I Feel Like Rioting; Seven Days, Four Classes; The US is Still the World's Cultural Superpower; What Can Be Said about Prime Minster Trudeau Kneeling?; An attempt at defining racism; Maybe I am the Alienated Type; And Other Thoughts

• I should ignore the news. It makes me despair to see how so many people can be so stupid. But I have been affected by what is in the news (the virus lockdown) and surely the life I have now will have to come to an end. It angers me that the students I have been able to talk to were able to go back to work in late February, three months earlier than I did. It is enough to make me want to riot. But the problems with me doing are that I am in the wrong country to do that (China is not my country) and that the people, who are rioting now, are rioting against the wrong things. I don't want to be associated with them in any way.

• Seven days of work, I have had four classes. I don't see how the school can change this because it looks like the market for English instruction is going to dry up until China and the World can have another detente.

• In the previous blog entry, I said that I really didn't know what to make of the world-wide demonstrations against the George Floyd death. The Z-man who blogs and podcasts from Baltimore had this to say about the public demonstrations and protests and even riots that have taken place outside of the USA on account of the incident: there really isn't much happening in these countries if they have to spend so much time obsessing on what is happening in the USA. I would add that it shows how powerful the US's cultural influence is still in this supposedly globalized world. (And China has a long way to go to ever catch up to it. The last great Chinese cultural import was Bruce Lee and he never spent any time on the mainland. I say it in another way: Mainland China only exports cheap manufactured stuff but no culture.) As a Canadian in China, I will say that I spend more of my time over here following what is going on in the US rather than in Canada and that I am obsessed as much with the US as any foreigner could be. I had attributed my obsession to that fact that I am from Canada and that the USA plays such a big role in Canadian culture and that the two countries have a common language. But it seems that many Europeans have the same obsession.

• Canadians have an inferiority complex because of the United States and its cultural power. And the Z-man's barb against other places having not much happening can certainly be applied, without a doubt, to Canada. And so, it shouldn't surprise me nor upset me that CTV news app that sends me news headline updates from Canada tells me that PM Trudeau made a public show of kneeling against racism. But PM Trudeau has a quality like bad Chinese drivers: I can't stop being irate at what they do. Does PM Trudeau really believe that this kneeling is going to help race relations or is he really secretly cynical and doing this because it helps him hold onto power? This is what his gesture if translated to government policy would result in: more non-white people having less moral agency, more real racism, more violence, more crime, more anarcho-tyranny, more taxes, less freedom, higher cost of living, less community, more atomized individuals, more murder sprees, more vandalism, less initiative, less charity, less purpose in life, less knowledge of the transcendent, more rioting, more looting, and more left-wing struggle sessions, .....

• What is racism? If it is strictly making incorrect judgements about people because of the color of their skin, then I am against it. If is making judgements about people because of the color of their skin, then I am for the correct and against the incorrect applications of it. And so, I ask: are these the definitions of racism that the anti-racism movement of the world now is railing against when it says it is against racism? I don't think so. Some have begun to say that the anti-racism movement is racism against white people. And they are probably correct...

• An interesting writer, whom I have most recently come upon, says that are three types of men: leaders, followers and the alienated. I'm am probably a combination of the latter two and in the weakest way possible: I just try to be fly on the wall. Flies on the wall as far as I can tell, don't talk to anyone and lurk. (Reminds of a time in my life where a jarring put-down was to call a person a lurker.)

• Following the news, I see it is a good time to be alienated. [Written at the time of George Floyd.]

• Saturday, I had one class to teach. I taught the class as soon as I arrived at school and basically had nothing to do ('cept some class planning) for the rest of the day.

• Time like this, I think about making my diet as simple and inexpensive as possible. Jenny spoils me in a way and it is making me weak.

• Tony has taken a liking to Chris Farley. He wants to watch all the deceased comedian's movies and SNL appearances.

• Am I missing sports ball? Not so much, but my son Tony is.

• Safeco Field in Seattle. I remember how the area around it seemed blighted. That is, it was like a new apartment complexes and new hotels in China which always seem incongruous with their surroundings.

• I know a person who is nice enough, but when it comes to politics, he is like a shitlib right out of central casting. In these perilous times, I've decided to avoid him because I don't want to have to heard his crap which would result in two possibilities: I avoid confronting about his nonsense or I do confront him: either way it would be painful but the former would be more because that is my habit.

• At least I can be honest myself about something.

• I wonder if there are expats in Wuxi who would feel compelled to take the knee against racism. I have to admit that I was fantasising about scenarios where a group of expats did try to this and ask me to join, and I told him no, saying I only kneeled for Jesus Christ. I further imagined myself being articulate and righteous, and further telling them off.

• To give Tony a taste of what rioting is like, I found a video of the 1992 LA riots to show him. He was taken back by the footage of the looters and of the blacks attacking and beating up white drivers.

• Tony & I enjoyed flipping through this book on the most important battles in history.

• The chicoms are of course gloating about the riots in America. But if any local said this to me, I would ask how the chicoms would deal with the blacks if they had them in China, and what advice they would have to give Americans to deal with their blacks. I bet the chicoms wouldn't, because their way of dealing with pesky minorities has been to put them in camps or shot them. The local could say all sorts of things about government programs to help but the Americans have tried all that.