Gratitude:
Thank God, I feel shame.
Acknowledgment:
I have to admit that if I am
scared to change. I really
don't want to get out of my comfort zone.
Requests:
Please visit Views
of China from Casa Kaulins! Lots of interesting things to be
seen if you spend a little time exploring it.
The
AKIC Week in Brief: It has
been a week of controversy and sweating here at AKIC. I wrote a
blasphemous blog entry about Wuxi drivers, and clandestinely took
photos of an incident at the government building that can be seen
from the bedroom of my apartment that I call Casa Kaulins. I also
made preparations for Tony's sixth birthday which will be on August
23rd.
The average temperature for the week must have been 37 degrees
Celsius.
About
AKIC: If you want to learn
what Andis & AKIC are
all about, you
can visit here.
If
there are things you don't know about, like places and people I
mention, you can go
here to find out what they are all about.
AKIC
Weekly Features:
I
in in China!
每天，我练习看中文词。每天，我读
Don
Colacho。他是很好的思想家。
我孩子Tony很喜欢消防车。
Politically
I am Conservative/Reactionary!
To be a proper Canadian, you have to support the monarchy. If it
wasn't for the monarchy, there would be no Canada.
I
am Canadian!
I am reading a book about General Wolfe, the man who captured Quebec
for England. Why? Because I am Canadian.
I
am Latvian (sort of)! I say
you can't trust the Russians, but they aren't all bad.
I
teach English! I hate
getting one word answers from the students. Make sentences! I tell
them.
I
am not a freak! I am merely
living in the wrong age at the wrong place and time.
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 the
whole novel covered in about 22 years. Delaney completed
episode #163 this week and is working his way through the chapter
that introduces Leopold Bloom. I am getting ahead Delaney as far as
reading the book. I will be finished my reading of it, I
figure, in a year. I read the novel despite its many blasphemies.
It is best to be aware of this stuff because the world is full of it,
and the world will always find a way of slapping you in the face with
it
The
Holy Bible King James Version. I am reading a
chapter a day of the greatest book of all-time. I have
finished the Second Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, and have just
started to read the Epistle of Paul to the Galatians.
Columns
by Father Schall. I have been
able to take all
his archived writings and place them on the Dotdotdot app.
The
Catechism of the Catholic Church.
Like Father Schall's writings, I have been able to place them on the
Dotdotdot app.
Pickwick
Papers by Charles Dickens. Finished. As with all Dickens, it
was a great read.
A
Tale of Red Pekin by Constance Serjeant. A story of missionaries
in China at the time of the Boxer Rebellion – couldn't be written
today.
The
House of the Wolfings by William Morris. I read that this book
was an inspiration for Lord of the Rings. It is written from the
perspective of a Northern European people awaiting an invasion of the
Romans. A much better thing to read than Game of Thrones.
Lumen
Fidei by Pope Francis. I have read that it this encyclical is
really Pope Benedict's doing.
The
Winning of Canada: a Chronicle of Wolf. An interesting and short
biography. They knew how to lead interesting lives back in the day.
I
like to take photos
I
publish them in the following blogs: AKIC
wordpress , TKIC
blogspot,
TKIC
wordpress, Views
of China from Casa Kaulins Blogspot and Views
of China from Casa Kaulins Wordpress.
I
like to make videos
Here
is my
Youtube Channel and my
Youku Channel.
I
like to cut and paste quotations:
The
righteous promise little and perform much; the wicked promise much
and perform not even a little.
---
Talmud
From
Don Colacho:
2730
The vice which afflicts the right is cynicism, and that which
afflicts the left is deceit.
2735
The realism of photography is false: it omits in its
representation of the object its past, its transcendence, its future.
2740
The spectacle of failure is perhaps less melancholy than the
spectacle of triumph.
2742
When he repudiates rites, man reduces himself to an animal
that copulates and eats.
2744
The reactionary's objection is not discussed; it is disdained.
2752
The day is made up of its moments of silence. The rest is lost
time.[Beautiful!]
2754
The modern desire to be original makes the mediocre artist believe
that simply being different is the secret to being original.
2755
Not all defeated men are decent, but all decent man end up being
defeated.
2775
The politician never says what he believes to be true, but rather
what he considers to be effective.
