.
• The weather today? Rainy and cool.
• I have downloaded the entire 1978 AL East playoff. I remember that at the time of the game, I was living in Oromocto, New Brunswick and learned of the game's result at the end of an ice hockey practice at the CFB Gagetown arena. I was cheering for the Red Sox at the time. It was in '79 that we got cable in our house and could watch many Red Sox games live.
• What to think about the Ukraine? In some ways, I can see that Putin has a point in Ukraine. A duly elected government was toppled in a coup lead by Europeans and an extreme Ukrainian Nationalists, and he could claim a right to defend Russian minorities who are demanding his intervention. But as a Latvian and knowing Latvia has a substantial number of Russians living it, Russia's intervention in the Ukraine is an ominous development. Would the Ukraine be worth defending? It is a swamp of corruption and nationalism. It is hard to attach any idealism to it.

[School Laptop]

• I took the 25 bus to get to school. The bus had to deviate from its route because there was something happening (a grand opening I presume) at a new apartment complex down the street from the train station. Thus this street, which the train station was on, was closed. So the driver did what I thought he would do and took a street that was parallel to the street of its current route to continue on to its Nanchang Market terminal stop. The street that he had to take was the street the 25 bus used to run before the completion of construction of the new train station. What was noteworthy to me about this unimportant incident was the squawking of the passengers – it was loud and panicked.
• It is a five minutes walk from the terminal stop of the 25 bus route to my school. This walk takes me through a narrow side street. What particularly struck me today about my walk was the parking of cars on the sidewalk on one side of the street. The cars were taking over pedestrians path leaving little space for sidewalk walking.
• With a one o'clock shift start, I do some of my daily reading requirements at home. I have added a scene from Shakespeare to these daily personal requirements – part of my egoistic desire to improve myself.

Wednesday [March 5]

[Home Laptop]

• My shift today will be 13:00 to 21:00.
• Last night, I had a class with a student who worked in media. She was thinking to get out of the business because newspapers, where she worked, were dying because of declining advertising revenue. You could succeed maybe in a big city like Shanghai, but Wuxi was too small.
• As I mentioned yesterday, I downloaded the complete 1978 American League East One Game Playoff from Youtube and now have it on my Ipad. I started watching the game yesterday. Heading into the bottom of the third inning, the Red Sox are leading one to nothing on a Carl Yazstremski home run. Observations: Reggie Jackson had quite the swing; the uniforms in the late seventies were ugly – they went away from the traditional baseball uniforms starting in the early seventies. The Reds in the 1970 World Series game I watched looked great in their uniforms.
• I think that currently baseball is in another ugly uniform age. They aren't wearing stirrups any more. Some players are wearing baggy pants that flare at the bottom. Disgusting.
• Tony is a picky eater. He apparently isn't touching bread anymore and is hiding the fact from Mom by throwing it in the rubbish bin while claiming that he is finished.
• You are quiet! That's because I am not saying anything.
• A lot of students like Downton Abbey. I am currently making my way through the third episode of the second season.
• David Warren wrote a strong condemnation of the Russian invasion of the Ukraine. He said it was an act of war – phraseology that Obama and the EU are avoiding while they instead threaten to impose economic sanctions.
• Will a war in the Crimea produce a poem as great as the last war in the Crimea did? Tennyson's Charge of the Light Brigade was brilliant. Alas, we don't live in a poetic age. The only artistic things that one could expect to come out of a new Crimean War would be some movies.
• I saw My bus mate Sophia on the 635 last night. She is working at a school that is across the street from my school. She had vowed to get out of the education industry. The school that she works at now is in a building that contains the McDonald's that I always go to. It was there that I ran into her and learned of her new employment. Rare readers may recall that she had been working at WEB.
• I overheard that the Red Lion celebrated its second anniversary over the weekend. I haven't entered through the doors of what is probably the most popular Expat pub in Wuxi. I can't say if I ever will. I don't have the time and the money. It is out of way and I have heard it is very expensive.

[School Laptop]

• I took the 25 bus to school this morning. On the way, I saw the subway train running. On the bus, I saw a particularly peasant-looking couple with child sit at the back. They were both short and squat, wore soiled clothes, and gave off an air of poverty. I also saw an old man, lanky and slightly slouched, who wore these cheap cotton shoes that have a flimsy rubber sole and a cheap plushy, slipper body to them that had to be zipped up to be stay on one's foot. I was in the presence of common Chinese folk.

Thursday [March 6]

[School Laptop]

• Today's shift: 10:00 to 21:00
• I have almost finished watching the video footage of the 1978 AL East Playoff game between the Red Sox and the Yankees.
• I have started trying to make comparison shots between the Wuxi I took photos of in 2004, 2005, and 2006, and the 2014 Wuxi. I went to the intersection where I had taken photos of the old Sheraton hotel and the old Home Mart which were kitty corner from each other. [One of the roads was Zhongshan Road but I don't remember the other] this morning. I found that so much had changed that I couldn't even stand in the same spot I did over eight years ago. For one thing, trees had been planted on the road. So, I tried to get as close to the original spots as I could.
• I floated this idea of having Tony come with me to the school this Saturday. He seems to be enthusiastic about the idea and has told Jenny that he wants to do it. Now, whether this does in fact happen remains to be seen. For one thing, I don't seem him wanting to get up early on Saturday morning to be able to accompany me.
• I just had a student who will study a masters in architecture somewhere in America. I had all sorts of questions to ask him. He did tell me that he thought the buildings constructed now, though of far better technology than anything made before, were comparatively lacking in aesthetic appeal.
• His English was very good but he lacked confidence. Ask him questions and he was great; but ask him to make sentences and he had no imagination. So I told him to try making questions with the new vocabulary.

