April 30th was sort of a holiday for me. It was the second of three days of the May Day Holiday in China. My wife Jenny was working and so I did have a few duties of chauffeuring that I had to do with my son Tony. I first had to take him to his drumming class in the downtown of Wuxi. I later had to take him to his after-suppertime swimming class which was closer to our home.
The plan for the day was to first go downtown, wander about and look at some places before going to the drumming class. For lunch we were going to go to a pub called the Red Lion. From the Red Lion we were to go to Tony's drumming class.
Because I was to drink beer at the pub, I decided it was best if Tony & I took the bus and then the subway downtown. But walking to the bus stop, we discovered it was very humid. This was to be the first of many annoyances we would experience that day.
On the train downtown, some fool played his music loudly using his smartphone. I stared at him and I saw eyes raised among the other passengers, but none of us did anything.
The third annoyance was to see that the Red Lion was closed. I had assumed it would be open on the afternoon of a holiday. My being wrong could have been enough for me to have a swearing fit because we had walked a bit of a ways in the suffocating humidity to get to pub and I didn't have a plan B. I had been so much looking forward to having a beer and sharing a pizza with Tony. I didn't swear however because I had to stop Tony from whining. We instead, after some indecision, went to this Italian set-up (but no longer run by, it seemed) restaurant named Ciao Italiano. I wouldn't have minded it so much if its tables were not so small and its beer was served cold on tap in a cold mug. Beer was instead served in bottles.
Finishing our meal at the restaurant we had time to burn before Tony's drum class started. The restaurant we were at was on Wuxi Nanchang Jie bar street, so we walked the street. I couldn't get over the fact that all the nice little shops and businesses were in the midst of construction and and that there was trash everywhere.
The plan for the day was to first go downtown, wander about and look at some places before going to the drumming class. For lunch we were going to go to a pub called the Red Lion. From the Red Lion we were to go to Tony's drumming class.
Because I was to drink beer at the pub, I decided it was best if Tony & I took the bus and then the subway downtown. But walking to the bus stop, we discovered it was very humid. This was to be the first of many annoyances we would experience that day.
On the train downtown, some fool played his music loudly using his smartphone. I stared at him and I saw eyes raised among the other passengers, but none of us did anything.
The third annoyance was to see that the Red Lion was closed. I had assumed it would be open on the afternoon of a holiday. My being wrong could have been enough for me to have a swearing fit because we had walked a bit of a ways in the suffocating humidity to get to pub and I didn't have a plan B. I had been so much looking forward to having a beer and sharing a pizza with Tony. I didn't swear however because I had to stop Tony from whining. We instead, after some indecision, went to this Italian set-up (but no longer run by, it seemed) restaurant named Ciao Italiano. I wouldn't have minded it so much if its tables were not so small and its beer was served cold on tap in a cold mug. Beer was instead served in bottles.
Finishing our meal at the restaurant we had time to burn before Tony's drum class started. The restaurant we were at was on Wuxi Nanchang Jie bar street, so we walked the street. I couldn't get over the fact that all the nice little shops and businesses were in the midst of construction and and that there was trash everywhere.
Owing to the humidity we took a taxi to the Tony's drum class. Arriving, we still had time to burn so I got to have the experience of buying and then consuming a can of beer in a Family Mart convenience store. After the drum class I was to experience annoyances of the day number four and five. Both of these were the results of cars that swerved around pedestrians instead of yielding to them. I got revenge on them both by pounding my fist on their trunks.
Then there was annoyance number six. The car-pounding I did happened on the way to the subway which we were to take home so we could get to Tony's swimming class. The train turned out to be crowded and so we were not able to easily get a seat as we had become accustomed. (Which was almost an annoyance till we got to the next stop and seats became available.) Now, most of the time the locals on the train pay me no never-mind or no heed, and that's just the way I like it. But it was a holiday and so there were types on the train that I normally wouldn't encounter, like these two brats, one female and one male, who sat besides us and gave off a bad vibe. The boy stared directly at my iPhone screen and said something to his companion involving the word Laowai, making me very uncomfortable and perturbed. This staring made me put my phone down and instead try to concentrate on what Tony was doing on my IPad. But the bad vibes from the annoying pair sitting beside me wouldn't go away. The boy then decided to stand up and and to swing from the center pole of the train car used by standing passengers to keep their balance. Glancing at the boy, it seemed to me that he had the face and the ears of a chimpanzee. I then told Tony to never act like that boy because his behavior was that of a monkey. His girl companion heard this and understood. It would have been the end of it but as luck would have it, they had to get off the train at the same stop that we were getting off and they would even be waiting at the same bus stop to which we went. I suspected, and Tony confirmed, that they were still talking about us. So Tony and I gave them some choice English curses.
I am not proud of myself for this incident. I really should've just ignored them. And you would think that after 14 years of being with these people that I would've gotten used to it and stop letting them get under my skin! Be that as it may, the locals are a rude bunch. I don't think it's just a case of the sheer numbers of them producing enough bad apples to lead me to falsely conclude they have great tendencies to boorishness. I have been in crowds of North Americans and have never experienced the revulsion at the manners displayed as I have in Wuxi. I did like how Tony told them off, however. It is good to know that the flesh of my flesh can be an ally.
After that the day went swimmingly. While Tony was swimming, I got my exercise by walking in the area around the pool. The area is getting built up and I like to walk about to see what has been done. The amount of building does seem quite impressive. There are so many tall buildings and bridges and parks in the area that I have no end of things to look out. However, by walking I see that China is simply not something you want to look at too closely. Up close, you see the buildings and infrastructure are mostly empty, under-utilised and already suffering from neglect. This 400 meter overpass I walked on had great views and was nicely set up for pedestrians. But I was the only pedestrian on the overpass, the overpass tiles were cracked and strewn about, and the area under the overpass was virtually a garbage dump. Whoever designed the overpass didn't take into account how it would fit in with its surroundings. The locals had decided that the area under the overpass was a good place to abandon rubbish.
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