Exposnationals Win the World Series; Local Road Rage; Bill Burr Podcast; I Quickly Stop Listening to Some Podcast Episodes; Long-Term Planning

• Despite what you may have heard in the news, it was the Montreal/Washington Exposnationals who won the 2019 World Series. My son Tony won't be happy about the result. Because of the Houston Rockets, he chooses the Houston teams as his favorites in the other major sports. So, though the old Expos won, it would have been better for me if Tony was cheering for them.

• It looked like I saw someone other than me having road rage. I was returning from having dropped off Tony at his school, when I saw a car make a wide right turn without looking. The turn was so wide that the car managed to take up more than one lane. So, a nearby car that had swerved into the left lane to to avoid the turning car still had to put on the brakes. Down the road a ways, the car that had made the wide right turn was making a left turn. The car that had been cut off was stopped besides the now left-turning car. The driver who had been cut off had her window rolled down and seemed to be giving the other diver the business. Passing that scene, I was feeling impressed by what I had seen till my car nearly got hit by a car that had quickly swerved into my lane. So, I got full of rage, passed the car, blared my horn at its driver for a good five seconds while doing so, and then made a swerving maneuver in his lane. Chinese drivers are reactive and never think to slow down when they see an obstacle. As I keep saying, Chinaman travels around without consideration for others. Everybody just has to avoid him. And fluck you if you protest.

• I have so many podcasts to listen to these days. I just listened to the Bill Burr podcast in which he talked about the Montreal/Washington Exposnationals winning the World Series and how f***ing strange it was that every game of the series was won by the visiting team. I suppose I will listen to the Bookworm Room podcast next. Burr also made comments and jokes about how the athletes were overdoing the celebrating and even celebrating insignificant things like three yard gains. Burr was thinking that maybe he was just being an old man, and I had to disagree. There is something wrong with the ways the younger ones are acting these days. And Burr also mentioned how it was that the Nats used to be the Expos and how for a few Expos fans, the 2019 World Series was bittersweet. And a lot of the Nats fans are deep-state Trump-hating Trump-sabotaging bureaucrats.

• I got to do things that are essential and completely enjoyable. So there are some things that I should stop doing like posting on WeChat and following what is happening the WeChat groups of which I am a member. [There I was just trying to not end a sentence with a preposition.]

• Because I have so many podcasts to listen to, I will quickly stop listening to a podcast if I quickly see what the point, the takeaway, of it is and if I don't need to be familiar with the particulars of some subject. Case in point, there was a podcast about the autopsy of Jeffrey Epstein. I got the point that the autopsy was suspicious and decided I didn't need to listen to the expert telling me why.

• I can't help but feel that I am squandering time on my looking into and my preparing for a move to Canada in 2020. I have to find a job and sources of income. I do have the luxury of having time to plan it out, but it is a overwhelming thing to think about. What am I going to do when I take Tony to Canada?

Joe Biden Denied Communion; What Happens When An Intersection Has No Left Turn Signals; Tony's Current Sports Interests; Halloween; Canada; What It Is Like to Pick Up Tony from His School

• I was ecstatic to hear that Joe Biden was denied communion. It was good to hear that some Catholic priest somewhere had balls. The only defense I have heard of Biden is that his views on abortion weren't known. But they weren't known because he was being a politician. This is no excuse for not expressing Catholic teaching on such an important matter. Again, great to see that a politician gets punished for trying to have it both ways. One wonders what the consequences of this will be. Will Biden go to the Pope and ask for an apology? Will Biden, the so-called Catholic, change his ways? Will the story be ignored by the left-wing media? Will the priest be removed from his position? Will something big come from it? On the last question, one can only pray.

• I swear if the Chinese aren't herded or forced to be civilized, they won't. A case in point is what happens at controlled intersections that don't have signals for left turns. Left-turning cars driven by locals will immediately try to turn left as soon as the signal turns green. Sometimes this is not an imprudent maneuver because they can get through the intersection without impeding the progress of oncoming traffic. But I have seen local drivers make left turns even when prudence would dictate that the oncoming traffic is coming on too fast. So, I have often seen the oncoming cars either have to come to a quick stops or swerve around the left-turning cars; with the result being near collisions and unnecessary traffic jams. One morning, I was driving Tony to school and trying to get through an intersection when an oncoming car tried to make a left turn in front of me. I forced the car to come to stop as I had no choice but to swerve around him. I then made a point of slowly going around the left-turning car to impede its progress and hopefully teach the driver a lesson about not making left turns when traffic is oncoming. But I could see from the driver's frantically turning his steering wheel that the realization of his doing anything imprudent had not crossed his mind. A chinaman truly doesn't take into account others when trying to make his way about the world.

• Tony follows all the leagues it seems. That is, the NHL, the NBA, the NFL, MLB and the CFL. He has been asking me to find video of the Houston Rocket Akeem when he played in the NCAA.

• I won't be doing anything Halloweeny this year for which I'm happy. The reason? Chinese lameness. However, Tony told me that he wished he could trick-or-treat. That saddens me. I think he will be too old to do this by the time I get him out to Canada. What I have done for him is download some slasher horror movies that he requested from the Halloween and Friday the 13^th series.

• I am thinking of going back to Canada. I've been in China since 2004 and I am getting bored of it. And I don't want Tony to spend his whole childhood in the PRC. For as he told me, China is boring. And as he asked me, why did I move here?

• Sitting in the car Monday afternoon by Tony's school, I thought of something about which to blog: what it is like when I go pick up Tony from his school. Frequently, I have blogged about the bad drivers I encounter in the mornings when I take Tony to his school, but I know I have had little to say about Monday afternoons when I pick up Tony. Everything one does when one has to go out in China is fraught with anxiety. And usually it's because there are far too many people and most of them, given the chance, will do something stupid and selfish that impacts on others. It is because of this that I try to arrive at Tony's school at least an hour before he finishes his classes and comes to the school gate to meet me. I go early to ensure I get a decent parking spot before they are all taken. And when I park on the road, I parked at an angle to the curb because if you parallel park, there is a good chance that some late-coming driver will double park and block you. (I had this happen once when I parked near a school. I came out to see that I was blocked by a double parker who didn't come out for thirty minutes. And when she did, I swore at her and she had this strange look on her face like she couldn't believe that someone would actually get mad at her for double parking. This happens to a lot to other drivers in China which is why most locals angle park their cars when coming to pick up their children. What a low-trust society, China has for this to be happening.) And when I sit in the car, I worry when I see cars park near me. (Once, a car angle parked next to me but left so much space between us that other drivers thought they could park in between, but not enough that they could actually do so.) Other sensations are hearing someone speaking on the loud-speaker at the school's sport field and thinking this what it must have sounded like during the cultural revolution.

