Gratitude:
I am having difficulty thinking
what I should be
specifically thankful for this week. I always hope to find a new
thing to be thankful for every week, but it always comes back to
thanking the power that is for my Wife and my Son. I am also, now
that I think of, thankful for having a brain and a pulse.
One
more thing. I should be thankful that the things I have done that I
am ashamed of are not all that bad compared to those of many people I
read about in the news. But that is only small consolation. It is
my luck or my curse to not be subject to too much temptation.
Acknowledgment:
What
to confess to this week? There is always something one did in the
past that one shudders to think about now. I have had my fair share.
How
about this? I sometimes mail it in.
Requests: I
wish I could speak English
with a lisp. I also need more courage.
The
AKIC Mission: To
be China's leading forum of Gómez-Dávilism and reactionary
intransigence, as well as a provocation to all of AKIC's enemies and
critics.
The
AKIC Motto: Believe in God, trust in Christ, look
with suspicion.
Who
should read AKIC? AKIC is more AK
than C. So don't come here expecting the rantings of a would-be
Sinologist. I just sometimes mention what I happen to see being here
in China. Also, don't expect to read anything about the Wuxi Expat
community here. I keep my contact with foreigners to a minimum –
but then that is like someone declaring his party to be private even
when no one is going to his party anyway. Everyone can read this
blog, but only certain types would understand it – that is,
flotsam, jetsam, waifs, lost souls, conservatives, reactionaries,
lost-causers, medievalists, coin-tossers, base brats, marginal
humans, watchers, cranks,walkers, wallflowers, failures, losers,
Catholics, solitaries, and loners.
An
AKIC Glossary
Gratitude:
will always be the first word of the AKIC weekly blog entry -- it is
the key to happiness.
Acknowledgment and
Request: For me Acknowledgment means
confession; and Request means asking for stuff. GAR [Gratitude,
Acknowledgment, Request] are the simple stages of a prayer which
I came upon following the Jewish World Review site. I used the
GAR format when I delivered the eulogy at my
father's funeral last year.
Solecisms:
I try to rid my blog and writings of these things, but they never
seem to go away.
Jenny is
my wife. She is a Jiangsu woman. Why she puts up with me is a
mystery. I ain't good-looking and I don't have any money.
J: I
will sometimes refer to her that way.
Tony is
my son. If he is annoying or is acting way, way, way
out-of-line, I will spank him.
T: I
will sometimes refer to Tony this way.
TKIC: Tony
Kaulins in China. I may be referring to the TKIC blogs or to
Tony when I use TKIC. I am sure you can figure out which
way I am using it from the context.
AKIC: Andis
Kaulins in China. The same applies to AKIC as applies to TKIC.
That is, I may be referring to the AKIC blogs or to myself. AKIC
aspires to be China's leading forum of Gómez-Dávilism
and reactionary intransigence.
My
School is
HyLite English located on Zhongshan Road in Wuxi, China.
Casa
Kaulins is
what I call the apartment I (really my wife) owns.
California
Villa: The English name of the apartment complex the Kaulins
family resides. In Chinese pinyin, it is called Jia Zhou Yang
Fang.
Train-spotting.
There is a high speed train track running near Casa K. Tony
& I, when we have a chance, love to go there to watch the trains
go by.
Wuxi:
The city where Jenny, Tony & I live. I sometimes call
it the Wux.
Hui
Shan: The district of Wuxi in which we live. Not to be
confused with the Hui Shan Mountain that is in Xihui Park.
Ba
Bai Ban: Also known as Wuxi Yao Han, Ba Bai Ban is a famous
department store at the corners of Zhongshan Road and Xueqian Road in
Downtown Wuxi. AKIC goes there to buy Tomica and Plarail toys for
his son Tony.
The
Square: The Hui Shan People's Square is nearby Casa
Kaulins.
Central
Park: Hui Shan Central Park is the park closest to Casa
Kaulins. It has a playground area and a small lake with beach.
The park is nothing special. The water in the lake is
unbelievably foul. The playground's fixtures are following
apart. The park is big enough that its narrow paths, that I
would have thought were meant for pedestrians, have cars being driven
on them. The sight of these cars honking at pedestrians to get
out their way disgusts me as much as the park's lake water.