2788
Doubts do not fade one by one; they disappear in a flash of light.
2790
The only pellucid dialogue is one between two recluses.
[Pellucid means translucently clear, lucid in style or meaning.
Where is the other recluse that I can have a pellucid dialogue with?
Email me at andiskaulins@qq.com
if you are the one.]
2791
Formulating the problems of today in a traditional vocabulary
strips away their false pretenses.
2794
My convictions are the same as those of an old woman praying in
the corner of a church.
2798
The most persuasive reason to renounce daring progressive opinions
is the inevitability with which sooner or later the fool finally
adopts them.
2805
A healthy constituted state is one where innumerable obstacles
restrict and impede the freedom of the legislator.
2809
The embourgeoisement of Communist societies is, ironically, modern
man's last hope. [This is so rich for someone who is living in
China and seen its embourgeoisement. Many capitalists are coming
here to save their companies. But is modern man worth saving?]
2811
Envy differs from the other vices by the ease with which it
disguises itself as a virtue. [What an accurate observation of
human nature.]
2812
Political activity ceases to tempt the intelligent writer, when he
finally understands that there is no intelligent text that will
succeed in ousting even a small-town mayor.
2813
In the intelligent man faith is the only remedy to anguish. The
fool is cured by “reason,” “progress,” alcohol, work. [There
are no such intelligent people in my life at the moment.]
...to
my mind, the fall of Vietnam into the hands of the Communists was
among the great horrors of the 20th century. Those from the West
whose vanity, wilful ignorance, moral indifference, & deceit
served the Communist conquest, I have yet to forgive. So many went on
to dominant positions in the world’s second-oldest profession.
“Normal
human beings,” I outrageously argued, “regardless of race, creed,
color, or class, love pageantry, and babies. Let’s have more of
both.”
I
like to keep a journal of my daily activities and of any
worthy thoughts that occur to me.
Monday [July 22]
[Home Laptop]
Not working today.
I looked out the window after
waking up to see a
group of people had unfurled a sign in front of the government
building that is across the street from the Casa Kaulins
apartment. Was
it a protest? It seemed to be. The people were arguing with
security and people who came out of the government building to talk
to them. The
group was taken inside the building, but twenty minutes or so
later, they were back out front again displaying their sign. More
security officials and black uniformed police types came upon the
scene. An argument between the leader of the protest group and
the head security guy took place. The sign was taken by the security
officials. The protestors eventually got into their car and drove
away. I took a lot of photos of the incident using the tele-focus
feature on my old Ikon digital camera. I dare not be seen taking
photos.
[iPod
Touch]
I showed Jenny the photos I took of the incident in front if the government building. She was able to read the sign which said that someone in the building had done a hit and run. The group with the sign wanted compensation.
Tony and I just finished watching the 1976 film Gumball Rally. Dated in a way that only 70s movies can, I still enjoyed re-watching it. I was satisfied to see that Tony enjoyed the movie like I thought he would.
I am also watching Blade Runner. Its style makes it a classic, even though I find the story lacking in drama.
I showed Jenny the photos I took of the incident in front if the government building. She was able to read the sign which said that someone in the building had done a hit and run. The group with the sign wanted compensation.
Tony and I just finished watching the 1976 film Gumball Rally. Dated in a way that only 70s movies can, I still enjoyed re-watching it. I was satisfied to see that Tony enjoyed the movie like I thought he would.
I am also watching Blade Runner. Its style makes it a classic, even though I find the story lacking in drama.
Here
is a theory about Chinese history I had never heard before. I was
told of Chairman Mao's son dying in the war against American
aggression in Korea. It is said that if Mao's son hadn't died, China
could well have become a family dynasty like North Korea did become.
This son would have been Mao's legitimate heir in '76. Mao did have
other sons who were alive in '76, but one was simple-minded and I
don't know what was wrong with the other one. Thank the powers that
be that Mao's son did die in the Korean War. Thank you America!
Tuesday
[July 23]
[Home
Laptop]
I
will work today.
It
is another hot Wuxi summer morning. I wake up at 7:30 and can again
feel the sweat beading in my pores.