Sandwich Maker; Food porn, Gun Porn; Animal Cruelty; Friends with Chinese?; American Foreign Policy; Bleak House

• My wife Jenny bought a sandwich maker slash waffle maker. I used it on the first morning after its purchase to make Tony a ham and cheese sandwich for his breakfast. He enjoyed it.

• On WeChat moments, I don't like to post pictures of my life. I prefer to post memes, pictures of food, interesting gifs and pictures of guns. I should label them ____ porn. For example, food porn and gun porn.

• I posted a photo of it on my AKIC photo blog of what I thought was an act of animal cruelty. I was walking around the local shopping plaza when I saw that someone had put a fairly big dog in a cage that was meant for small puppies or kittens. The dog was yelping in protest against its tight confinement. Its yelping could be heard quite a distance away. I have to wonder what the story behind this was. Were the people who put the dog in the small cage prohibited from keeping it on the leash? Was it a merely temporary measure? Whatever the cause, the people who did should have been ashamed of themselves. [In China, no one is ashamed of themselves unless they lose face. That is, they can happily go on doing a selfish thing and only feel bad if it is pointed out to them. Or in other words, you have to wonder if the locals have consciences.]

• Spengler says that no one can really be friends with China. He was speaking at the geo-political level. On the personal level, I wonder if anyone can be friends with Chinese. I will say that I can't. I find their company boring. Not there aren't any nice Chinese. In fact, there are lots of nice ones and they are capable of acts of generosity that put me to shame. But at a certain point, I find myself, while with them, wanting to escape. Something about being with them is so confining.

• When it comes to American foreign policy, I came to the conclusion years ago that I can only shrug my shoulders about it. Generally, Americans have been a force for good in the world, but they have been well-meaningly naive at times in their dealings. This is because Americans have a problem unlike other nations, in that they possess a lot of power when it comes to dealing with the world and they also have a generous streak. And so Americans have tried to deal with foreigners in many ways. They have been isolated and they have been involved. They have been imperial to some and great partners with others. They have used their power for imperial reasons and for causes in which they have nothing to gain. They have done the wrong thing many a time. And yet I am glad they possess the power they have. Better they have had it than the Russians, the Euros and the Chinese. But as to the question of what America should do with its power, I have no strong feelings. America would be the best possible policeman the world could hope to have if it really had the stomach for such a thankless task. However, they would be well within their rights to get out of places like the Middle East and Asia. There are too many shithole places in the world that really can't be fixed by outsiders.

• On the reading front, I have gotten around to reading some Charles Dickens. I say "got around" because my cousin's husband is a big devotee of Dickens, as he was a devotee of Frank Sinatra who I am proud to say is my favorite singer. So, I have started to read Bleak House and so far, the writing is wonderful.

Shoving Locals; John Cleese; Dominos Pizza Wuxi; Proud Right Wing Troll; What Canada Doesn't and Does Need; Judging by Quality of Character

• Taking the bus home one Saturday afternoon, I had to shove a man who had sat next to me because he had fallen asleep and had teetered over so that I couldn't rest my elbows. Earlier in the day, I had an encounter getting off the subway train where I wish I had shoved an older male local or at least had kicked his two-wheeled tote bag. Far too many locals don't seem to have the patience to let others get out of elevators or trains before they enter. Saturday morning, the older male trying to get on the train basically blocked my way off with his two-wheeler. I did give the two-wheeler a bit of a nudge but it was an unsatisfactory nudge from my point of view because it didn't stop my anger at the man from increasing. I immediately wished that had given the two-wheeler a good kick and the man a good shove so that he would have been pushed backwards.

• I listened to an interview that Adam Carolla did with John Cleese. Cleese laughed in an offputting way that made himself seem insincere, admitted that he was going on a tour as a way of paying off a divorce settlement, said nothing that was funny, and made shrill comments about not liking Trump supporters. It was all rather sad. Cleese is in the unfortunate position of being an older John Cleese forced to live off his laurels gained over a quarter of a century ago. Kind of like, Marlon Brando having to spend the latter part of his life being Marlon Brando.

• I took Tony to a Dominos Pizza that had opened in Wuxi. Tony liked its pepperoni pizza and told me that he wanted to go back. I can say that the pizza did seem like Dominos pizza. I was never a fan of Dominos Pizza when I was in Canada. So, I was only expecting to grade the Wuxi Dominos on authenticity, which I can say it had.

• I will state that I am proud that I got called a Right Wing Troll on a WeChat Canadians in China group. Social groups like that are not the best places to have debates. They are good places to post memes and gifs, and to make stupid jokes, which I love to do. People who think these platforms are supposed to be only for so-called serious discussion pooh-pooh this sort of thing and so they call me a troll. Good.

• Canada doesn't need more immigrants, doesn't need to do anything about climate change, and doesn't need to make its presence known in the world or just the United States. What it does need is to be Christian again and more conservative than the United States. That was it raison d'etat. That it turned in a more "progressive" country than the USA is a betrayal of its founding principles.

• "Judge a person by the quality of his character and not the color of his skin." When MLK said this, it was not like people weren't already doing this, even the people he was railing against. What these railed-against people were doing was judging groups of people by their character. How these groups were classified was not only by color of skin, but many other factors as well such as dress and manner of speaking.

Put to Shame; Put to Shame Again; More Bigotry; Tossing Coins; Parking Garage Flooding; Benny Hill

• Sometimes, the locals put me to shame. The man who runs the small shop, I always go to, chased me down a hundred meters because I had forgotten to take a bottle of water with me that I had purchased. I had left the bottle on the counter of the shop and didn't put it in my backpack. When I saw him chasing me down. I was embarrassed. I also wondered how I would make it up to him. Or maybe it was just a privilege of being a regular customer.

• And a lot of Wuxi Expats put me to shame as well. Some actually are interested in the local culture. Some take the effort to learn to speak the language (I just book study it.), some do some charitable work, and talk to the locals while I have ceased to bother about it.