Chinese people don't know how to drive and exhibit extreme
selfishness when they get behind the steering wheel.
Hui
Shan Wanda: A fancy shopping mall and cinema that is near Casa
Kaulins. As of this typing, it is supposed to open June 21.
Yanqiao:
a town of Hui Shan District -- not too far from Casa Kaulins.
Jiangyin:
A city or district next to Wuxi.
Meicun: A
suburb of Wuxi city that is far from the downtown.
Shuo
Feng: Ditto!
Ditto! Agrees
with what has been previously said.
To
do List At work, even though I
am not that busy anymore, I print out a weekly list of things to do
everyday. It is a compulsive-obsessive habit that does give my days
some form.
LECTOR: I
got the idea for Lector, a fictional sparring partner for my blog,
from a
Hilaire Belloc book I had read recently.
School
Laptop: I like to make note of where I make my notes for my
weekly blog entry. One of the four places is my school laptop.
The other three are: my
home laptop, my
Ipad Mini, and my
Ipod Touch.
Dotdotdot:
This is my favorite social app. It is a nice way to read long form
articles on the Internet that allows you to proclaim to the world
what you are reading. I use the app to read the Catechism and the
writings of Father Schall. I get a new follower seemingly every day.
Python:
Some kind of script-writing computer program I am learning to use.
Atftb:
A thought for the blog.
Brandon,
Manitoba, Canada is where my mother Aina lives.
Winnipeg,
Manitoba is where my brother
Ron lives.
Minneapolis,
Minnesota, USA is where some of my father's relatives live.
Bao
Bao Sleepy:
What Tony calls it when he sleeps in Daddy's arms or on Daddy's
lap.
David
Warren:
I visit his
website about
five times a day. He a fervent Catholic and reactionary. If
I model myself after anyone, it would be him.
Don
Colacho:
a.k.a. Nicolás Gómez
Dávila. A
South American sage. He died in 1993. He would have been
100 in 2013. I read his aphorisms everyday. He is the
consummate reactionary.
Father
Schall: I am always reading the
site of his which has a huge collection of his writings.
English
Corner: I go to a room and try to talk to a group of
Chinese people in English. Often, they don't understand me.
25,602,
602支，610，81，79，67，118，85,
635：These
are buses I can take as I go downtown Wuxi from the Hui Shan New
District. I usually take the 602支
in
the
morning, transferring to the 79, 81, or 85 to get to school. In the
evening, I can take the 67,79,81,85 or 118 to get to the stop where I
catch the 635. The 635 is the only bus running to my area of Wuxi
after 800 PM. The 81 bus is a double-decker – quite the novelty
for a guy who spent a lot of his life in Manitoba.
HM:
Harry Moore is from Brisbane Australia. He had a brief
stint as an English teacher at my school. He sends me
emails occasionally. He was my partner in crime in my
notorious Wuxi
China Expatdom Blog. He suffered a stroke recently
but he still heroically plugs away.
The
AKIC Week in Brief: It rained
very heavily on Friday. The
Ear Buds on my Ipod Touch needed to be replaced. I read about
Erasmus. I fiddled around with my Python programs. I had a long
conversation out of the classroom and realized I didn't have much to
say.
About
Me (Andis):
I am in China! 我不喜欢说的中文。我的发音不好。我想可以看得懂中文词。
Politically
I am Conservative/Reactionary!
I never started this way. Through most of my high school years
and then in university, I would have proudly
boasted of being a socialist. But then I listened to Rush Limbaugh
and played devil's advocate with a member of the NDP. I am not sure
what exact branch of the right wing I most feel a part – on the
right, diversity is a natural thing. Much as I agree with
Libertarians that the less government the better, I also agree with
conservatives who would like to preserve the old-time checks on the
excesses of capitalism and materialism. Lefties, whether they call
themselves socialists, liberals, middle-of-the-roaders, progressives,
activists, or communists are out-to-lunch and irredeemable because of
the results of their policies,which may have been well-meaning at one
time, but been shown time and time again to destroy the human spirit
and breed a new kind of intolerance, as well as making the problems
they seek to solve worse.
I
am Canadian!