Friday [March 7]

[School Laptop]

• My shift today: 11:00 to 21:00. My English Corner at the City Hall was canceled.
• Will Tony accompany me to school tomorrow? I doubt it but there is a small chance it could happen. For that eventuality, I had to spend a lot of time trying to reinstall the Microsoft Train Simulator on my school laptop. I had trouble first with getting the game to install. At certain point after having put the second installation disk in the DVD ROM drive, I got an error message. I tried over and over again to do a complete installation by trying to move my the MSTS files I did have on my computer to different locations. I finally was able to install the game by choosing only to install two instead of the six routes on the disk.
• Having installed the game, I got an error message telling me that I needed hardware acceleration. A little research on the Internet told me that I needed to reinstall video drivers. These I was able to download from the HP site. I did this downloading at Casa K and brought the drivers to school via flash-drive. The MSTS now works I am proud to say.
• Other then (or than?) that, I don't have much to say for myself. I will have to tell you what I observed today.
• I saw a lot of bad driving and stupid old people ignoring traffic rules. I really got angry seeing this driver, at the intersection near the Ramada and California Villas, make a left turn without bothering to slow down for pedestrians who were walking on a green walk signal. Drivers who don't slow down for pedestrians, as I have said before, are scum. I then saw about a least four cases of old-aged pedestrians being stranded in traffic and narrowly being dodged by vehicles because they were ignoring traffic signals or were ignorant of their purpose. Are these old age pedestrians stupid, uncivilized, or blind? I don't get it.
• I finished watching the 1978 AL East Playoff game. It was a great game, but heartbreaking for the Red Sox. There were so many what-ifs. In the ninth inning, a Yankee outfielder was lucky to have had a ball that he lost in the sun bounce close to him. If the ball had gotten by him, a Red Sox Runner could have advanced from second to third base. He would have scored because the next hitter, Jim Rice, hit a ball to the outfield which would have driven in that runner and tied the game. Alas, Yaz who had had a great game, hitting a home run and scoring another run, popped out to end the game. As I said before, as the game was being played, I was at the CFB Gagetown arena for an ice hockey practice.
• [Later] I can't install all the routes from the MSTS Disk onto my computer. Tony will have to content himself with the three I was able to install from the disk and the three routes I found on the Internet.
• [Later] I am working my way through my Chinese study. I have completed typing a few pages from the New Practical Chinese Reader, volume 2. I have typed about fifteen characters from a list of 3,000 Chinese characters I have in pdf format. Now, I will work on translating a magazine article from Chinese to English.

Saturday [March 8]
[iPod]

• Shift:  10:00 to 18:00.
• Tony comes with me.  He hogs the school laptop playing MSTS all the day.  Hence, no diary making.
• I will give full report tomorrow.

Sunday [March 9]

[Home Laptop]

• Yesterday, I made an obligatory diary entry so I didn't need to say that I didn't make an entry.
• Today, no shifts.
• I don't think I would grade Tony's accompanying me to school yesterday a success. For one thing, I realized that it is not something that I want to be doing all the time. When I had Tony with me, he hogged the laptop and I couldn't do the things that make my time at school worthwhile. [Those things are my daily readings, Chinese study, and computer projects.] For another, Tony did nothing but play on the computer. I would say he spent six hours on it yesterday. I couldn't get him to eat anything other than a hash-brown from McDonald's and this later earned my the severe approbation of Jenny. Tony was also shy and I wasn't able to show off his amazing language skills. His being there as well affected my teaching because I couldn't quite concentrate fully on the students as I was half wondering what Tony was up to in the office. So, it wasn't much of a bonding experience.
• But it was done it seemed to others for Women's Day, a day that I believe is declared by the UN and so is really just a sham day anyway.
• After the shift was done yesterday, the K family all went to the Sunning Plaza to have dinner at the Grandma's. We waited awhile but we had devices and computers to keep us occupied. I finished reading the first half of Orphan Master's Son on my Ipad. The hero of the first half of the novel is thrown into a prison camp after he becomes too familiar with some Americans he had been delegated to visit. The DPRK, as depicted in the novel, is a country run at the behest of a greedy ruling class who will stop at nothing to get what they want. The place abounds in lies.
• Amazingly, the fried potato dish that I adore so much at the Grandma's came first. Another time, the dish came twenty minutes after all the others had been brought out and eaten.
• During the wait, Tony was on a computer provided by the restaurant for waiting patrons. These computers are always used by the children and sometimes you can see four or five kids gathered around a monitor. They are watching and waiting for the computer to become available for their use. Tony had girls and then boys lurking around him as he was on the monitor. Trying to pry Tony away from the computer once we have a table is not easy. Usually, I have to walk from the table to the computers to see what he is doing. Last night, I walked to the computers and Tony was at the computer sitting on the lap of an older and fatter boy wanting to join in on whatever Tony was playing on the computer. The fat boy went crazy when he saw me. He keep shouting “外国人！waiguoren! (translation: foreigner)” over and over again. I had to ignore that kid and talk into Tony's ear to tell him that his computer playing was about to come to an end.
• We were seated in a booth. The booth was separated from the next booth by a grill on top of the wooden siding. Through the grill I noticed that a party of four, next to us, was staring at us rather too intently and obviously for my comfort. Becoming very self-conscious on account of the staring, I muttered some cuss words under my breath. These people all seemed to be in their early twenties or late teens, and then they started to wave. I suppose they were looking at Tony.
• We took the Taxi home which was much better than taking the bus given we were full of food and tired. The driver had to come to a quick stop at a certain moment, because of uncertain driving done by others, and so he jokingly said “fuck!” to me. I smiled, not knowing what else I could say or add even if I could have said something to him that he would have understood.
• I went out for a walk this morning and have three things to report. 1)They are tearing up the pavement near the Times Century (Tesco) plaza for some reason. The work is making certain parts of the area untenable for pedestrian traffic. 2) They, the powers that be, have set up public bicycle stalls at an intersection near Casa Kaulins. The bicycles have yet to arrive. 3) They don't serve breakfast at the McDonald's and the KFC in Wanda Plaza.
• Wuxi still pales in comparison to Hong Kong. Wuxi looks so dingy, dull, under construction, rickety, and backward these days.
• [Later] This afternoon, I played on the computer and completed two pieces for my Wuxi China Expatdom blog. Meanwhile, Jenny & Tony went to a hospital to have a doctor look at a skin problem Tony was having in the area below his nose and above his lip. This area is red and so Tony looks like Hitler with a red rash for a mustache. The rash looks to be a result of a Tony liking the snot coming from his nose.
• When they were finished, I joined up with them at the Tesco. Jenny did some shopping and I took Tony, on the e-bike, to the Huijiang bridge (惠江桥) to watch trains. We had a good time of it; I took some great photos; but the e-bike unfortunately ran out of power. The strange thing about it was I was able to do about 15 kmh for about 3 kilometers; the bike didn't completely run out of power. Slowly making our way home, I was asked by Tony to go faster...