• What the world needs is more bigotry, not less. Why would I say such a thing? Because, I have a low view of humans in their entirety. I am aware that they are different. I am aware they are grouped along many lines. I am also aware that they are all very flawed. Some of these flaws rest with the individual; some of these flaws are from the group that individual belongs. Apparently, saying the latter is the cause of individuals' flaws is bigotry. And to this, I would say: So what! Prove to me what I said isn't true. (How I wish people instead of shouting racism or bigotry would say something is not true or a over broad generalization!! At least we might be getting to the truth of the matter.) If what the bigot says is true, that the individual confronted should find it within himself to fix the flaw. If it isn't true, the individual confronted should not shout bigotry and try to end the conversation. Humans are all flawed and we need bigots and the like to point out our flaws to us. Chances are, the flaws are real. Again, I say humans are all flawed after all. So when you see a bigot thank him. When it comes right down to it, he is judging you by your actions and the actions of people of your group that he has seen before. And if you can exceed his expectations you will stop him in his tracks and he will be forever grateful.

• I was teaching some children. The lesson plan with which I was supplied had the students play a board game where they had to toss a coin. Tossing coins is something I have done a lot of in my time. I don't want you thinking that is because I am a very indecisive sort. But when I was young I developed this solitary activity where I would create sports leagues and tournaments based on the results of tossing coins. So, I spent a lot of time tossing coins up in the air. But I never thought of the tossing coin action as something that was hard to do. No one showed me how to toss a coin and catch it. Tossing coins seemed naturally easy. But the children in this class were so uncoordinated. Every time they tossed a coin in the air, they couldn't catch it and it landed on the floor. Why was this? Had I developed a talent of being able to toss a coin two feet in the air, with a quick tight end over end spin that most people can't easily do from the start? I find it hard to believe.

• I saw basement flooding at Ming Du Da Sha, the tall apartment building near my school. I wouldn't have known about if I hadn't decided to walk a slightly different way to school from the bus stop on October 25^th. I first saw a bunch of locals gesticulating around a manhole cover that had been pried out of the hole in which it normally rested. Walking past the men, I was able to look down the entrance ramp to the apartment building's underground parking. A big stream of water was flowing down the ramp and parked cars were immersed in about a foot of water. Some sort of plumbing problem.

• Via torrent, I downloaded an episode of The Benny Hill Show from about 1970. One of the sketches in the show featured an Indian (from India) going to a Chinese restaurant. The Indian was played by one of the show's cast members whose skin had been painted brown. Benny Hill played the Chinese waiter with coke bottle glasses, crazy accent and a black hair wig. It would be simply audacious if such a sketch was performed today.

Canadian Election I; Stupid Things I Saw Local Drivers Do; Taking the Bus to Pick up Tony; Tony Wears His Latvia Hat; NBA Tip-Off; Canadian Election II

• I was disappointed by the Canadian Federal Election results. I have come to the conclusion that people who think like me are never going to see a government to their liking for a generation. The conservatives had a golden opportunity. All they had to do was to knock off a PM who was an absolute putz. But they couldn't do it. I supposed Conservatives were doomed when the putz got elected in the first place. Stupidity can be very pig-headed. Canada is, sadly, a left of center nation bent on killing itself. [I see that the Conservatives actually got more votes, nationally, than the Liberals. That is, they won the popular vote. Well, I won't shout election reform. That's the way the system works though one has to wonder how gerrymandered the electoral ridings were. But it would be interesting if the Canadians who crowed about Trump not having won the popular vote, will ask Justin Trudeau to give some of his MP votes to the Conservatives. Ain't going to happen!]

• Stupid things I saw local drivers do on the roads. I often, either aloud or to myself, exclaim "what the fuck is that idiot doing?" when observing the locals in cars trying to make their way around Wuxi. Recently, I saw a car come to a stop on a road when he should have pulled over. I saw another car stop in front of the exit gate through which he just gone, blocking it. I saw a guy who couldn't back into a narrow parking spot, drive straight into it. I saw another guy have to make a three-point u-turn on a road that was four lanes wide. The last guy could have gone over to the right and increased his turning radius. F**ing morons!

• Instead of driving to school to pick up Tony, I decided to take the bus and meet him there. Firstly, I wanted to avoid dealing with the chaos of all these coach buses dropping students off after a school outing. It was school outing week at the school. Secondly, it came to me later that I could show Tony how he could take the bus back to Stately Kaulins Manor instead of walking as he had been doing. Thirdly, the showing of the bus way home would make Tony just a little more independent.

• On his school outing, Tony choose to wear a Latvia hat. He could have worn his Raptors championship hat, his Winnipeg Blue Bomber hat, his San Jose Shark hat, his Winnipeg Jet hat, or his Houston Rocket hat, but he went with the one probably no one else would have wanted to steal.

• My son Tony is happy that the NBA season is tipping off. I, for my part, am curious about it for sociopolitical reasons. I took a screen shot of an image published on the NBA China site, proclaiming the oncoming tip-off of the new season, which showed six NBA star players, none of whom was James Harden. I wish Tony wouldn't watch the NBA given that is a league of craven people who don't have the courage to tell the chicoms to boil their heads, of players who don't have the decency to marry the mothers of the children they have fathered, and of hypocritical progressives. But who am I to deny my son his pleasures? As far as I can tell, he doesn't pay any heed to the league's shit. He's in it for the sports.

• The Canadian Election results are not good. Somehow despite losing votes, the Liberals, and the NDP who are basically Liberals on Meth, still control our government. The stupidity that Canada has endured with Justin will only get worse as he will have to heed NDP policy demands with which he is probably in agreement with anyway. (The only reason his father was not NDP was that it couldn't win elections.) Who is to blame for this? The Conservatives are for having run a squishy campaign. Leader Andrew Scheer trying to dodge the question of his having been against gay marriage, which I witnessed when I was in Canada, was what ultimately caused me to vote for the People's Party. Cuck!!! The Maritime provinces are to blame for being so third world and living off pogey and thus voting Liberal. The City of Toronto is to blame for voting completely Liberal. Toronto should not be part of Canada. It should be annexed by the State of California. I can see that I have always been correct to look down on expatriates who come from Toronto.

Tony Wants to Go Himself; Judas and the Bag of Money; Trying to Get Jenny to Watch Succession; Tony Likes Succession's Language; Upping My Manners; WeChat Canadian Election Moment

• Tony wanted to play basketball at the apartment court and didn't want me coming with him. Interesting and just as well. I really didn't want to watch him. It would mean having to look at more locals. I'd rather be reclusive these days. But it is good to see Tony trying to be independent.

• On WeChat moments, I posted a picture entitled Judas and the Bag of Money. It was at stab at foreigners. I will admit that I am as much a Judas as the people towards whom I am directing the picture, but at least by recognizing it, I am on the first step to redeeming myself.

