Fading into October's Home Stretch: Bloggings of the October twenties or so

The Notorious "Family on a Scooter" Video:  At the back of my mind, I was expecting someone to make a harsh comment about  the Scooter Ride Video (see here on Youku and here on Youtube), and my premonitions proved correct as I finally got scolded (see here)  There was the Kaulins Family, three on a scooter, no one wearing helmets, on the way to market.  We violated all sorts of Western taboos.  Of course, in China, what we did, violated no cultural norms that I know of.  Still, I appreciate the harsh comments, taking them as genuine concern for our safety: and I appreciate the fact that someone reads this blog.  (I suppose that the next time I am in the Chinese countryside, I will tell a family of four, going to the market for their weekly shopping, that three of them will have to walk unless they wear helmets.)

Fall  Typing this entry, I observe that today has been  perfect fall day outdoors -- cool, sunny, and a gentle breeze.  It is the perfect time to do an English Corner about fall/autumn memories.  But doing the corner, I discovered the students had few autumn memories other than constantly going to school.  They couldn't match my melancholy memory of being at a lake in the fall, and thus the off-season, all the while thinking that I had to go to school the next day.  (The other memory I have of Canadian Autumns is of it being a cool, windy day about 4 p.m. and my sensing that the end of something was near -- a lonely, and again I say, melancholy feeling.)

Security Guards  Four of them were wearing gray uniforms, police style hats, and yellow arm bands.  They looked like a bunch of thugs though some of them were of a slight build.  They seemed a remnant of the 1960s and 1970s.  I don't think you would see four security guards together on a Canadian street.

 

Sporting Concerns  Is following sports a fetish?  Is it soap opera for guys?  Who can say?   I need something to blog about so I make this entry.  I do follow sports here in China even though I can't watch them on television.  I make a point of daily checking out the results and standings of many leagues.  I am following the major league baseball playoffs where it looks, right now, as if there will be a Giants -- Rangers World Series.  I see this as a match up between a conservative Texas state and a goofy-political-progressive-leftist San Francisco city.  Of course, I will go for the Rangers.  The National Hockey League season has started, though it is far too early for me to care.  I just want my team to be in a playoff position.  I don't get uppity about the winning of division titles and what not.  In the National Football League, my Jets are 5-1, and my Seahawks and my Vikings have mediocre records.  In soccer, the Tottenham Hotspurs are 1-1-1 in the Champions League.  The NBA season starts -- yawn!!  And finally I have developed a fetish desire to see the Winnipeg Blue Bombers of the Canadian Football League make the playoffs.  Right, the Bombers are 4-10 and have the worst record in the league.  But, they still have a chance to make the playoffs in a league where six of the eight teams can qualify.  There are two teams currently with a 5-9 record that the Big Blue could overtake.

 

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