To other Canadians, I apologize for my being so. But I am sure
that real Canadians are wondering about the nickname of Ottawa's
latest CFL franchise: The Redblacks?
I
teach English! Thinking
of all the years I went to
school, the only things I can really remember from the classes, are
not the subjects taught but the strange things that happened like a
philosophy professor being accused of sleeping with some man's wife,
a professor pulling chalk out of his pocket, and a teacher falling
off a stage. In my classes, I always aim for the unforgettable
moment that will stay in a student's memory long past whatever we
were talking about faded from the memory. That about states my
teaching philosophy. As for teaching English, I am here to get the
students to talk – nothing else. I chide them constantly for their
laziness or lack of imagination.
I
like to Read!
Here
is what I had been working my way through the past week:
Don
Colacho's Aphorisms: There are 2,988 of them in this book
that I compiled for myself. I read ten aphorisms at a time.
I cut and paste the better ones -- they are all profound actually --
and I put them in my weekly blog entry. (See below)
Ulysses
by James Joyce:
I am following along with Frank
Delaney as
he slowly guides podcast listeners through Joyce's hard-to-read
novel. Delaney figures he will have done his last ReJoyce
Podcast in about 22 years. Now that I have caught up to
Delaney's podcast (he completed episode #156a this week), I am
getting ahead him as far as reading the book. I will be
finished reading it, I figure, in a year.
The
Holy Bible King James Version: I am reading a
chapter a day of the greatest book of all-time. This past week, I
finished reading the Acts of the Apostles. I am now in Letters to
the Romans.
University
Economics: Elements of Inquiry Third Edition by Armen A.
Alchian and William R. Allen: A great Economics
textbook.
Erasmus
and the Age of Reformation by Johan Huizingia. [Finished]
David Warren mentioned Erasmus and so I am reading this book. I find
the book quite fascinating so far, and I will probably read in Praise
of Folly next. I had always thought of the Reformation as being
boring till reading this book.
Prime
Obsession by John Derbyshire A
page-turner of a book.
In
Praise of Folly by Erasmus. I
should read something about Erasmus seeing how I have read a
biography of him.
I
like to take photos
I
publish them in the following blogs: AKIC
wordpress , TKIC
blogspot,
and TKIC
wordpress.
In TKIC Wordpress, I publish photos of Tony taken at certain times
of the week.
I
like to make videos
Here
is my
Youtube Channel and my
Youku Channel.
I
like to cut and paste quotations:
The
following are from Don Colacho:
2328
The great industrial trade fairs are the showcase of everything
civilization does not require.
2336
The modern mentality’s conceptual pollution of the world is more
serious than contemporary industry’s pollution of the
environment.
1588
No one praises the people except the man who means to sell it
something or rob it of something. [I have never been generous
with praise.]
2345
Life is delightful at those moments when one is allowed to think
or dream.
2350
In order to live peacefully with one’s neighbor, there is
nothing better than not having a single postulate in common. [The
meaning of this aphorism is very subtle. I take it to mean,
ultimately, that conflict starts when people associate, and what
better way to have peace with someone than to not share any of his
assumptions about life and thus have reason to have nothing to do
with him?]
2357
To be a reactionary is to understand that man is a problem without
a human solution.
The
following are about Erasmus:
- Bad monarchs should perhaps be suffered now and then. The remedy should not be tried. [Hopefully, we only have to suffer through Obama till 2016.]
- The eternal ambiguity of human issues.
- As an intellectual type Erasmus was one of a rather small group: the absolute idealists who, at the same time, are thoroughly moderate. They can not bear the world's imperfections; they feel constrained to oppose. But extremes are uncongenial to them; they shrink back from action, because they know it pulls down as much as it erects, and so they withdraw themselves, and keep calling that everything should be different; but when the crisis comes, they reluctantly side with tradition and conservatism. [The withdraw phrases attracts me.]
From
Letter to the Romans:
1:14
I am debtor both to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians; both to the
wise, and to the unwise.
I
like to keep a journal of my daily activities and any
thoughts that occur to me.