• I am trying to get my wife Jenny to watch the Succession series. I think it would appeal to her because it has a over-the-top Game of Thrones feel about it. Succession has so many jaw-droppingly excruiatingly delightful scenes of confrontation in it in the manner of GOT's killing of characters. In a way, Succession seems to be classic Game of Thrones set in the modern corporate fantasy world.

• Maybe, I have mentioned that my son Tony likes watching the confrontational scenes in Succession as much as I do. He finds the salty use of language to be delicious.

• If I am to be better than the locals who I despise so much, I am going to have to up my manners. When driving in China, there is frequently situations where multiple lanes suddenly become less. For example, a three lane road becomes a two lane road, or, as on the morning of October 21^st when driving Tony to school, two lanes became one because a bunch of buses were parked that were going to take students on a school outing. I saw this bottleneck, down a ways from it, when many of the drivers around me, who were probably short-sighted, didn't and so I got into the proper lane. When the cars around me finally were able to see what was happening, they did the reactive thing and immediately, without thinking, tried to get into the proper lane. What happens then on Chinese roads in these situations, because of it being a low-trust society, is that no one lets in anyone else. I decided I would let one car merge ahead of me. One by one mergeing was what was called for in this situation, but when I looked in my rear-view mirror, I saw that the cars behind me were not doing this. Fucking Chinese drivers! I am just way more civilized that you stupid short-sighted, sheepy, caged mind fucks. [Pardon my French, but these thoughts are hard to suppress when you drive amongst these people.]

• I mailed my vote in for the Canadian Federal Election. I made a point of posting about the election on my WeChat moments. And I made a very big point of saying some uncomplimentary words about our current PM and a point of posting some uncomplimentary photos of him to show my Chinese contacts the joys of being able to slag one's political leaders in public.

WEBi Rumours: Rockets Blackout; Be Brave, Be Water, Be Ready; Local Looking Forward to NBA Season; What Are the Locals thinking?; The USA is Great Because It Has the Second Amendment

• Wuxi WEBi had to close its kiddie schools. They had been using Teachers from the Phillipines. Non-native English speakers are not supposed to be teaching in China. To avoid fines, the school told all these teachers to go home. Or so the rumour goes.

• Tony tells me that he can't watch Houston Rockets highlights on the Internet.

• "Be brave, be water, be ready." My motto as well. Beats the hell out of "Crushed bodies and shattered bones."

• A student told he was looking forward to the start of the basketball season. "NBA or CBA?" I asked. "NBA of course!" said the student. "What's your favourite team?" I asked. "The Rockets." he said. Replied I: "Really? Don't you have to change your favorite team?" The student had nothing to say to this but after we talked about the NBA-chicom kerfuffle, he did tell me that the Rockets GM was stupid.

• With HK on my mind, I look around and find myself despising the locals. What barbarians! What sheep! I think to myself. What arguments could the locals use to justify supporting the chicoms against the HongKongers? I know of three. The first is the rationale for having an extradition treaty. It is a case of a bad case making for a bad law. If the extraditon law ever came into effect, thousands more people than the pregnant woman in Taiwan would be murdered and put into concentration camps. The second I have heard of portrays HongKongers as nativists. It is an argument that could only possibly appeal to an America-hating open borders progressive. Basically, HongKongers should commit national suicide is what the argument says. A variation of "they are Chinese!" Of course, they are Chinese but they are not chicom loving mainland Chinese however. The third is that they are bad people. The third argument is probably the only one that most of the locals would know.

• Why is the USA the greatest country in the world and still it's best hope? The second amendment. Gun control is evil, evil, evil. The chicoms love it as much progressives do . Bad people can like good things, but this is a case where their liking shows them for the evil people that they really are.

London Calling Podcast; Is AKIC the Karl Marx of the Wuxi Expatdom?; Open and Closed Tunnels; Only One Egregious Thing Happened in Local Traffic; Things I should have taken a Photo Of; Succession Season One

• Another podcast I like listening to is London Calling with James Delingpole and Toby Young. They look at politics from a British, but not BBC, perspective.

• I am also listening to a history podcast about the Russian Revolution. The host begins his narrative with the formation of the International Workers Association (Later known as the First International) in 1864. He quickly focuses on the life and thought of Karl Marx. Interesting, I thought to learn of his time in London. He didn't speak English and was an outcast from the German emigre community. Sounds like my time in Wuxi. I don't speak the local language worth a damn and I am not on speaking terms with other expatriates. Not that I am complaining. I am not. I think that is a good thing that I am exiled from other expatriates. They have sold their souls. Which is not to say that I haven't, but I am intent on reclaiming it.

• Along with the Wuxi Metro, an extensive network of underground tunnels is also being built Wuxi. More and more tunnels are opening as construction proceeds; but some now are also closing. At Shenglimen Station where I had gotten off the Metro to go to a Burger King, I was surprised to find the tunnel I always took to the mall containing Burger King had closed. The tunnel entrance was at one side of a below level open air square. Looking around the square, I saw another tunnel entrance with a sign indicating it would lead to another shopping mall. Curiosity got the best of me, and after going to Burger King, I took the tunnel to the mall. Not much of interest was there except a Dominos Pizza which I am sure to take Tony to one day. [I imagine the DP will be shitty. But it was always shitty in North America, as I recall.]

• Before I drove Tony to school on the morning of October 18^th, I was thinking in an anticipating way. Normally, if something egregious happens in traffic that raises my ire I will blog about it here. But this morning, I was thinking how it would be nice if nothing egregious happened so that I could make a sort of blog entry that I normally don't make. That is, a blog entry where I can say nothing happened. So this morning, on my drive to and from Tony's school, only one egregious thing happened – a driver made a wide blind right turn into the left most lane that I was in – but it didn't let it cause me to make a complaining entry. It was all cool.

• Things I should have taken a photo of but didn't because I was watching the seventh episode of the first season of the HBO series Succession on my phone: the tracks of an enormous crane being used on a road construction project near Stately Kaulins Manor; a small three-wheeled motorcycle wagon carrying seven construction workers wearing matching yellow helmets.

• On the topic of the HBO series Succession, I have to admit that when I watch a comedy show or a show with interesting characters or a show with interesting dialogue, I like to adopt the swagger and speaking manner of the characters. That is, I want to imitate them. I would love to do this with Succession but some of the talk is so mindblowingly harsh, that I hesitate. Still, the show is quite funny and entertaining.