Monday [March 10]

[Home Laptop]

• Beware the Ides of March?
• No shiftiness today.
• It is Sunny outside
• I have just edited the video Hanging Out with Tony Kaulins #6.
• Yesterday as I stood at the deck of the bridge looking at the surroundings, I wondered if I was looking at haze or pollution. I have this problem because Wuxi is riddled with canals and bodies of water, and so I would think that haze has always been present in this area.
• I read another brilliant piece by Theodore Dalrymple today. It was in the City Journal and was about Joseph Conrad.
• Putin has broken International law. His instincts are in Soviet and hence evil.
• It is all well and go to talk about Russia's dignity. How about talking about its redemption? It hasn't adequately dealt with the criminal past of the Soviet Regime. First things first.
• Tony is home from school and doing his homework. The atmosphere in the house is thus oppressive. He whines and Jenny chastises him in a voice that sends shivers down my spine.

Hanging Out with Tony Kaulins #6

Dispatches from Akicistan #7

Gratitude:  Thank God for books and the Catholic Church.

Acknowledgement: I make efforts that don't involve risk or leaving my comfort zone.

Request(s): I need a spiritual director.

What is Akicistan? It isn't a place. It is a state of mind that places cutting-edge state-of-the-art sticks in mud. The word Akicistan is formed from the initials AKIC and the root stan.

If Akicistan was an empire, it would comprise China, Canada, the Red States of the USA, Latvia, and the parts of the world that comprise Modern Christendom as well as ancient Christendom.

Akicistan news in brief:

• The Kaulins Family China went to Hong Kong for a short trip. They all enjoyed the trip there and back in their own way.
• Life then went back to normal.

Important Akicistan Links:

• About AKIC
• An AKIC Glossary
• Wuxi Peach Maoists
• AKIC wordpress 
• TKIC blogspot
• TKIC wordpress
• Views of China from Casa Kaulins Blogspot
• Views of China from Casa Kaulins Wordpress
• My Youtube Channel 
• My Youku Channel
• One of my Twitter profiles
• The other one of my Twitter profiles – this one lets you know about my many blog postings.

In Akicistan:

Some of us can speak Chinese! 是的。我可以说的一点点中文.

We sometimes pay attention to China. Truth is, I don't follow the news about China all that closely. What I do hear seems boring and trite. [I do hear news about the smog in Beijing. I definitely heard about the attacks in Kunming – a city I visited in 2005.]

We are fond of Canada! It was with great pride, that I heard the news that Canada had been leading the medal table at the Sochi Olympics.

We are fond of Latvia! I wish I had known earlier that Canada and Latvia were playing in a quarterfinal ice hockey game. 2-1 was the final score for Canada who out-shot the Latvians 57-16. Kristers GUDLEVSKIS was the Latvian net-minder. [Goggling, I see he plays in the AHL. I imagine he will be playing in the NHL soon with a performance like that. Talking to my mom she informs me that he is one of those Russian Latvians....]

The Politics are Conservative and Reactionary! There isn't a hint of Leftism in anything I write. I started out a Leftist, sometimes pretending to be a middle-of-the-roader, when I started to have political views; but I then I saw the light.

English is taught! I downloaded a bunch of English grammars from the Internet and I have been boning up on it. If only I could spend more time working on grammar instead of trying to get the students to say anything, anything at all.

Citizens aren't freaks! Akicistanians would be a minority in any other country of the world.

Reading is the #1 Pastime! Here is what I had been working my way through the past week or so:

Don Colacho's (Nicolas Gomez Davilla) Aphorisms.  There are 2,988 of them in this book that I compiled for myself.  I try to read at least one aphorism a day.  I cut and paste the better ones -- they are all profound actually -- and I put them in the AKIC Weekly. (See below)

The Niomachean Ethics of Aristotle. After this, I will read Aquinas's Summa.