Monday
[June 3]
[Home
Laptop]
I
didn't work today, but that didn't mean that I could sleep in. At
620 AM, I was awoken by my wife's kicks. She said she kicked me
once; I thought I had been kicked four times. Either number, the
wife kicked or was kicking me because she didn't know what time it
was, and she worried that we had overslept which would have meant
that we would have to take Tony to the kindergarten ourselves.
The
Black Hawks have taken a 2-0 series lead against the Kings.
Wonderful!
The
wife and I went downtown for lunch and so I could get my hair cut.
Beforehand, we first went to The Grandma's restaurant at Nanchang
Market where we ate our fill. I like that restaurant, and so does my
wife; and so we don't disagree, which is nice. However, my wife
wanted me to try another Grandma's potato dish instead of the usual
potato dish I eat there. I declined because the usual potato dish,
that I had eaten many times, was my raison d'etre to come to
The Grandma's. That fried potato dish never bores, and if you rare
reader are at the restaurant be sure to order it! My wife then
suggested, halfway through the meal, that I wait till Saturday to get
my haircut because Tony was going to get his hair cut that day. I
declined, saying that I had put off getting my hair cut long enough
and that I was starting to look like a pot-smoking, greasy, long
haired, work-out addicted hippie.
So,
I got my haircut and looked respectable once more.
On
the bus ride back home, my wife got a phone call from the
kindergarten telling her that Tony had shit his pants.
Tuesday
[June 4]
[School
Laptop]
I
work 1300 to 2100 today.
In
the morning, I lingered around at home.
I
took the 25 to work. At the bus stop, I saw a woman use a recyclable
shopping bag as a hat. It would have made for a great photo but I
can't be taking photos of strangers in my blog in order to mock them.
[LECTOR: Like you have never done this before... ANDIS: Actually I
knew those people.]
I
phoned my brother in the morning to get an update about my Aunt
Dzidra (my Mom's eldest sister) who is in the hospital with
pancreatic cancer. He told me he hadn't heard anything about her
after she was hospitalized a week ago. We then talked about the NHL
playoffs. The Leafs fan that he is, he wants the Bruins to get to
the Stanley Cup Final so he could at least have a
what-might-have-been feeling about the game seven el foldo
magnifico of the first round. [Leading 4-2 late in the game, the
Leafs eventually lost to the Bruins in overtime.]
I
just saw a girl wearing a shirt depicting a middle finger gesture,
and words starting with the letter “f” and with the letter “y.”
She was looking to enroll in some courses at our school. The
interviewer told me she was some 17 year old who probably didn't know
better.
This
student Sarah is going to go to Vancouver. She thinks that UBC is in
the countryside. It is not, I told her. It is in Burnaby which
would probably seem like the countryside to her.
Wednesday
[June 5]
[School
Laptop]
I
work up at seven thirty this morning and exclaimed aloud a word
starting with “F.” The alarm on My Ipod Touch had gone off at
six o'clock and I simple turned over, thinking I had plenty of time
to snooze. The seven o'clock alarm on the Ipad Mini then didn't go
off, and I continued to happily snooze away. It was just dumb luck
that I awoke when I did for we were just able to get Tony to school
on time.
My
wife dropped some laundry from our third floor perch and so I had to
go out to retrieve it. This involved me going down three sets of
stairs, walking a 100 meters or so to the entrance of the apartment
complex, walking 100 meters to the area in front of our apartment
(and outside the apartment complex) where the laundry fell. I then
had to find a narrow pathway in the row of hedges that go around the
entire perimeter of our complex to finally pick up the laundry. The
perimeter area is actually very disgusting. It consists of bushes
grown in front of some fences. Between the bushes and the fences is
a narrow pathway that is full of rubbish thrown either by passersby
or people in the upper floors of the apartment buildings. I then had
to make my way back to the apartment. I don't complain too much
about these incidents – they have a trump card aspect to them –
that is, I can use the fact that I did something as a way of
defending myself against being selfish.
I
took the 602 to work. I changed my routine somewhat and instead of
getting off at a stop on Zhonghsan Road, I waited two more stops and
got off at a stop near Chongan Market. From there I walked through
the downtown to the school.
Sights
on my way to work:
- There was a whole slew of e-bikes in front of the Hui Shan Wanda Plaza.
- I passed a scowling security guard.