WEB English Troubles, LeBron 1, LeBron 2, Bookworm Room Podcast, chicom Social Media Police, LeBron 3

• WEBi or WEB International English, a competitor of my school, is having some financial difficulties. They have given some their students to EF and haven't paid their teachers. Not a good sign for the industry which has employed all the years I have been in China. I am not sure how Wuxi WEBi is affected because the WEB organization is big and a franchise operation. From my mutterings in this blog, my very rare readers will know that I don't associate with many foreigners. I am a kind of exile/recluse in the Wuxi Expatdom. So, I would only be able to give third or fourth hand information. What does it mean for me? It is time to bail.

• I wonder how LeBron James is perceived in China. He was popular before. I wonder if his comments on the tweet by the Rockets GM has been given media attention in China and if this is so, how his popularity would be affected. Would he be more of a hero? If I had students to talk to – right now, I don't have many – I would ask them.

• I just read the LeBron is not popular in Hong Kong. His image and his jerseys are being burnt by protesters. And it just so happens that Tony has a very expensive LeBron Lakers Jersey made by Nike. That jersey along with Tony's Harden jersey and Rockets' Cap are jinxed.

• I forgot to mention a podcast that I have been listening to on a regular basis: Bookworm Room's Podcast. The hostess sensibly talks about matters political and cultural.

• A thing I was told: You cannot criticize Xi Jing Ping on Chinese social media. The chicom social media police will come down on you.

• A student did tell me that LeBron's comments are known by mainland Chinese. She didn't have much an opinion on, being a woman and not a basketball fan.

Storm-Troopers; E-Bike Spill Witnessed; Yao Ming CBA Ad, “Crushed bodies and shattered bones”; Upcoming SPC Topics; Go Exposnats!

• I wish I had thought of that! A few AKIC blog entries earlier, I mentioned an encounter I had with yellow jacketed police types that I had been seeing in the area of Stately Kaulins Manor. When I described them, I should have said they were storm-trooper like. Androgynous storm-trooper like!

• I saw these storm-troopers on Monday, October 14^th (Canadian Thanksgiving which I didn't it was realize till it was too late). What happened was I was walking in a bike lane when I felt the wake of a food-delivery driver (on e-bike) riding past by me. I wouldn't have thought anything more of it but the driver had a tumble. So, it was the whizz of the wake immediately followed by the sound and fury of the e-bike spinning and twisting to rest on the pavement. I thought that the driver was severely injured and that his e-bike was totalled. But he got up, brushed himself off, and stood his e-bike upright. I then saw three storm-troopers run up to him. They seemed to be giving him the business and one of them was taking photos. Did the driver have a spill because he was going too fast when he saw the storm-troopers?

• Where's Yao Ming during this NBA – chicom kerfuffle? I wouldn't know, but I did see his smiling face on an advertising screen in an elevator in the building where my dear wife Jenny has an office. The ad seemed, with the sponsorship of China Life Insurance, to be trying to push the CBA (Chinese Basketball Association) on the Chinese public. I haven't meet anyone in China who thinks that the CBA is anything but second rate compared to the NBA.

• "Crushed bodies and shattered bones" I suppose I won't be talking to any students about Hong Kong. If they do up, and I will pretend to be ignorant and ask questions using the Socratic method.

• Some of my upcoming Speakers Corners' topics: Hope and Despair, Monarchy, and Metaphysics. I have used more words that I will probably have students for these classes.

• The Montreal/Washington Exposnationals are in the World Series! Go Exposnats! They will meet with the New York Highlanders/Yankees or the Houston Colt 45's/Astros in the 2019 World Series.

Tony Has a Good Line, The B Stands for Back-Down, Luxury Talk, Dave Goldman Says, What I Want for My Son, Any Wuxi Accident

• The St. Louis Cardinals defeated the Atlanta Braves in a decisive game of a best of five series by scoring ten runs in the top of the first inning. Tony had a good line about this. The Atlanta fans should have asked for their money back!

• NBA. The National Back-Down Association. You got to like that. I will be using this phrase for a long time.

• I do some Free Talk Speakers Corners. That is, conversation classes where I haven't chosen a topic. I have decided to do some Speakers Corners where the topic is Expensive Talk and Luxury Talk.

• John Derbyshire, quoting David Goldman, says China will be eating the West's lunch in ten years. I hope not. And being aware of Chinese deficiencies, I am lead to doubt it. But when I go back to Canada and the States, or follow their news, I am well aware that the West is dead determined on descending into stupidity, that America's and Europe's time may well be past, and that there is probably not much that can be done about it, save a lot of progressives and globalists having sense knocked into them. Contrariwise with China, the only hopes are the Chinese rise up against their Chicom oppressors, the Chinese go off the demographic cliff, Chinese fall victim to their lack of imagination, or many Chinese die in a big plague caused by their environmental problems or bad sanitation.

• I don't want Tony to live in a world shaped by lies or avoidance of inconvenient facts.

• Another Day in Wuxi, another disaster. This time, this time six killed an explosion in south Wuxi. Lots of video of it taken.

Saturday Morning Annoyances, Wuxi Police Chief, Hanging Out with No One, AKIC Watches TV Series, AKIC Reads, More about the NBA

• Saturday Morning, October 12^th, I had a day-time shift (with no classes to teach because Saturday was a school and work day in China.). Before going to work, I drove Tony to his school. After dropping him off and being waved through a crosswalk, I had a car that had been on my left pulled in front of me to drop off somebody. I honked at the car because I was annoyed at being cut off. One of the passengers got out of the car and glared at me. I glared back at him and mouthed the words "fuck off!" The car eventually drove on and went back into the left lane. I passed the car on the right and gave the passengers the finger. I am sure they saw me do it. I dropped the car off back at the Stately Kaulins Manor parking spot, and got on a bus that took me to a Metro station. On the platform, I was standing to wait, but not on the line as it were, and this woman took up the spot in front of me. I wanted to tell her off but I didn't. I took the metro downtown, got out, and was walking on Zhongshan Road towards my school when I witnessed this SUV driver make a very quick turn through pedestrians. Icehole!! I notice "things" about the locals, and recently, I am really starting to despise them. I hope it doesn't get me into trouble. I can say that my "incident" encounters with Chinese have been because I was provoked.

• A Wuxi police chief, or the Wuxi police chief, apparently got the sack because he was seen at the scene of the Wuxi Highway Collapse wearing a very expensive watch. Or so I have heard from people in Winnipeg. Now, I have been told that this rumor was caused by someone try to get more followers on their social networking site.

• These days in Wuxi, it is probably good that I don't have any Chinese friends. The times are very politically sensitive. I also don't want to hangout with expatriates. Like the NBA, we have all compromised ourselves. They can deal with it by hating Trump; I cannot. I can only deal with being here by thinking like a reactionary Catholic dissident.