Ulysses by James Joyce.  I am following along with Frank Delaney as he slowly guides podcast listeners through Joyce's hard-to-read novel.  Delaney figures he will have the whole novel covered in about 22 years.  Delaney completed episode #194 recently and is working his way through the chapter that introduces Leopold Bloom. I am getting ahead of Delaney as far as reading the book.  I will be finished my reading of it, I figure, in a year. I read the novel despite its many blasphemies. It is best to be aware of this stuff because the world is full of it, and the world will always find a way of slapping you in the face with it

The Holy Bible (RSV-C2E version, aka the Ignatius Bible, and Douay-Rheims version).  I will read the two versions in conjunction. Last week, I finished reading the Book of Genesis. I am not in the Book of Exodus. In the New Testament, I am reading the Gospel According to Matthew.

With Lee in Virginia: A Story of the American Civil War by G.A. Henty. Finished. I read a Civil War book by John Keegan. Theodore Dalrymple mentioned this author. Looking for the author on Project Gutenberg, I found this book which I would classify as historical fiction. It is written from the Southern point of view and of course wouldn't past muster today. To even take its claims seriously as assertions worth taking the time to refute would probably get one in trouble. To say that the South had a point on anything would violate a taboo. But there is something to be said for how the sudden abolition of slavery (emphasis on the word sudden) was not the wonderful gift for the negro that many would have thought it was. I would also say that the attitudes of the nicer slave owners in the novel (as opposed to the ones who mistreated their slaves) are held at least unconsciously by members of the U.S. Democratic Party. I recommend the book as an historical artifact.

Other Limits of Reason: Nolson S. Yanofsky. I read John Derbyshire's review of it on the Internet, and lo and behold I am now reading it. A challenging book full of mathematics and I have to had re-read sections of it; but it is very thought provoking. In my idle moments, I now spend my time contemplating it. To think there are two kinds of infinity!

Macbeth by William Shakespeare. Finished. Got to have some Shakespeare in my reading diet. What to say about it? I was forced to read it in High School. It is only now that I appreciate its greatness.

The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson. A novel set in North Korea. I am reading it on John Derbyshire's recommendation.

Travels in West Africa by Mary H Kingsley. A travel book written in the 1890s. I believe I am reading it on the recommendation of Theodore Dalrymple.

Richard II by William Shakespeare. Finished. An historical play written all in verse. Should I try to read every Shakespeare play this year?

Memorable quotes are presented and discussed!

Nicholas Gomez Davilla:

371 To love is to understand the reason God had for creating what we love.

758 No Party, sect, or religion should trust those who know the reasons for which they join. All authentic allegiance – in religion, politics, or love – precedes deduction. The traitor has always chosen rationally the party he betrays. [I can't say that my wanting to be a Catholic is completely rational. I feel that it demands my allegiance. Is this a rationalization?]

760 With good humor and pessimism it is not possible to be either wrong or bored.

763 We should respect the eminent individual whom the people respect, even when he does not deserve it, in order not to disrespect the notion of respect. [I was chided, rightly I realize in retrospect, by an American for mocking President Obama on his visit to China. You have to respect the office the American said, and he was right.]

767 The reactionary today is merely a traveler who suffers shipwreck with dignity. [Am I being dignified in my withdrawal?]

774 Nobody scorns yesterday's foolishness as much as today's fool does. [That fool is a chronologicalist.]

776 The common man often has a personality in everyday dealings. But the effort to express it transforms him into an exponent of fashionable topics.[Like it or not, we are a product of our times.]

777 Vulgarity is born when authenticity is lost. Authenticity is lost when we search for it. [You just got to be.]

778 Men are less equal than they say and more equal than they think. [There has to elites. But elites and the commoners all die in the end.]

784 The tragedy of the left? To diagnose the disease correctly, but to aggravate it with its therapy. [This is the most generous statement you can make about Leftism. The tragedy for the world is that the Left gets to try to implement its therapies.]

790 Nothing endures for certain and only instances count, but the instant reserves its splendor for someone who imagines it to be eternal. The only thing that has value is the ephemeral which appears immortal. [I have had so many of those moments with Tony and Jenny.]

791 Authentic intelligence spontaneously sees even the most humble fact of daily life in the light of the most general idea. [Does this mean that truisms are okay.]

800 When the race of egoists absorbed in perfecting themselves dies out, nobody will be left to remind us that we have the duty to save our intelligence, even after we have lost all hope of saving our skin. [I am such an egoist that I realized that I was part of the race of egoists that Davilla was rallying against as soon as I read the first five words of this aphorism.]

805 Man, until yesterday, did not deserve to be called a rational animal. The definition was inexact as long as invented, according to his preferences, religious attitudes and ethical behavior, aesthetic tasks and philosophical meditations. Today, on the other hand, man limits himself to being a rational animal, that is to say, an inventor of practical rules at the service of his animality. [no-fault divorce and abortion on demand.]

811 Whoever merely resigns himself to his lots feels frustrated by a destiny without meaning. Whoever humbly accepts it knows that he just does not understand the significance of the divine decision concerning him. Visitors to a palace who admire nothing but the latrines. [If you aren't religious, you are admiring nothing but the latrines in life.]

Luigi Tenco

Divorce is only for those men without enough spine to love a woman forever. [1)This shames me in a way and yet also gives me hope. (Saying that, I hope it shames a lot of people I know.) I can't say that I have been the most attentive husband. I spend too much of my time thinking of how to make Tony happy. But I am not divorced and I want to ensure that I never become do because Jenny is the best thing that ever happened to me. 2) I fantasize about being able to say what Tenco said aloud to people who would be rattled and hopefully shamed by my doing so. Alas. I think I don't have some spine. Alas. I know some good people who have been divorced – victims, most of them, of the current attitude which say nothing is wrong with doing wrong things.]