- I saw a driver in an SUV honk at pedestrians. “Get out of my way! Can't you see I have a big vehicle and hence have a high social status!”
- Under a tree beside a curb, four men sit intently around a checker board. Perhaps they can't afford Ipads yet.
I
have a few tasks to do today. By writing this blog entry, I can
check off a task on my to do list.
I
should have mentioned that I phoned my mother this morning. The news
about my Aunt Dzidra and Uncle Red was grim. They, whoever “They”
are, want Dzidra to go back home. She should be put in palliative
care, but that would mean putting her in a hospital that is on the
other side of Winnipeg from where her family lives. Uncle Red may
recover from his operation. Uncle Red took me fishing once near the
Winnipeg Floodway gates. I caught a eel that must have been a foot
long – the last time I ever caught a fish.
In
the ongoing war between students and teachers, I like to arm my
enemies. I am like the Americans that way. That is why I am
teaching them interjections that they can use in classes with other
teachers like “damn straight,” “gosh”, “holey moley,”
“hell's bell,” “la-di-da,” and “gadzooks!” [LECTOR: Geez,
Andis! You must be bored.]
Thursday
[June 6]
[School
Laptop]
D-Day.
I work 1000-2100.
I
didn't sleep well last night. Thoughts and heat were keeping me
awake.
I
don't have much to say for myself today. I can say that I have a bit
of prep to do, but not much teaching. It is going to be a long day
of ticking off my to do list.
Breakfast
at McDonald's where I notice an old couple took a seat. They didn't
buy anything. They came in from a side entrance and walked into a
back room which was far and hidden from the counter.
My
wife had lunch with some Wuxi locals who now live in Richmond, B.C.
We had opportunity to stay at their home for a short time last year.
This couple is so loaded with cash that the husband doesn't work and
doesn't want to. The wife has to tell people she knows that her
husband is in real estate – she is too ashamed to tell the truth
about him. The temptation to not work, to mail in it, is strong.
I
bought Tony a toy yesterday. [LECTOR: You did what!?! I can
hear you wife saying.] I will look to give it to him in a moment
where he deserves to get a reward, and hopefully not when I think he
deserves to get an award, if you what I mean.
My
wife tells me that there is a boy in Tony's class who may well be
gay. Can people be gay at such a young age? Anyway, the boy is
always kissing and hugging Tony. Tony doesn't seem to care, but I
hope it doesn't warp him. [LECTOR: Well. I think the fact that he
has you as a father is life-warping. ANDIS: True, but I am just
mediocre and disagreeable. I am not a psychopath as far as I know.
I may be a stubborn narcissist.]
I
am not a walrus.
Damn!
The girl has been here three or four months, at least. I mean that
is when I noticed her. She always here. She always sits at the
front of the class, and is always eagerly working on the computer,
and yet she speaks nothing but gibberish in class. It is hard to
help her but I don't have the slightest clue what she is trying to
say.
And
yet at the same time – I am talking about Tony's gay admirer –
there is something widely fascinating about gay people. Their whole
manner will make even the most straight of man to smile with
amusement. You can help but love their manner and not want to see
that aspect of them disappear.
At
Casa Kaulins, the clock in the living room needed its batteries
replaced. The effect of the clock not having batteries was quite
jarring on AKIC. He realized how much he relied on the clock to keep
time.
It's
hard to trust people when you walk on to them minimizing a screen of
twat shots.
I
am battling tension today, baby. The only thing that keep me in
check is GAR.
Friday
[June 7]
[School
Laptop]
I
work 1100 to 2100 today. I arrive at the school at 930. [LECTOR:
WTF! You want a medal or something? ANDIS: What's with the
swearing? LECTOR: You were listening to an Andrew Dice Clay and
Adam Carolla podcast. ANDIS: I sure was.]
It
was raining like a son-of-a-bitch on my way to work today. I had to
keep my umbrella up till the very last moment, if you know what I
mean.
夫
fu 未
wei:
Those two characters I am always mixing up.
What
do I think of Chairman Mao? To the Chinese, I will say he is not for
export.
I
did some python programming this afternoon. I can now stage a forty
team tournament in the time it takes me to stage two games by hand.
Saturday[June
8]
[School
Laptop]
I
work 1000-1800 today.
