Dispatch from Akinistan? The Kaulins Family in Nanjing.

I am able to access the Internet in Nanjing.  So, AKICistan is in AKINistan.  Or should I say Akicistan is in Akinistan?

 

I have a theme for K Family Vacation 2009:  The Terribleness of Tony.  I hate to say it but Tony has been a little shit on this trip, so far.  What has he done? you ask.  Surely, he is the most innocent of the innocent? you continue.  Well, if you ask questions like that, you more ignorant than an ignoramus.  Tony is getter older.  Sure, he can do more things like use a spoon to feed himself.  But he has narcissistic tendencies.  If he doesn't get what he wants, he turns on the tap of tears.  I feel sorry for bystanders who have to listen to his whining.  He tests the patience of his poor mother, who doesn't get enough help from her husband.

 

But the flip side of his terribleness, has been his moments of laughter.  Unfortunately with children, the price you pay for the good times is the vale of tears that inevitably results when you have to try to move them on to the next sensation.

 

We arrived in Nanjing Thursday evening.  We went to a restaurant that has a wall with with portraits of Stalin, Mao, Marx, and Lenin.  I took a photo of this which I will publish when I get home.  Tony couldn't sit at the table.  He ran into the parking lot.  He insisted on my holding him while he played with the taps in the restroom.  He protested violently when I put him down.  He suckered one of our hosts into doing the same thing.  He protested the same way when they put him down.

 

Today (Friday) we went to the Ikea.  I had five hot dogs.  Jenny bought a few things and was contemplating buying more.  She told me that my comment "Tony will break it!" seemed very Chinese in being an indirect way to say "no".  I wouldn't know about that I told, my saying "Tony will break it!" was a statement of fact and a lament that nice as her wanting to buy something was, it wasn't practical at the moment.  How is the Nanjing Ikea doing business wise?  The place was not at all busy.  It is not even busy on the weekend.  I took some photos at Ikea which you will get to see next week.  Suffice to say for now that Ikea should have someone check the English before they post the signs.  I have one example which I will show you next week.

 

I have finished the novel A Soldier's Duty by Thomas E. Ricks.  A good read but not a great novel by any stretch of the imagination.  The novel came to an end with too many loose ends.  The good guys prevailed but the bigger questions the novel raised were never resolved.

 

I am now reading, in snatches here and there, whence and whither, the dialogues of Plato translated by Benjamin Jowett.

 

I am writing this entry on a laptop generously supplied by our hosts.  I was not able to access the blogspot site proper so I have sent this entry to my blog via email.