• I do spend the great deal of spare time I have watching TV series. I just finished watching the ITV series A Confession about the real life travails of the policeman Steve Fulcher. It was a great show that had the emotional impact of the first season of Broadchurch. I watched the first episode of the Spy starring the Sacha Baron Cohen guy. It didn't anything for me. I am three episodes into a series called Top Boy, a drug dealer drama. I do like these sort of shows. I have watched seasons of The Wire and Narcos. But, I don't know if I can stick with Top Boy. It actually gets strangely cringe-worthily sentimental in parts. I may try watching a show called Succession and finished Ken Burns' Country Music, while I wait for the sixth season of Bosch.

• I am also doing a lot of reading. Currently, I am reading Castle to Castle by Celine, The Great Papal Encyclicals of Pope Leo XIII, and 50 Things They Don't Want to Know by Jerome Hudson. So, one fiction, one religious and one political. Oh! How I wish I could just read one book after another! (Go back in this blog and you will find my lists of books read in previous years.)

• More thoughts on the NBA. The chicoms are what they are. Have no illusions about them. But the NBA's absolute cravenness is more and more galling when one becomes aware of their past activities. While afraid to stand up to the chicoms, the NBA was not afraid to take the state of North Carolina to task for not wanting degenerates to go into women's bathroom, or to make a point of snubbing President Trump. One can only gleam from their actions that they love money, that they hate normal Americans, and that they love degeneracy where they can get away with it.

312 Collapse, How it Affects AKIC, Not busy, My Current Podcast Listening Habits, Li Xiao Ming, A Victim Was from NKCS

• The 312 road where the Highway Collapse happened was empty on the morning of the 11^th. Usually, these days, I take the 25 bus to get to and from school. The 25 bus does go under another stretch of 312 overpass. In fact, the intersection where the 25 goes under looks a lot like the intersection where the collapse happened. I had a shift at school on the 11^th, but I choose to take the train which goes over the 312 instead because I was curious to see what the traffic was like. I recorded what I saw using my Iphone.

• The collapse affects me because going to the Ikea Mall and getting our car serviced will not be so easy for however long it takes to repair the section of road.

• I am not at all busy at school which is why I have been blogging on an almost daily basis.

• I have also been listening to a lot of podcasts. I like to say I am downloading them in a manual manner. I am not using a podcast app, but instead use my Feedly rss reader which alerts me to when new podcast episodes are available. I then download them using a browser (Safari on my Mac, Brave on the PC I use at work), and put them into my VLC app to listen to them. My favorite podcasts include the Dennis Miller Option, Radio Derb, the Z Blog Power Hour, The Delingpod, London Calling, GLOP, Patrick Coffin, Contra Krugman, and the Kunstler Podcast, to name a few.

• Interestingly, Li Xiao Ming, the Wuxi communist party chairman was at the scene of the collapse. I mock this chairman for his ubiquitousness on Wuxi Metro video screens and his comb-over hairdo.

• Sadly, I have a connection, though very very tenuous, to one of the victims of the highway collapse. A kindergarten teacher from Nanwei King's College School was driving home from the school and had the horrible misfortune of being under the section of highway when it collapsed. She and her daughter were killed. Last spring, Jenny & I looked at the possibility of having Tony attend that school and visited its campus. NKCS is located near the Coastal City Shopping Mall in an area which I would otherwise have had no reason to be at. Jenny was still getting updates from the school and received the news that the woman's car was seen in the video of the collapse.

Wuxi Highway Collapse, NBA in Shanghai, Airbrushing of the Houston Rockets, End Result?, Too Much Tolerance, The Cause of the Collapse?

• I was at work when I heard about the Wuxi Highway Collapse. It turned out that the collapse occurred on a stretch of highway (the 312) that I have often driven to get to the Wuxi Ikea Mall and the dealership where we get our car serviced. My wife Jenny doesn't like driving the road because of all the commercial trucks that are on it. I find driving it to be a bit of an adventure. The trucks on this road are on every lane because the rule of slower vehicles to the right is not observed in China. The road is also peculiar in that there were a couple side roads which vehicles could enter from without merging lanes. And the road is often strewn with fallen debris from trucks and will often be rutted because of the heavy trucks.

• The news of the highway collapse interrupted my following of what was going on vis-a-vis the NBA kerfuffle with the chicoms. The game in Shanghai was played, but without much fanfare and without national anthems being played.

• When I got home, Tony told me that Houston Rockets merchandise was no longer available on Taobao. So, wonder if it is a good idea for him to wear his James Harden Shirt or the bright red Rockets hat which I bought for him in Canada.

• What will be the end result of the NBA – chicom kerfuffle? A colleague at work speculated that it would be forgotten in two months and that everyone would be happily watching their NBA again. I expressed doubt about this because it is tied to what is happening in Hong Kong. I did learn from my colleague that "live" European Football Matches broadcast in China are shown on a tape-delayed basis because of pro-Tibet protesters liking to display signs at them. This will happen to NBA games because already HK signs are showing up at NBA games in America.

• Why do mainland Chinese put up with the chicoms? When will they get sick of the banning of things and the censorship?

• The highway collapse is being officially blamed on an overloaded truck. It is what the government would say, they have been saying. I would guess that the collapse was the result of a bunch of factors: poor highway design, poor highway maintenance, shoddy construction, and lack of traffic rule enforcement – the latter factor resulting in an overloaded truck bringing down the overpass. But I doubt that the truck was the heaviest truck in history to have been on the road. The road, as I say, from having driven it many times, is an adventure to drive. It has a third-world China feel to it.

NBA – chicom Kerfuffle, Tony, Opportunity Missed, One Student, A Report from Hong Kong, Motorcycle Cops

• The NBA – chicom kerfuffle has me visiting NBA sites more than I ever would have otherwise. The NBA's popularity in mainland China, which I have been aware since I came to Wuxi in 2004, has always disappointed me. I always wished that the Chinese could have liked Baseball, American Football and Ice Hockey more. Of the major sports leagues, the NBA is the one I least follow. But the kerfuffle which had political and cultural ramifications has interested me greatly.

• Returning to Stately Kaulins Manor on the evening of October 9^th, I found that my son Tony didn't seem fazed at all by the NBA and South Park kerfuffles. He was keen to tell me about the performance of some player in an NBA exhibition game. Whoever he was, he had gotten 34 points. And when I showed him the China Band South Park episode, he found it funny without seeing the controversy.