I
published this entry filled with expletives last night. Should I
have? Well, Wuxi drivers are bad drivers. Of this there can be no
doubt. And the Wuxi driver's lack of consideration for pedestrians
is a damning indictment of the society that now exists in the city.
I always worry about Jenny & Tony when they are in traffic
situations. My biggest fear in life is losing them.
I
am watching John Wayne's Hondo on the Ipad.
Tony
had his haircut repaired. My wife took him to another salon
yesterday to repair Sunday's bad one.
[School
Laptop]
I
work 13:00 to 21:00. I arrive at work at 10:30. [LECTOR: Why do
you say that? ANDIS: What? LECTOR: The I-arrive-so-early shit.
ANDIS: Filler material, I suppose. It is not meant to be a proof of
my virtue. If anything it is proof that I can be anal.]
Apropos
the incident with the driver of the car that nearly drove down Tony,
I remember having a premonition of them having trouble when they left
the apartment. The last thing I told them was to be careful.
One-on-one
classes with a student who will be studying in Sardis, British
Columbia – a place I am familiar with, and where Tony & Jenny
have been.
I
almost forgot, as the many times I did when he was alive, that it is
my father's birthday today. He would have been 81.
Can-Am
Tourney #14 Chicago beats Atlanta 6-5 in the final.
Wednesday
[July 25]
[School
Laptop]
I
work 13:00 to 21:00 today. I arrive at school at 10:30.
Three
incidents to report. First, a student told me that when she was
young, she was walking with her grandmother when a truck ran over the
grandmother, killing her. The student had no recollections of the
incident taking place. Second, the husband of a cousin of Jenny, a
man who I had seen a few times, a man who attended my wedding and
Tony's 100 day party, is in jail for having run over and killed a
child. The man, who had gang connections, had been driving chasing
someone when the accident happened. Tony had played with the
couple's daughter. Third, I took the 25 bus to work today and a
collision resulted which resulted a mirror and frame being torn off
the bus.
I
phoned my Mom this morning. She will be placing flowers at father's
grave to mark his birthday. The weather in Brandon, where she lives,
is cool: 21 degrees Celsius. The city has sprayed for mosquitoes.
She told me that there was extensive television coverage of the birth
of the royal baby. She had watched an interesting documentary about
the Gimli Glider: an Air Canada passenger plane that was forced to
land on an old air strip because it had run out of fuel due to a
confusion between metric and imperial fuel capacity numbers.
Here
is a description of a foreigner that I will use in my beginner level
introductions salon class:
Micheal
Jones is a 52 year old engineer living in Wuxi. Currently, he isn't
married. He has been married two times. With his first wife, he had
a boy and a girl. With his second wife, he had a son. He now has a
Russian girlfriend who is a dancer at many Wuxi hotels.
Micheal
Jones is Canadian. His hometown is Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. In his
free time, Micheal likes to going to pubs, playing golf, swimming,
playing X-box games, and dancing. He likes Chinese Food – his
favorite kind of Chinese food is Sichuan. He says he can't go back
to Canada because his ex-wives will try to get money from him.
I was listening to a podcast
about Detroit and its bankruptcy. One thing I had been wondering
about was how the city's hockey team, the Detroit Red Wings, were
doing. Apparently, the Wings are doing quite fine because the city
is putting in half the funds for a six hundred million dollar hockey
arena. Talk about a mislaid set of priorities!!
Thursday
[July 25]
[School Laptop]
I work 10:00 to 21:00 today. I
get to work at 9:00ish. I will have three classes early today; from
two to seven pm.: nothing; and then two classes to end the day. What
a life!
I take the 602支bus
and then the 85 bus to work.
On the 85 bus, I saw an old male
passenger and the back-of-the-bus worker (the 85 is a long bus) have
a disagreement about the bus pass the man was using.
I got a ride home last night from
a student who lives near the Wanda Plaza. I got home about 30
minutes earlier.
I finished watching the movie
Hondo, starring John Wayne, last night. The movie was strangely
sympathetic to the Apaches. John Wayne ended the film by saying that
the Apache way of life was quite a life. Yet, they had a code by
they were savages nonetheless.
I have been publishing model
style photos of Tony here,
here,
and here.