William Shakespeare (from Macbeth)

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

David Warren

 A general rule in discussions among my personae is: do not feign certainty of things you do not know, and could not possibly know except on authority. Also: consult the authorities, sometimes. Also: do not obsess on matters that cannot be necessary to salvation.

Theodore Dalrymple [from an article about the Ukraine.]

....when it comes to understanding a country, one native plumber is worth a thousand foreign correspondents.

Correspondents are more interested in what other correspondents are going to write than in what is happening on their temporary doorstep. Lies repeated become truths, and truths ignored cease ever to have existed. One of the things that surprised me was the ease with which an entire press corps could accept the most obvious untruth, usually convenient to some interested party or other, without any external compulsion to do so. I can only suppose that one of modern education’s purposes is to prevent people from thinking for themselves. 

Extreme wealth, whether honestly or dishonestly acquired, seems these days to bring forth little new except in the form and genre of vulgarity. .... I saw some pictures recently of some huge Chinese state enterprise’s headquarters, and it appalled me how this nation, with one of the most exquisite, and certainly the oldest, aesthetic traditions on Earth, has gone over entirely to Las Vegas rococo (without the hint of irony or playfulness).
[1) I was listening to a foreign correspond from the Ukraine on a recent Charles Adler podcast, and thoughts and intuitions came into my mind, like those of Dalrymple above, about the usefulness of the correspondent. The correspondent sounded like a guy with an interesting gig who had boned up in the previous week about the Ukraine. I feel the same about a lot of the Sinica podcasts I listen to where they interview correspondents from prestigious magazines and newspapers like the Economist and the New York Times. Know-it-alls who seem more interested in showing they know it all than modestly informing the listeners what they have learned. 2)The flaunting of newly found wealth in China is vulgar. Dalrymple's phrase “Las Vegas rococo” describes exactly the most vulgar of what I have seen. There are places all over Wuxi that have been decorated with Roman and Greek motifs that I find appalling to behold. Gold statues on pedestals. 3)And then there are the Chinese themselves. The students, I notice, seem to lack a sense of playfulness when they try to speak English. They are far too earnest.]

Lists are made: Things I like about Russia

Being of Latvian heritage, I have a long list of reasons to hate the Russians. Being of a conservative and reactionary bent, I can't help but want to still call them Soviets and Commies. But, Russia isn't a Communist state anymore, and even though it is corrupt and not honest about its past, it is still in a much better place. But that is not to say that it doesn't needs to improve. For it is still in a depressing state. So, it is with these thoughts and with a feeling of good will to the Russian people, this Latvian (of sorts) offers a list of things that he likes about Russia:

• Dostoevsky
• Solzhenitsyn
• Russian hockey players
• Tolstoy
• Sakharov
• Anna Kornakova and other beautiful young woman.
• Their names. Dimitri, Yakushev, Borkov, Tretiak, and so on.
• Dissidents.
• Their magnificent culture.
• I hear that Christianity is making a comeback.
• The way they annoy homosexualists.
• They are not afraid to look after their national interests.

[I made this list before the Russian occupation of Ukraine. I suppose that is what you get for trying to think charitable thoughts about your enemies. Love your enemies is the Biblical injunction. But that doesn't mean that you don't have enemies, said GK Chesterton.]

Thoughts are thought

• An atheist mentioned the problems in translating the Bible. I would have said in response that there would be problems in translating atheist or pagan tracts as well. What human isn't bedevilled by the meaning of words in other languages?
• A sentence that is said to be paradoxical: I am lying. The answer to the paradox is that the person making the sentence isn't being precise about what he is lying about. It isn't possible to a person to lie about everything. A liar is someone who tells a lot of lies or does a lot of lying. A person who lies one hundred percent of the time does not exist.
• Another sentence that is said to be paradoxical: This sentence is false. The answer to this paradox is that the sentence is taken out of context.

The Andis Kaulins in China Diary Entry for February 24 to March 3, 2014

Highlights

• Not an eventful diary entry.
• I had an English version of Windows XP put on my ten year old laptop.
• I looked at some photos taken in Wuxi in 2004 to 2006.

Monday [February 24]

[Home Laptop]

• I'm not working today. I will stay at home. So far [It is 12:00 noon], I have read parts of four books on my Ipad [in bed] and taken a shower [which gives me a great idea for my Wuxi China Expatdom blog].
• Last night, I watched the Canada Sweden Olympic Men's Ice Hockey Final. The game started at 8:00 PM local time and so it was the first time I had ever seen a live hockey game in prime time in China. I first tried watching the game on computer but couldn't find a video feed or an audio feed. The sites providing Internet feeds were in other countries and so the feeds of the game were blocked in China. I resorted to butting Jenny off the television so I could watch the game on CCTV 5. I got to the second half of the second period when Tony in turn butted me off the television so he could watch a cartoon with bears and a mustachioed Chinese fellow, all of whom lived in the woods. Returning to the computer (I had been trying while I was watching the game on television to find a computer feed), I was able to find a feed and watch the rest of the game which Canada won 3-0.

Tuesday [February 25]

[School Laptop]

• My shift today is 13:00 to 21:00.
• I was in Jenny's doghouse yesterday. I can't say why.
• Today, it is raining.
• Last night, I helped Tony with his arithmetic. Jenny had him doing problems like this: 9 + (?) = 16. Tony couldn't figure out how to do them. To solve the example problem, I would get him to answer the following equations. 9 + 0 = ?, 9 + 1 = ?, 9 + 2 = ? and so on. All those problems solved by Tony, I would then get him to write the answer to the original problem, and he would do this 9 + (16) = 16. Tony!!! I would say. He would then finally write the correct answer in the bracket: 9 + (7) = 16. I had to do this for ten problems in a row for him and he still didn't seem to get it. I then tried to get him to solve the following arithmetic problems to get him to understand: 0 + 16 = ?, 1 + 15 = ?, 2 + 14 + ?, 3 + 13 + ?, 4 + 12?,......., all the way to 15 + 1 = ?
• One day, something will click in his brain, I hope.