It
is still raining.
It
turns that many Chinese, who normally wouldn't, are working today.
Wednesday [June 12] is the Dragon Boat Festival so some companies are
making their employees work today and tomorrow so they can get three
days off in a row [Monday to Wednesday, June 10 to 12]. Some
companies are doing what my school does and just giving the workers
the Wednesday off and not shuffling their days off.
It
also turned out that Tony was supposed to be going to school on
Saturday and Sunday. This morning, I did my normal Saturday routine
and leisurely got ready to get to work – strangely, I do get out of
the house earlier when I am more lazy about my routine. So, at 740,
I sat at the front door and was putting my shoes on. But I took off
my shoes because I realized that I had said bye to J&T. As I
tried to kissed them good bye, J looked at me with a start and told
me that Tony was supposed to go to school today. It was then too
late to get Tony to get to the van to get to school. “He's not
feeling too well today!” reasoned my wife, but she insisted that
she had told me that Tony's kindergarten was going to have classes on
Saturday and Sunday. So, I was in the doghouse as I left the
apartment.
Yesterday
evening, I had a class with a male student who told me that he was
going to go to KTV (karaoke) with his girlfriend today. When I asked
him how many would be at KTV with him and his girl, he said that it
would be just him and his girlfriend. After several rounds of
confirming this, I told him that it seemed unusual to me. Now, I
should mention that in China, KTV is not quite a public affair.
When the Chinese have a night of KTV, they go as a group and rent a
room, they are not in a big public room as they would be on karaoke
nights in Aldergrove, BC. So, this fellow and his girlfriend were
going to be the only two people in a room singing KTV. So, images in
my mind of the man and woman singing love songs to each other, or
singing duets came into my mind. [Having listened to Andrew Dice
Clay yesterday, other images, very filthy, entered my mind as well.
I shouldn't be mentioning this. LECTOR: Oh yeah! You shouldn't be!]
I
asked my 635 bus companion – the girl who works at a rival school –
about this. She said it wasn't such a strange thing, but she wasn't
enough of a KTV goer to have an opinion. [Talking to this girl, I
quickly began to realize that I didn't have much to talk about. I
have gotten out of the habit of talking about myself to others, and
can only think in unconnected bullet points like I do in this blog.
Disjointed conversation drives me mad, and that is about the only
sorts of conversations I can have with people, if I bother. I used
to make the pretext of being interested in talking to people I have
been acquainted with. I now walk quickly past them or if I see them
coming from a distance, hide or get on the other side of the street.]
[LECTOR: Why didn't you ask your wife about the couple going to KTV?
ANDIS: Good idea!]
I
found myself saying this in class: If the heart can make up its
mind,......
I
like to make gerunds using Chinese words. For instance.
女人很喜欢买东西ing。
In
English, I said that women really like to maidongxiing.
Maidongxiing is my gerundish Chinese way of saying shopping.
我是看ing。I
am kaning or I am looking [LECTOR: I like the first
one. I hate the second one.]
Damn!
I need to get new ear buds for my Ipod. I think I will sneak away
from work and see how much they cost.
Thus,
I am finished any entries I make today on my school laptop.....
[Home
Laptop]
The
trip to look for ear buds at Ba Bai Ban was a waste of time. The
buds at the Apple Store were over 300 rmb!!!
Because
students had to go to school today, I had the rare opportunity to try
and catch a bus just after they had finished classes. I saw so many
of them at the bus stop by the school that I decided to walk through
the downtown to get to the stop where I could catch the 602支。The
thought of having to stand near so many of them creeped me out. And
I walked through the downtown despite the drizzle and the wind.
I
hope that this
photo and this
photo gets me in trouble. [LECTOR: WTF! Why would you publish
such photos? What are you trying to prove? You don't have that many
readers and the few that cold have been sympathetic to you would have
been rightly turned off.]
[LECTOR:
I saw that you just finished the GAR section of the blog entry. So,
you are thankful for having a pulse and a brain, but you would like
some courage like Dandy Lion from the Wizard of Oz cartoon! ANDIS
a.k.a. DANDY: Ppp! Aah! Don't be such a super silly willy!]