There are fifteen in all for you to look at. You are welcome to
save them and add them to your collection of fab Tony photos.
I took a photo of a
three-wheeled car! You at see it at Views
of China from Casa Kaulins blog.
They say that today the high with
be 41 degrees Celsius!
Despite the high temperatures, I
went on a toy-hunting tour of the downtown which was disappointing
not due to the heat but to the selection of toys. There were two
places that I knew of in downtown Wuxi where one could buy Tomica
toys, but after today's trip, I know there is but one. The place I
was hoping to find some Tomica fire trucks not longer sold them. So,
I went back to the store near my school with Tomica toys, and I found
the selection to be quite disappointing. Now, I don't know what the
heck I am going to buy Tony for his birthday.
Just as I had finished my
toy-hunting trip, my wife phoned to complain that I had eaten all the
bread at home, and so I had to go buy some bread at the 85 degree
bakery. This would normally not be a problem but the 85 Bakery near
our school is under renovation, and to get to the next nearest one
would mean walking in the heat or taking a bus. I choose to walk to
the 85 bakery at the Nanchang Temple, and was pleasantly surprised to
see that there wasn't a lineup like there would normally have been at
the 85 bakery near our school.
Hearing about Japan's population
shrinking, I should tell the Chinese it would be a good time to
invade their rival. But instead of using men of military age, I
would suggest to the Chinese that they use girls of middle-school age
in the invasion. It would be interesting I think to see how the
girls would match up with the old Japanese people who would be forced
to defend the island. [LECTOR: Unless the Japanese use the
robots...]
Jiangsu
may be the source of China's debt nightmare! It wouldn't
surprise me in the least. It seems that there is too much building
going on here. I can't go anywhere without seeing a new apartment
block or office building under construction.
Friday
Morning [July 26]
[School Laptop]
I work 11:00 to 21:00 today. I
arrived at school at 9:30.
On the way to work, I listened to
two enjoyable podcasts. One was an interview with Tom Wolfe, the
famous American novelist; and the other was a Q&A session with
Rex Murphy, the famous Canadian pundit. Both were well-read,
humorous, and joyful.
From Wolfe, I am lead to consider
the future of the U.S.A. There can be no doubt that the 20th
century was an American century. If you don't believe this, you have
to look at 21st century China. But what about America's
future? Wolfe believes that there will be many American centuries to
come. Why? America has no opposition. The current strong members
of the opposition: China and the European Union have too many
problems. China despite its economic power has no cultural power.
Hollywood movies are watched by many Chinese – Chinese films, in
foreign markets, are an acquired taste. But what about America's
fiscal mess and the Obama presidency? I believe Americans can
recover from these difficulties. They have before, and despite all
their many problems, particularly moral, they have a loud, strong,
and brash presence – to dominate is in their genes, as is their
tremendous generosity. When there is trouble in the world, the world
looks to what America. They don't look to China, the U.N., and the
E.U.
From Murphy, I got three things
for my mind to munch over. First, a love for Canada. Hearing people
from Surrey, Ottawa, and Newfoundland talking was sweet. Second, a
need to be skeptical. He was asked what advice he had for aspiring
journalists. He said that journalists have to resist the urge to
look at the world through their belief structure. Third, he talked
about Obama's oratory ability. He said Obama was a good orator but
had terrible speech writers who made bad allusions and had terrible
grammar. I never listen to Obama but I do try to read his speeches.
I find he has nothing particularly original or memorable to say.
My watchband broke this morning,
and so out of habit, I have been looking at a white band of skin when
I need to know the time. I will have to rely on my Ipod Touch to get
the time, for the time being.
Tony got another bruise around
his eye last night. Rare regular readers may remember that one
Saturday night in the pre-Wanda Plaza era, Tony blackened his eye
when he stumbled and fell on a chair when performing Ultraman
fighting actions. The incident happened at a restaurant and so we
had to take Tony to the hospital. Last night, Tony was jumping on
the bed while covering his head with a blanket. I don't know where
he got the idea to do this, but he had been doing this for a month
despite my repeatedly warning him not to. I hope he learned to stop
doing this as as last night he banged his head against a shelf that
is bolted to the wall above the bed and so bruised his eye enough
that he looked like a boxer.