Wednesday [February 26]

[School Laptop]

• I had trouble with the school laptop yesterday. I had to get the school IT technician to reinstall Windows XP on it. So, I had an afternoon in which I didn't get to tend to my daily projects. Now, I have to reinstall software on my computer and so I won't be back till normal till later this week. Right now, I don't have Chinese character support.
• My shift today is from 13:00 to 21:00.
• I got on the wrong bus this morning and ended up at the train station. I had been intently studying Chinese on my Ipad and didn't notice something was amiss till I was downtown.

Thursday [February 27]

[School Laptop]

• I have a 10:00 to 21:00 shift today which means I have lots of free time. I do some prep in the morning, have an SPC in the afternoon, and three classes in the evening, when I am at the end of my tether.
• I am not used to my new laptop setup. My operating system is in English which is nice but the operating system is Windows XP which soon set to be a dinosaur. I have just started to notice a pause in the screen refresh if I scroll up and down a document.
• I was able to put a Chinese Character Set on my operating system yesterday. It is an accomplishment I can am proud of because the tech guy at school couldn't help me, forcing me to do it on my own. I had been at point where I thought to give up on trying to get a Chinese character set but I persisted. I uploaded the windows XP third support package which then allowed me to be able to use the Tech's XP installation disk and thus get the character set on the computer.
• I have been watching the fifth game of the 1970 World Series: the first time, the Big Red Machine made it to the Series. It is cool to see a young Johnny Bench and a young Pete Rose.
• Today's weather: Gray but comfortable. Last night would have been a pleasant night to go out for a walk.
• No comments to make on the passing scene. I really haven't been paying that much attention.
• I have been going through photos that I took in Wuxi in 2004, 2005, and 2006. Someone at City Hall told me that he wanted to see the photos when I mentioned them in conversation. Perhaps, I will publish them in the blog to show my loyal readers some of whom may be old Wuxi-hands.

Friday [February 28]

[School Laptop]

• Today's shift: 11:00 to 21:00. I talk to some city hall workers at lunch time and then I talk to students for three hours in the evening. What a day.
• I took the 25 bus to get downtown. Getting off, I thought about how it is always interesting to scan the old people waiting for the bus. Old men and youngish Chinese women are the most interesting sights in China I figure.
• I had a headache going through my 2004 to 2006 photos. I took so many. It was an interesting time but a time that couldn't continue. I believe the 2008 financial crisis changed everything in Wuxi. The government decided to spend a lot of money on infrastructure at the time and the city has changed in many ways. Not many or any of these changes have added any charm to Wuxi.
• Jenny tells me that Tony counts down the days till Friday and the end of the school week.
• I have loaded the 2004 to 2006 photos, that I chose for my city hall project, on my Ipad. I will show them to the people at city hall and see which ones I should send to the guy who told that he wanted them.
• My photo review caused a session about reminiscing with the foreign staff. Our biggest laments about the Wuxi changes were the good restaurants that disappeared because the management decided to change their menu and just got cheap on their offerings to their clientele. One example, I remember very well was the Sichuan Girls restaurant on Renmin Road. I actually took some newbies there in order to give them a good first impression of Wuxi. But then the management decided to change the décor, making it more plastic and bright; and also decided to change the menu – the food became crap.
• I am listening to The Man Who Loved China, an audiobook. And I just finished listening to the China History Podcast's latest episode which was about Two Gun Cohen, a Jew who came to China from the Canadian Prairies. I never thought I would hear mention of Virden or Winnipeg in an episode of CHP.

Saturday [March 1]

[School Laptop]

• The weather: crap. It is cold, wet, and windy.
• My shift: 10:00 to 18:00.
• Russia invades Ukraine. Obama looks weak says Krauthammer.
• I really hate Wuxi drivers who insist on making turns and thus cutting off pedestrians. These people are inconsiderate, barbaric, and represent a lower level of civilization. They are apes and lizards. Real pieces of scum.
• I may have mentioned that I had a student who told me he had cancer earlier this week. The only problem was that I didn't know if I could believe him or not. His manner made me suspicious. He is always phlegmatic in class so that I couldn't help but think he was saying BS. Anyway, he also asked me a why it was that his father would buy personal things and then charge them to his company. I should have told him his father was cheating, being corrupt as it were, but I instead I claimed ignorance of that sort of practice.
• Tony burnt his fingers last evening at Pizza Hut. He had gone with another family who ordered a pizza he didn't like. Another pizza was ordered and it took a while for it to finally arrive. When it did, Tony impatiently touched the hot pan.
• Later, Tony said he couldn't do his homework because his fingers hurt.

Sunday [March 2]

[Home Laptop]

• No talking to English students today.
• Sunny and cool outside. I went for a walk and saw a lovely thing: a grandfather playing with his daughter.
• Back at home now, I have to give up the laptop to Tony who is eager to play the train simulator game on it. More. Anon. I hope.
• [Later] Tony is doing homework so I have the computer. It is nice to have the computer but it is hard to sit around while Jenny is drilling him. Jenny will never be known for her patience.
• I don't know what to say for myself.
• Life seems pleasant in a way, but also sadly dispiriting. I really don't have much to complain about but I also don't have much for which I can be proud.
• Here is something I should mention. I had one student whose family life seems to come right out of the West. Her parents are divorced and remarried and separated. She lives with her father who doesn't want her to have contact with her mother who lives in Kunming [from where, this morning, I heard news of attacks at the train station.]

