Wonderful English School in the West of Shanghai is Looking for Foreign Teachers!

Wonderful English requires two English teachers at their schools in the Song Jiang and Qing Pu Districts of Shanghai.

You must have a degree, a TEFL certificate or equivalent, and a passport from a native English speaking country.

Your students will be aged from five years old to adults.

Your workweek with comprise three weekday shifts (14:00 to 21:00) and two weekend shifts (10:00 to 18:00). You will have 25 teaching hours per week.

Your salary will be 12k to 13k depending on experience with a 4000 rmb bonus at the end of the contract.

Wonderful English will supply you your Visa and Foreign Expert Certificate.

If you are interested and would like more details, email me at andiskaulins@qq.com.

Views of China from Casa Kaulins #14

Scenes from My Life in Wuxi, China #45

The Andis Kaulins in China Weekly: August 19 to August 25, 2013

Gratitude:  Six years of Tony! What more could I ask for, given the life I had lead till I meet Jenny.

Acknowledgment: Life has forced me to shed many of the dreams I had for my life. I have nothing to look forward to but a series of bitter pills being swallowed.

Requests: Please visit Views of China from Casa Kaulins! Lots of interesting things to be seen if you spend a little time exploring it. Also be sure to visit the page dedicated to my father.

The AKIC Week in Brief: I worked. I signed my tenth one-year contract with the school. We celebrated Tony's sixth birthday in a modest way. I discovered the author WH Mallock.

About AKIC: If you want to learn what Andis & AKIC are all about, you can visit here.

An AKIC Glossary

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!  我的中文马马虎虎。我自学中文。我没有老师。我老婆觉得我的中文很差。他说我和我儿子不可以一起说中文。

I am Canadian! I think of the mountains of British Columbia that I have seen.

I am Latvian (sort of)! I wish Latvia all the best. It pains me that they can't be better at hockey.

Politically I am Conservative/Reactionary! I can think of any other philosophy that give me any succour.

I teach English! I am entering the tenth year of teaching English at my school.

I am not a freak! Then again maybe I am. Ten years of teaching English at the same school. What the hell am I thinking?

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 #167 this week and is working his way through the chapter that introduces Leopold Bloom. I am getting ahead of 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 the Apostle to the Thessalonians and am reading the First Epistle of Paul the Apostle to Timothy.

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.

Four Men by Hilaire Belloc. Grizzlebeard, the Sailor, the Poet, and Myself are the four men. They travel and talk. It gives me an idea for a book and a blog. The pdf copy of the book I was reading was missing a few pages so I had to interrupt reading the book till I found a better copy on the Internet. [I found a black and white pdf scan of the book (never get a color scan because it takes your device too long to render the page images!) which contained all the pages, and finished the book lickety-split. I highly recommend it. It is a kind of fantasy for me to meet people, even for a short time, who love to argue and know that souls exist.]

Diary of a Nobody by Weedon Goldsmith. I don't know if I got this book because I liked the title or because I found a recommendation for it on the Web. Either way, I like it. It is funny! Mister Gowing is coming, and Mister Cummings is going! What fun!

The New Republic by WH Mallock. I am reading it because mention of it was made in the comment sections of one of the recent entries in David Warren's blog. Half way through it, I wonder why it is that I hadn't heard of this book till last week. It is great and it is deals with all the issues I like to reflect on.

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:

There are only two from Don Colacho this week. Now that I have gotten through all 2988 of his aphorisms, I am reading the essays of his that I included with my compilation. Here are two quotes from that:

The spectacular, empty gesture earns public applause, but the disdain of those governed by reflection.

The reactionary is not a nostalgic dreamer of a canceled past, but rather a hunter of sacred shades upon the eternal hills.

Gregorio Carbone:

...to go to heaven is to align oneself with life and to go to hell to align oneself with matter.

I fashion myself to be a 21^st Century Pepys

Monday [August 18]

[iPod]

One Thumb Blogging done at a beach.   As Tony plays, I type.