• When the Kaulins family was in Shanghai, we saw a big video board advertising the NBA exhibition game between the Los Angeles Lakers and Brooklyn Nets. I thought to get a photo of Tony standing beside it because he had expressed an interest in seeing the game. But I changed my mind about it, and now I regret it, especially, since I read that all that advertising has been taken down.

• I was keen to talk about the NBA controversy with students but only one showed up to my evening Speakers Corner. And the student was a woman.

• I did have a student, a doctor at a hospital nearby our school, who had spend five days in Hong Kong. She told me that there weren't many shoppers in Hong Kong and that the store owners were regretting it.

• In the area around Stately Kaulins Manor, I see lots and lots of police. They wear all sorts of uniforms and can be seen driving in all manner of vehicles including cars, vans, pick-up trucks, e-bikes and motorcycles. Recently, I have been seeing these slickly dressed motorcycle cops riding round in groups of four motorcycles (I say this because the ones I had seen before were paired on one bike.) They wear combat boots, tightly padded cargo pants, and florescent yellow jackets with all sorts of pockets for radios and other equipment. They often are stopped at intersections and I have seen them harassing the the operators of e-bikes and other small vehicles. On the evening of October 9^th, I was walking home from the subway station, and came upon the four cops standing around an e-biker who had an umbrella attached to her e-bike. They didn't so much look to be giving her the business as just standing around, I thought. I walked as close to them as I could and stared at them, and one of them said hello to me, in what I thought was a prissy way – that is, in the way most Chinese greet passing foreigners walking down a street.

South Park China Band, Five Star Flags, Decoupling, New Groups of Kiddies, … Celine … , Watching S23E02 in Public

• My son Tony's favorite TV series, South Park, has been banned in China. He loves South Park for swearing and the humor. I worry about exposing him to the show's vulgarity and toilet jokes, but I do like the fact that the show parodies everything, so that the reactionary in me can watch it and get some chuckles. I want Tony to grow up with no illusions about the world and South Park is no better way to help with this goal. As soon as I heard about the show's creators' mock apology to the chicoms after being banned, I had to download and watch the episode that lead to the banning. Episode S23E02 mocks the brutality of the chicom regime but it also mocks the cravenness of westerners coming to chicom China to make money while sacrificing their values of decency and the livelihoods of their fellow countrymen.

• As I walk about Wuxi, I pass video screens showing images of Chinese happily (or obediently) waving five star flags.

• Decoupling: the ending of China being part of America's supply chain. I have been teaching this word to the few students I have in Speakers Corners. I can't see it not happening. The NBA kowtow and the Southpark banning surely represent a point from which there is no turning back. The reaction to the NBA kowtow was bi-partisan, and the Southpark China Band episode is sure to get a lot of viewership in America and China.

• I have some new groups of young kids to teach. In one group, one of the girls had been brought to tears by a male classmate, and I felt sorry for her. But as the class went on, and the girl cheered up, I saw that my first impression of her was not at all correct. The girl revealed herself to be, pardon my English, a bit of a bitch. I have seen a lot of kids in my time in China, and there are kids with general likable dispositions and kids who are preternaturally malevolent. If the latter are female, they have a truly bitchy disposition. One can only hope, they have a good level of English so you can at least joke with them.

• I am reading Celine … Paul Grant … Is that his name? … Anyway, the Canadian Philosopher who wrote Lament for a Nation … He says the trilogy Celine wrote after WW2 is classic … I think of Celine as the ultimate Misanthrope … What is the antidote to Racism or whatever it is that gets people think racism is a bad thing? … Misanthropy … Hate people because of whatever they happen to be …

• One more thing about Southpark. I put the episode on my Iphone and made a point of watching it in public when I was on the bus and on the metro.

Another Thing about Tim Hortons Shanghai, NBA Kowtow, PRC – CCCP, JW, More Catch with Tony, No Reason to go to the Big Smoke

• Another things about the Tim Hortons in Shanghai that we went to: I didn't see a picture of Tim Horton anywhere. I don't know if this was an oversight on the part of the Chinese operator of Tim's we went to or if it was a conscious decision.

• The NBA kowtow to China was sad. It really hit home with me when I saw Tony reading the letter the league published to China on the NBA.com. I would boycott the league outright but Tony follows it and he is too young to do things for political reasons.

• Can the PRC outlast the CCCP? The PRC has last 70 years. The CCCP about 74 years.

• I want to call Wuxi "JW". "JW" meaning Jiangsu, Wuxi. I like saying "Jay Double U!". It sounds better than saying "Double U, X".

• Another session of catch with Tony. I chided him for being scared of the ball, and told him if that if he really wanted to play ball, as he said he did, he would have to try to catch balls thrown at him much faster and harder than I was throwing them at him.

• There is no reason for me to visit Shanghai more than I have been visiting it the last five years.

Black Van; Politics; “I don't know!”; Famous Chinese People I Can Name; Mailed My Ballot; Tim Hortons in Shanghai

• One Saturday Morning, I was standing at the intersection of Jiankang and Zhongshan Roads near Nanchang Temple. A black van with caged windows pulled up near me. Inside were a bunch of men in green military uniforms. The back door of the van opened and three of the uniformed men jumped out. They were stern-looking, wore helmets and one of them had a side-arm. Scary I thought. I wonder now what was the need for such over the top security.

• To follow politics and the news, or to not to follow politics and the news? That is the question. There is no point for me to blog on it unless I can report how it has impacted me in China. So much of what is political news is soap opera. And it is so anger-inducing that I wonder if I am being manipulated. These progressives can't be that stupid and disingenuous as they are being portrayed? Just to let my few readers where I stand, I will say this: Impeachment is bullshit. I support the HK protesters. Greta is a little horror. I hope Justin Trudeau is defeated. I hope Brexit happens. 

• "Can you tell me a popular thing that you don't like?" After ten seconds of hemming and hawing, and shifting back and forth of his head, the teenage student whom I asked the question to, said "I don't know!" "So you just follow the crowd?" I asked. "Yes, I follow the crowd." Earlier when I asked him who the most popular person was in China, he answered Xi Jing Ping. When I get these answers from students, it is never safe to assume that they mean what they literally said, because you have no idea what they know and or understand of what you have said. The student maybe didn't know the difference between fame and popularity. And later when I asked the student if he liked something because he himself liked it and not because it was popular, he said yes which contradicted what he had told me earlier.

• I can name maybe four or five Chinese people who are famous and active at this time. They are Xi Jing Ping, Yao Ming, Jack Ma, Jackie Chen, and Fan Bing Bing. For the size of China's population, you would think that one could be able to name many, many more famous Chinese people.

