How would I react to being questioned about my Christmas Plans?* I would like to say I am not bothering this year, but that would surely be a sin. I could instead say "no plans" but that wouldn't be quite true. I do plan to at least take in some Nativity related media and make contact with my brother and mother in Canada. I do also look forward to spending some time with my son Tony who will be on a break from school. But I do want to be bah-humbuggy in some way, so I would say Christmas is unfortunately on a Saturday this year and I am in China. Restaurants would be extra crowded those days and it would be best to just stay home.
(Oops. Christmas is on a Friday, not a Saturday. So, what will I do? I have no idea. I'll let my wife Jenny and son Tony decide what to do and I will tag along. I hope they don't go to some commercial Christmas dinner in a restaurant or hotel. I have done a few of these in my years in Wuxi, and none of them was satisfying. Particularly egregious was one I went to in the Kempenski hotel -- when it was the Kempenski hotel. I had high hopes for it, going to it, but it turned out that I was the only foreigner there and the dinner was basically being in a place overstuffed with Chinese having a semblance of a second-rate Christmas food. The detail that really annoyed was the extra table being put a part of the room that clearly wasn't meant to have tables usually. Everyone was herded in like sheep.)
During my Speakers Corner, I asked the attendees if they would join the army, navy or air force. Surprisingly, all three options were chosen. Usually, everyone wants to join the air force. I called one student Fly Boy and another Sailor Sally. The army person I called a grunt willing to do the dirty work. And the pair who chose the air force, I called pilot and bombardier.
2021 will be worse than 2020. Why? The dumb things done in 2020 will have lingering consequences. The dumb people who did them are going to double.
The social life I have, or don't have, should make me crazy. Maybe, it has. I don't talk to anyone. I interact only with children in classes. I only take in podcasts.
(My lack of social life is in fact making angry and resentful. Part of the problem is me; part of the problem is the people with whom I could socialise if I wasn't so... me. Thanks to Stalin and Hitler**, I never had a chance to be in my natural ethnic milieu. I have always been an outsider. I have never been able to be part of something. I have never had an identity. I have failed completely in being able to adapt. But then the problem also is that I have never have found the right people. There is a lot of bad in humanity, a lot of bad in Wuxi Expatdom. I haven't sought out the right people, and I stupidly better of people whom I shouldn't be expecting better from.)
Oh. Woe is me. Ha ha! Pathetic I am!
I am a Karen when it comes to Wuxi drivers. One Sunday, I pointed out to these people, who had parked their car beside mine, that they had parked in a lane, not an actual parking spot. I had to wonder what they were thinking. And later that day, I was coming back to our apartment complex and I honked my horn and gesticulated at this driver who stopped his vehicle right on the lane that cars entering the complex wouldn't normally take. I was so annoyed at him that I walked back to the entrance after parking my car to see if the vehicle was still there.
Tony & I went to an Expatriate pub on the Sunday before Christmas. We walked in, and the pub's owner, who I am acquainted with, said an enthusiastic hello, until he saw it was me. We sat at a table near a big screen showing the NFL network. I then saw other foreigners come in, and they would walk up to the owner to greet him in a "kiss the ring" manner. Tony was happy to play on his phone and watch the NFL being shown on the big screen. I alternated between enjoying his company and feeling really alone. I couldn't interact with the foreigners and felt I was getting a cold shoulder from the few there with whom I was acquainted. I also started to feel anger. When It was time to for us to leave, I should have paid my bill and left. I instead waved bye to the pub owner. And he came to wish me a Merry Christmas. And I couldn't resist the urge to to gripe, so I told it was going to be an angry Christmas this year and babbled in the bad way I do when I am angry-talking. Then, this other expat who I hadn't interacted with in years, and who I had a issue with because of rudeness to me in the last encounter, shook my hand. Being already riled up, I said to him: "Who are you. I don't know you." He pulled his hand away from me, in a "screw you" way. And so, I said to him: "Oh I know you! You're the Pakistani guy!" I then walked out, babbling some more.
Going home after that, I felt both sheepish and elated. It's always been my way to feel sheepish after an angry outburst, even if my anger was justified. I also liked how I had gotten my revenge on him for the last time we had meet.
One is entitled to use every weapon in one's arsenal to get back at someone who has wronged you. No matter how long it takes (This was at least a five-year interim with the guy from Pakistan.) Once you have had your righteous vengeance, you can forgive them. That is, if you ever see them again.
(I shouldn't be surprised I get the cold shoulder. I am the king of giving cold shoulders to people.)
The title of the book I should write: What's Wrong with the World; What's Wrong with Me.
* I use "would" because it is an "if" question with the number of even acquaintances I have these days.
**I am Latvian diaspora thanks to those two men.
Feel free to email me at andiskaulins@hotmail.com or andiskaulins@qq.com.
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