Things I learned today:

• Looking before turning right is taught in driving school but Chinese then don't do it once they get their license.
• Community police have informants and party members to rely on.
• They also have propaganda duties to do.
• Disputes between residents and migrant workers caused by cultural differences.  Migrants not very civilized and don't know what to do with trash.  This keeps the community police busy.
• The local Hui Shan government has sold land.  It was its major source of revenue.  I can't determine what it's major source of revenue is currently now that it had sold all the land that it can sell.
• My apartment is classified as commercial, not residential because the land was taken from the original residents and given to commercial developers.
• Businessmen think the Chinese economy is slowing down.  The one I know says he has to find more business in America.  India is not a good option he tells me because the workers there are lazy because the government has supplied their basic needs.
• I am still uncomfortable with silence when others are in my midst.
  

Finished watching Johnny Guitar starring Joan Crawford who didn't play Johnny Guitar.  Acting slightly overwrought but it was an okay movie all the same.  It had great scenic vistas and a good story.

The sun sets and the bats come out.  I wonder where they sleep during the day.  I cannot count the bats now because there are so many flying about.  Size wise, the bats here are bigger than butterflies and smaller than common birds. They meander in a circular manner and so I would get a sore neck and would become dizzy if I tried to track their path for more than an instant.

I take Tony to the beach near Casa Kaulins so he can play with his toy dump truck and backhoe.  Four young men walk by.  They strip to their underwear and take a dip.  They have a great laugh as they splash each other.  To my temperament, it is a corny sort of fun, but how dare I judge others innocent enjoyments!

Tony wades in the water.  I wish he wouldn't.

Tony joins up with a family that has brought a plastic shovel and pail to the beach.
It rained this afternoon and so it feels relatively cooler.

It's spitting rain now even though the sky above is mostly blue.

Here at the beach, I see a man has dipped  his e-bike into the water so he can wash it.  Now I wonder if some guy with do the same thing with his car.  As the man rides his bike away, the riding through the beach's sand must defeat his purpose.

Dark clouds on the horizon.

Tony invited me into the water.  No doing.

The Moon is 90 percent.  I hope to see a bat fly in front of it, but they seem to have stopped flying above the nearby trees.  I should monitor the habits of bats more closely.

[Home Laptop]

Tony lost one of the two toys, he had brought with him, when we were at the beach. He was leaving his toys in the sand and then suddenly deciding to run far from them. I warned about this but he didn't listen. As it got dark and I was able to find one of the toys but not the other. Tony says it was stolen but I think he dropped it in the water.

I told Tony to not tell Jenny that he had lost the toy, but he told her first thing when we returned to the apartment. And so Jenny is not happy and so Tony & I are both the targets of her ire.

I uploaded Views of China from Casa Kaulins #12 and #13 to Youtube.

Tuesday [August 19]

[Home Laptop]

I phoned my cousin Idi last night to offer her condolences on the death of her mother Dzidra.

I also phoned my Mom. My brother and sister, I learned, are together in BC at the moment.

[School Laptop]

I work 13:00 to 21:00 today.

Things I just saw: 1)A man comes to my bus stop in the morning who is paralyzed on his right side. When he moves he use the paralyzed leg as a crutch and his paralyzed arm is flung in the air. 2)A family of three rides in the front of their tricycle wagon. From the angle I was initially watching them it seemed as if the little girl who was sitting next to her mother was dangling in mid-air. I didn't see the actual solidness of the girl's sitting position till the wagon rode past and I could see that the girl was sitting on her mother's lap, and her mother in turn had her feet planted firmly on an area below the tricycle's steering apparatus.

The 85 Bakery, near our school, has re-opened. The place is bigger but its pickup counter is absurdly narrow. The counter area which had a small glass display case has been replaced with a tall case that goes right to the ceiling and thus there is less room for pickups.

Wednesday [August 21]

[School Laptop]

I work 13:00 to 21:00. I arrive at school at 10:45 because that's the kind of guy I am.

I should call the upcoming weekend, a celebration of Tony's six years weekend.