• I mailed my Canadian Federal Election ballot on October 5^th. Hopefully, it will arrive in Ottawa before the October 21^st deadline. Who did I cast my vote for? I will tell you now that I didn't vote Liberal, I didn't vote NDP, I didn't vote Green, I didn't vote Marxist-Leninist and I didn't vote Conservative. 

• The Kaulins Family went to Shanghai on October 6^th. We hadn't visited the city, except for going to Pudong Airport, in over four years. Our main purpose in going was to visit the Tim Hortons that had recently opened there. Jenny had really liked the bagels with cream cheese at the Tim's in Canada and Tony had really liked the steeped tea. I was very curious to see what a Chinese Tim's would be like. Would it be completely authentic or Sinofied? I looked forward to be able to write a blog review of it. 

• Which, I will do now: I will first say that Jenny was happy with her coffee and bagels, and that Tony said the steeped tea tasted just like it had tasted in Canada. He also liked his bacon & ham melt sandwich. And so the wife & son were satsified. For my part, I was underwhelmed. The service was slow compared to a Canadian Tim's. Upon making our order, we were given an electronic pager that would tell us when our order was ready. We sat at a table for five minutes before the pager started buzzing. I then discovered when unwrapping the bagels that two of the three we ordered didn't have cream cheese that we requested, and so I had to take them back. The bagels weren't sliced in half like they would have been in Canada. The portioning of the cream cheese then didn't seem as large as it would have been in Canada. And the coffee was not as good as it would have been in Canada. The Shanghai Tim Hortons seemed Sinofied in the worse way.

What to do, Military Parades, Three Great Father-Son Moments, 很多人, Built-up or Neglected, Two Red-Light Running E-Bikers

• What to do in mainland China on the 70^th anniversary of the Chairman Mao's declaration of the establishment of the People's Republic of China? One could celebrate it or honor it, but that would mean honoring evil, tyranny, the killing of innocents and attempts to crush the human spirit. One could do nothing and treat the day like it is a holiday but one for which you don't care what the point of it is. One could oppose it, but the question is to what degree. Not celebrating it is opposing it, but it is minimal and cowardly. I, coward that I am, indirectly opposed the day by noting other things to celebrate on October 1^st, like it was the feast day of Saint Therese of the Child Jesus and the anniversary of Roger Maris hitting his 61^st home run of the 1961 baseball season. I made postings about Saint Therese and Roger Maris on the moments feed of Wechat, the Chinese social app. I was drowned out by my Chinese contacts actually celebrating the 70^th anniversary. I didn't see any of my Wechat foreign contacts posting things to honor the 70^th, except one who even wished China a happy birthday. Geez. It is as dumb as Canadians who think Canada was born on July 1, 1867.

• What countries have put on impressive military parades? The Soviet Union, North Korea, Nazi Germany and The People's Republic of China. I only caught brief glimpses of the broadcast of the big parade held in Beijing. If I watched any more than I did I would have lost my temper. As it was, it was only a short jaunt into local national day traffic to make me despise mainland Chinese and the Chicoms.

• First, Tony was looking at the NFL app on my phone, checking the scores. "How did the Vikings do?" I asked him. "They lost to the Bears!" he told me. It was a wonderful moment, a sublime exchange with my son. Then, Tony & I were following the National League Wildcard game between the Nationals and the Brewers on the MLB app. We didn't have access to a TV broadcast so we had to rely on a feature of the app that allows one to follow the play by play, pitch by pitch results. In the bottom of the 8^th inning, we followed the Nationals staging a dramatic rally to take the lead in the game and save their season, and Tony said it was more exciting than Bobby Thompson's 1951 Home Run. I had to disagree with him but the moment was memorably dramatic all the same. And then, Tony & I played catch. Jenny & I managed to find a place in Wuxi that sold baseball gloves and bought him one, as well as a few baseballs. I already had a glove and so that evening, Tony & I went to a sports field and threw the ball back and forth. We were a curious sight for the locals who were there. Tony enjoyed himself, though I have to report that I am old and stiff, Tony is clumsy and uncoordinated, and that one of the baseballs we bought was of Chinese quality and broke apart very quickly.

• 很多人！henduoren! Too many people! October 2, we went to the Livat Shopping Mall. Too busy. There was a traffic jam to wait through to get to the Mall. We didn't bother walking through the Ikea. (Ikea when it is crowded is hell on earth.) October 3, we went to a Tai Hu lakeside park. It was worth ten minutes of a walk through, but we had to be there for three dull hours. After finally leaving, we got stuck in a traffic jam for an hour. We were on a two lane road with the jam going one way. So many locals, doing the stupid mainland Chinese impatient maneuver, thought that they pass the whole line making it annoying for the people who were waiting properly in line and for the people who decided they were going to turn around. In the evening, we went to Nan Chang Jie Bar street which was so full of people that I had to hold onto Tony so we wouldn't get separated. The moral of the story: stay indoors during National Day Holidays.

• One thing that strikes me as I travel through the Wuxi area is how everything is either built-up or neglected. Part of the contrast is a result of the speed of the development. You will see freeways built next to or running over neglected, weed-infested fields, hotels next to empty lots strewn with garbage. October 3^rd, I drove on a road built through overgrown bush. The road was new, but the high bushes were already drooping over the curb. I have walked past entrances to new apartment complexes where there are water fountains and well-lit entrances, only to walk fifty meters more and see piles of abandoned fixtures, signage and other trash. The contrast is also a result of Communist China never having had civilized property laws. Much of the build-up I have seen was decreed by the Government and whatever was there before was shoved out of the way. There being no property laws, there is no incentive to maintain anything. So everything is shabby and much is neglected unless the government decides to build up something on it which in turn gets shabby in twenty years as no one in China has much incentive to maintain anything.

• In the past week, while driving, I have put the scare into at least two red-light running e-bikers. In both instances, they had to come to an abrupt halt when I honked the horn at them to get out of my green-lit way. I wasn't surprised when these e-bikers didn't show any bit of sheepishness at the fact that it was their ignoring the signals that almost had gotten them killed, and that they instead glared at me like I was in the wrong. Mainland Chinese, as I have complained many times in this blog, are oblivious to other people as they journey through their days. (It shows why no one should trust the Chicoms on trade, and issues of diplomacy and morality.) In response to their idiot glares, I glared back at the e-bikers and pointed to the traffic signals. I hope I gave these people a near heart-attack, for they deserved that. I also hope that they maybe they may come to see the errors of their ways. (If they operate like the Chicoms, unfortunately, there is little chance.)