Somewhere on the Internet last
night, I read an article scoffing at the notion that foreign
languages can be learned conversationally. That is, it was very
dismissive of the idea of using conversation as the main tool in a
second-language class room.
Why believe? Two reasons. One:
because it is true. Two: because it is the most authentic pose one
can have if it isn't. If it isn't true, our existence is so small
and insignificant that we need the idea of it to make our existence
meaningful.
In a word without meaning, poses
are the only things that matter because they occupy the now which is
all there is. A pose that shows others that one is so beyond the
immediate now, but higher, is cool. A pose of faith is thus,
paradoxically, the only pose one can take if one wants to be really
so beyond everything that exists.
Saturday
[July 27]
[School Laptop]
I work 10:00 to 18:00 today.
Nothing to blog about this
morning that I feel I should blog about. I am a pissy mood and I
will probably type something that I will regret, though to be honest
that hasn't stopped me before.
I listened to a podcast that said
truckers may soon be out of jobs as that profession will become
automated.
What are they going to do? What
am I going to do?
Last night, a student told me an
interesting anecdote. His father had a boat, one of those long barge
large boats that go up and down the waterways of China, and he had a
dog. One day, the dog jumped onto a passing boat. Three months
later, the two boats passed and the dog was returned to its original
boat. The master of the boat, that had been passing, told the
student's father that the dog hadn't liked what it had been fed for
the past three months. (That was all the details that I could ring
out of the student.)
Also one of the students in that
class had a cat or dog named Ding Dong.
I am tired. The heat is getting
to me. Thank God I will soon have days off.
[Home Laptop]
After work, I went to the Wanda
Plaza where I met the rest of the China Family Kaulins at a Korean
BBQ restaurant. I didn't think I ate that much but when I stood up
to take Tony to the WC, I felt stuffed.
Having ruined a polo shirt on
Monday by dropping greasy food on the front of it, I had my wife
purchase me two polo shirts at the local Uni-Glo where one can also
buy Sex Pistols t-shirts. It leads me to ask the following: Who
would have thunk it: that I would be living in China and able to
purchase a Sex Pistols shirt?
I
twisted my left ankle this evening. After having parked our e-bike
in what used to be the office of the California Villa sales office, I
walked through an exit and thought to take a look at a piece of
pavement that had just recently been set. I had in fact driven over
this newly set pavement, and I wanted to see if I had left any
tracks. The new pavement was off to the right of my path, and it was
also dark, so I made a misstep when stepping off a building sidewalk
onto a lower pathway. The step was probably no more than six inches
high and I have probably taken it hundreds of time in the five years
I have lived at the California Villa. Tonight however, I, instead of
stepping straight forwards with my left foot, stepped downwards at an
angle of 45 degrees off kilter so that my left ankle buckled as I put
my full weight on it, and I ended up stumbling onto the ground,
dropping the bag I was carrying and the eyeglasses I had placed in my
t-shirt. I swore as I was falling and I worried that the worst had
happened. Thankfully it didn't and I lived to make my way back to
Casa Kaulins. I don't felt much pain at the moment but I worry
that the ankle may start to swell. As it is, I can't bend my left
foot fully...
Sunday
[July 28]
[Home Laptop]
It is 37 degrees outside, that be
in Celsius.
It my day off from going to
school.
How is my left ankle today? Sore
if I put pressure on it, but I am not in agony.
What to do today? That is the
question. I think I will go back to bed. I don't even know what I
want do.
Two things: I need razors – I
buy these Schick disposables; and I need a new wristband for my Swiss
Army Watch – I wear it because it was the watch my father was
wearing when he passed away.
I am spending the day at home
taking photos for the Views
of China from Casa Kaulins blog, watching the fifth season of The
Wire (I have just watched the fifth episode), drinking hot tea (at 37
degrees Celsius), reading The House of the Wolfings, reading The
Winning of Canada: a Chronicle of Wolf, and eating ice cream.
I should end this week's blog
entry with this thought. I don't have the link but somewhere I read
something that should guide my parenting of Tony. Most people these
days, said the writer, want their children to be the richest,
smartest, the most worldly successful, and best-looking when they
really should only care if their child is a good person.
That is all I am going to want
from Tony.