Sunday
[June 9]
[Home
Laptop]
The
body worries about things that my mind knows it shouldn't. Being
human is to be not completely rational.
I
was up at five o'clock this morning. I was trying to find subtitles
for Game of Thrones – Season Two. My darling J is watching the
series. I would maybe give that series a shot but I still haven't
watched the fifth season of The Wire.
I
then worked on a lesson plan.
Yesterday,
I asked a student if her grandparents spoiled her. She said they
didn't. I then wittily retorted: “Really? Well then. Who did?”
The students got my joke.
Doing
a class about Taxation with a student who loves to talk is enjoyable.
That is how I ended my work week.
Mao
Zedong and Chang Kai-Shek were both sons-of-bitches. Tragically, for
China, Mao prevailed in their conflict. I have meet more than just a
few Chinese who have suggested to me that they would have been better
off if the KMT had won the Civil War. Mao held back China's
development for thirty years at least. But hindsight is
twenty-twenty. If the Americans had made more of an effort to be
nice to the Chicoms, the relationship would have ended the way the
alliance with the Soviets in WWII did.
“Honey,
I can't come home! I was trying to come but a black cat crossed,
where my path had been heading, right in front of the apartment
entrance. Not wanting to cause myself a stretch of bad luck, I had
no choice but to return to the safety of the pub!”
“Teacher,
I am afraid I can't come to school today. I saw a black cat run
around the whole perimeter of the school. Maybe, I will come
tomorrow!”
In
Erasmus's Praise of Folly, I saw a picture of two asses (the animals)
rubbing against each other. I would have loved to have copied it and
put it into one of my blogs, for it so resembled a common scene I see
in my life – asses rubbing themselves together, not able to stand
being alone for even ten seconds.
Last
night, I uploaded last week's issue of the AKIC Weekly into the
dotdotdot app – it came to thirty pages in length! If I can't
write quality, it is a mite reassuring to know that I can write in
quantity like all those great writers.
The
Bruins will play the Black Hawks in what should prove to be an
aesthetically pleasing Stanley Cup Final. Have the Hawks and Bruins
ever played in a final before? I think not. I do recall that that
were in some playoff series against each other in the seventies. In
1970 for instance, the Bruins swept the Hawks – Tony
Esposito was in goal for the Hawks.
I
asked my wife about couples going to KTV alone. She said it was
nothing unusual. I guess it is only me that thinks it is unusual. I
am such an unromantic.
I
touched myself. Being the homophobic homosexual that I am, I then
slapped myself. Hey me! Watch it!
I
watched season 1 episode 1 of Game of Thrones. My idea of a throne
being a toilet, it wasn't what I expected, but given in the
investment in time I have already given to the series, I will keep
my commitment and continue watching.
Tony
went to school today. That is, he went to school on a Sunday so he
could get Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday [the 10th, 11th,
and 12th] off. At 1600, I waited for his return on
the family ebike. I rode him to the a bike repair shop so he
could ride his bicycle [with training wheels] home.
Watching
him ride the bicycle was a frustrating experience. Tony has a hard
time getting on the bike because he figures he has to step on a pedal
to do so. When he finally gets the bike in motion, he can't ride it
on two wheels – he has to lean the bike on one of the training
wheels and so he is off-balance when he rides, looking ungainly when
he hasn't fallen over which he seems to do every ten meters or so.
On
Saturday, I did a salon class about Grandparents. One of the
students told me that she hated her grandparents because they were
old-school and didn't like the fact that she was a girl and thus gave
favorable treatment to her brother.
I
have very personal experience about this Chinese rejection of girls.
J was the third daughter of her biological family and because she was
one girl too many, her biological parents gave her away to someone
else in her village. T & I have meet J's biological mother once
about four years ago – J is reluctant to have anything to do with
the woman. I remember that the woman somehow managed to get some
photos of Tony into her photo album which I had a chance to look at
the one time I went to her house.
Jenny's
village bears scars and divisions dating back to the Cultural
Revolution. J's family was harassed by other families at that time
so that only did J had to deal with being harassed on account of her
having been an unwanted child – she had to deal with people who
had, because of the power of the state, harassed her family.
I
watched the first three episodes of season one of Game of Thrones. I
then loaded the remaining seven of season one onto my Ipad.
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