Ballroom Dancing.

Tonight, the Kaulins family went to a hot pot restaurant in Yangqiao where they kill the chickens on the premises.

"Can you eat the whole chicken?" my wife asked.

I couldn't, so I took Tony, my son, for a walk about the restaurant. Tony, being nearly 14 months old, is a curious boy who likes to get into things he shouldn't. And there are a lot of things he shouldn't get into when hot pot is on the table. So around the restaurant we went. The place was small and offered Tony little to look and play at unless you think it is okay for Tony to play around the chicken cage.

After three trips around the small restaurant which was too decrepit and uncleanly to look at, I took Tony up these stairs which I had assumed lead to nothing. But as I ascended the stairs, I heard music and thought the restaurant had a KTV (a karaoke bar) on its second floor. But it wasn't a KTV at all. It turned out there was a ballroom dance bar instead. The place was also decrepit but the dance floor was polished and shiny. I watched, the six or seven couples on the floor, mesmerized. The classy thing I have ever seen in China.


Ronnie's Australian Bar, a popular Wuxi, China expat bar opened in a location this afternoon. I didn't go. I have a family to look after. Many Wuxi expats looked forward to the opening. And some did not. Wuxi, China may be a city of 4 million or so, but if you are an Expat, it is really a small town. And like small towns, relationships can be strained. There is a divide in the Wuxi Expat community about the bar-going crowd between two Australian pubs. I can now say I have heard disparaging things said about the patrons of both bars. I straddle the divide, or rather used to straddle the divide. Now, I go to these places too rarely to make an impression or to be noticed. But, I do have to be careful to not mention one or the other pub in certain people's presence.


I go halfway around the world and see some things don't change. I knew this, having read an memorable essay by G.K. Chesterton, but I choose to ignore the advice under the strange belief that I could change and that the wise things Chesterton said didn't apply to me. You can't escape yourself or the tyranny of other people.