March 3, 2014 [Monday]

• No shifts of work today.
• Yesterday afternoon, the K family went downtown so the boys could get haircuts. Jenny, a.k.a. Mama K, took the boys to a hole-in-the-wall, 2-seat hair salon near the end of the #3 bus route.
• It took the K family two buses to get to the hair salon. They first took the 25 bus during which Tony sat on Andis's lap where Tony played on the Ipad. With Tony on his lap, Andis lamented that he couldn't play with his Ipad – space was cramped. A foreigner with a kid on his lap was a sight for the other passengers and Andis noticed one passenger who seemed to not take his eyes off him and Tony. It made Andis uncomfortable to look in that passenger's direction.
• From the 25 bus, the K family transferred to the #3 bus to get to the salon. The hair salon was located in a plaza which had many missing tiles on its front paved area which was also wet because of a neighboring car wash business. The Salon itself was cramped and untidy. It was opened by a pair who had decided to leave a bigger salon where they had been working and had had Jenny as a client.
• We (the K family) left the Salon at 6:30 which I (one of the K boys) thought was late. It seemed a waste I told Jenny to spend the whole afternoon getting haircuts. This didn't please Jenny who later gave me heck for saying so.
• From the Hair Salon, we took the #3 Bus to the Suning Plaza to have dinner at the Grandma's ( 外婆家). We waited a bit but I had my Ipad to pass the time. The food was good as always. I haven't got tired of it like some J.F.'s I know.
• It getting late, we decided to take the Taxi home. Watching Tony try to hail the taxi himself was quite the sight. Not realizing that only taxis with green lights on in their windshields are available, Tony hailed every one he saw and when they passed by, he cursed in Chinese at them.
• Just before catching a cab home, while we stood waiting in a shopping walk street for Jenny, Tony a group of five black-uniformed security guards pass by, and hid behind a column where he adopted a ultra-man shooting stance and pointed his imaginary weapon at them.
• This morning [Is is now Monday afternoon] Jenny played a recording, she made last night, of my snoring. Let me tell you. I am a major league snorer. If I was Italian, my snoring would be Serie A. If German, it would be Bundesligia. If English, my snoring would be Premiership.

The Andis Kaulins in China Diary Entry for February 17 to February 23, 2104

Highlights

• My first regular week of work since early January.
• I spend my time trying to get back into my groove of talking to students and working on my projects.
• I watched old World Series Games that I downloaded from Youtube.

Monday [February 17]

[Home Laptop]

• It is a cold and wet day outside. I have stayed indoors except to bring Tony to school, then to receive him from school, and to check out the e-bike.
• Tony is back to school and so we return to our miserable existence.
• In the daytime, I spent my time with my Apple products. I listened to podcasts on my Ipod, read parts of some books on my Ipad, loaded, loaded e-books and video on my Ipad (that were downloaded from the Internet), watched the first inning of the seventh game of the 1971 World Series on my Apple TV, and then watched a two hour documentary about the pianist Glen Gould on my Apple TV.
• The documentary of Glen Gould was interesting. But there was so much footage of him walking about being thoughtful and photos of him staring sternly at the camera that you had to wonder if his image of eccentric genius was a calculated pose. Be that as it may, I watched the documentary with rapt attention. A few things I learned about Gould will stick with me. The fact that his mother was 43 when he was born seemed to explain a lot about his eccentricity. I found his supposed desire for solitude to be inspiring. I was happy to learn that he felt guilt upon the death of his mother – he thought he had neglected her [a feeling I had with my father.]. When he died, much of his estate was left to the Salvation Army – If I ever return to Canada, I would like to volunteer for them, ringing bells trying to getting donations at Christmas time.

Tuesday [February 18]

[Home Laptop]

• Snow! It started just after we got Tony up to go to school. As I brought Tony out to be picked up, the snow was sticking to cars. An hour and a half later, it was staying on the ground.
• On my computer, I was disappointed to see that my Glen Gould download hadn't been completed. As I type this, it is 88.8 percent completed.
• Tony was saying he was cold when I took him to be picked up.
• Because it was snowing, Tony & I both carried umbrellas as we walked to the meeting point. And so I carried my lunch bag for him. As the car left to take Tony to school, I realized that the bag was still in my hands, and so I had to run after the car. The driver saw me just as his car got on the road. On a previous instance, the car had driven away as I was still holding the bag. That time, I realized when it was too late.

[School Laptop]

• Not so much snow downtown.
• I work 13:00 to 21:00.
• I am not in the swing of things yet. And I hope the yet is true.

Wednesday [February 19]

[School Laptop]

• My Glen Gould radio programs downloaded last night. I loaded some them onto my Ipod but their volume level was so low that I couldn't listen to them on the bus.
• I work 13:00 to 21:00 today. Hopefully, my students will all show up. It was my luck, but I felt guilt, to have my students in 19:00 and 20:00 classes cancel. While I was able to get home early, it didn't make my day more pleasant. Jenny was drilling Tony on his subtraction and it was painful to watch and listen.
• A new Apple TV is coming out. So what I have is already out of date. Oh well.
• I downloaded from a Youtube a clip of the finale of the film the Graduate. There is a student Elaine whom I would like to show the clip.
• Trainer at school says he has a stalker. This stalker sends him crazy love notes.
• 13:00 no-show. Three no-shows in a row.
• I am listening to the audio version of the Man Who Loved China by Simon Winchester. It is a book about a sinologist and all-around fellow named Joseph Needham. Needham was a Nudist – good, but a man of the Left – bad.
• I read to Tony at bedtime. He likes these Thomas books I found on the Internet and loaded on my Ipad.

Thursday [February 20]

[School Laptop]

• I work 10:00 to 21:00 today. As I have said before and I will say again, this is the longest day of my so-called work week.
• I saw my old bus mate Sophia at the McDonald's this morning. She got a new job and works in the building that contains the McDonald's which I go to almost every day I am at school. Of course, I remembered her name as soon as she left.
• I come to school with a depressed feeling – the sadness seeming to be more physical than mental.
• I can't use We Chat on my school laptop. It doesn't have the physical memory anymore to do this.
• Last evening, I had a student who told me she sees her daughter, who is not yet of primary school age, once a week on Saturday night. She told me that she and her husband have to work long hours to be able to afford the big house they need so they have the in-laws look after the child. I told her that it seemed so sad that she and her husband had to do this.

Friday [February 21]

[School Laptop]

• Tony was good yesterday. That what's Jenny told me. This morning, as I took him to get picked up to go to school, he was in a good mood because he knew it was Friday.
• My shift today: 11:00 to 21:00. I go to the city hall, to talk about art, and then have three classes in the evening. [I think I will talk about my shift times at school. Not more will I call them work times.]
• Last night, I boarded the 635 bus sitting beside a girl who beamed at me as I took my seat. She began to talk to me in English. Her English name was Muse. A good name I told her. Upon learning I was from Canada, she told me she liked Justin Bieber and Adele. Instead of telling her what I really thought of them, I told her I was too old for that sort of music. She also told me she liked Mr. Bean. To that I told her, in the most simple and diplomatic way I could, that most foreigners didn't care for his physical brand of humour and preferred most verbal humour. She told me then that the man playing Mr. Bean had a PhD. To this I expressed surprise. She helped me read aloud a passage from a page of the New Practical Chinese Reader that I had on my Ipad. This reading I found to be tiring, though not tiresome. I got her WeChat i.d. -- I was being friendly. I had a WeChat conversation with her with I got home. She asked me to looked at photos of her that she had posted on the app. They showed a pretty girl with a violin (she had told she played violin and that it was boring. She was good enough at it to play in front of audiences), her with her boyfriend, and a photo that I could only say was pornographic. This photo she had gotten from the Internet -- I assumed for I didn't look at it closely. She then asked me what I thought of her photos. I could only say interesting and made no reference to that photo – I would have liked to have told her that it was inappropriate.
• I put on the Apple TV last night and so Tony & I watched a Youku video on the big screen. The picture was amazing both Tony & I thought.
• It hasn't been so busy at the school and I have this feeling that I am not doing anything productive. I keep myself busy studying things but I ultimately leave school with a feeling of dissatisfaction. Did I teach the students anything? Am I doing anything productive? It seems that Tony & Jenny are busier than me.
• Of course, I have to do something about this. But what? It seems I have missed the boat on a lot of things in my life and it is getting too late to correct the things I didn't do.
• [Later] I went to City Hall. I choose to talk about Art. I didn't look at my watch and wouldn't you know it? The time ran. I hadn't bothered to look at my watch the whole class through.
• If only all classes could be like that.
• I read that the Physicists say reality is discrete not continuous. The smallest thing that there can possibly be is measured by the Planck constant or so that is how I read it.

Saturday [February 22]

• My shift today: 10:00 to 18:00.
• I saw three things:
• Last night, as I left the school, I saw a poor man carrying a stick with bags on both ends on his shoulder. How did he end up that way?
• This morning as I go to work, I see a man sitting on the street, his head against a tree. I assume he was drunk.
• I can't recall the other thing I saw now. Maybe, I meant to mention one of my young students, who was very talkative and with with whom a class is basically nodding as he does a monologue. Toward the end of the class, he went on and on about the Japanese and their apparent denying of the Nanking massacre. To his credit, he did mention the evil that his government did in '89.
• Maybe this was the third thing. Last night at bedtime, Tony was watching a train video on my Ipod. I lay in bed beside him turned away from him. I heard the audio from the video and then began to hear him snoring. I flipped over to see him fast asleep with the Ipod in his hand. He had nodded out while watching the video to my amusement.

Sunday [February 13]

[Home Laptop]

• No shifts to report today.
• The thing to do, last night, was stay at home where I loaded more books on my Ipad (including a novel on North Korea recommended by the Derb), put together a second video of Tony in Hong Kong (which is now on Youtube and is entitled Hanging Out with Tony Kaulins #5), finished reading Macbeth, finished the GA Henty Novel I was reading, blogged, and downloaded episodes of Kenneth Clark's Civilisation from Youtube.
• I got out of bed at 10:30 AM. I had tried to organize and classify the books I have on my Ipad; but I found that some books could be classified in many ways or couldn't be classified at all. Some of the books I classified on the basis of the vague impression they left on me.
• Jenny is making Tony do homework in the afternoon. Sigh.
• [Later] As Tony was being made to do his homework, I put on the Apple TV and watched the opening innings of the fifth game of the 1969 World Series. The video I downloaded from Youtube which I can do in China because I have a VPN connection.
• After Tony did his homework, the three of us went to the Hui Shan Wanda Plaza Starbucks. I read about some paradoxes in the Other Limits of Reason by Nolson S. Yanofsky. Is time and space discrete or continuous? No human knows for sure.
• Dinner at Pizza Hut.
• I type on the laptop. I watch the final innings of the 1969 World Series game. Baltimore's pitcher hit a home run! New York's pitcher had a double.
• I await the start of the Canada – Sweden Olympic Hockey Final.