I had a leisurely morning at home before I went to work. I put a Guns 'N Roses song on my Ipod and the film The Man from Laramie on my Ipad.

Last night, Tony continually refused my entreaties to have him give me back my Ipad.

Listening to an Econtalk podcast this morning confirmed some things that a businessman I know had told me about India. The current government of India has been increasing their giving out of what Americans would call food stamps.

The Indian Economics professor also had this to say about China: China is seen as a place where wealth accumulation is the main concern of the population and there is a lack of empathy for others.

Thursday [August 22]

[School Laptop]

I work 10:00 to 21:00 today.

This morning, I looked out the window of the Casa K living room to see a white van parked on the road just below our apartment. The van's back door was open and around it stood six men. I, of course, took a photo for the Casa Kaulins Blog. Then glancing out the Casa K master bedroom window, I saw that there was also a crane about two stories high, and of course I took of a photo of that for the CK Blog.

I late phoned Jenny to ask her what was up with the workers and their crane. As I suspected, our apartment buildings are going to be shiny in the night as the workers are installing lights on the rooftops of the apartment buildings.

It is Tony's B-day minus one. That is, it is Tony's birthday tomorrow. I have four toys that I bought for him in the drawer of my desk. My plan is to bring two of the toys to Casa Kaulins tonight, and find a way to surprise Tony with them tomorrow – I am thinking to phone him and give him directions to the toys' hiding spot. I then envisage that I will bring the other toy or toys to Casa Kaulins tomorrow night and then give it or them to Tony when I arrive home.

Because I work tomorrow and then Saturday, there won't be a birthday party for Tony until Sunday.

I listened to a podcast about the Economic crisis, a podcast about politics, a podcast of a homily from EWTN, and then a podcast by Adam Carolla where he talks to some guy named Norton who likes to be pleasured when he gets massages. Quite a clash of views therein you could say. You could also say my tastes are quite electric, though I know when I first heard someone describe their musical tastes that way, I knew that there was no way I could describe my tastes that way except in a very ironic manner. I listen to what I listen to, and I like what I like. Some of what I listen to, I don't like. Some of what I listen to is interesting though I feel uncomfortable for finding it so, like the Adam Carolla podcast. The EWTN stuff never fails to raise my spirit, I can honestly say.

I am getting old. I have students who have never experienced a time where there weren't mobile phones or the internet. And I just had a student who didn't know what went on in post offices.

The gig is up? Wall Street English has been punished for hiring part-time workers. For three months, they will not be allowed to use foreigners, even their full-timers, in classes. Hmmm...... I have also been told that foreigners working part-time jobs could be deported. If that is the way it must be, then that is the way it must be.

Friday [August 23: Tony's Birthday]

[School Laptop]

I work today, 11:00 to 21:00, so I won't be spending much time with Tony on his birthday. I have given him a birthday kiss and sung Happy Birthday to him, but he was asleep. I plan to phone him to tell him to look in the bottom drawer of the dresser on my side of the bed to find a couple birthday presents.

On the bus, I chanced to see an old woman, slim and agile, walking on the sidewalk. It really wasn't a special sight, all in all, but it struck me that she must have been a pretty girl when she was younger for youthful prettiness seemed to radiate from her being.

I could see road maintenance workers, during morning rush hour, taking advantage of a red light to conduct measurements among the stopped cars. It seemed insane and dangerous to be doing such work among all those cars but I suppose they weren't allowed to block off a lane in the interests of traffic efficiency.

I was just listening to a podcast of the reading of the book Heretics by GK Chesterton. Chesterton in his chapter on Rudyard Kipling said that the peasant inhabits a bigger world that the globe-trotter. I think GKC means that the globe-trotter has only a superficial and narrow view of things while the peasant thinks deeply of the things he knows intimately. There is something to be said for that. Places in China that cater to the globe-trotter are all the same and lacking something necessary to get them depth.

Though the 85 Bakery has opened, its renovation is not completely finished. The sound of power tools coming from the bakery, which is next door to our school, is forcing some classes normally held downstairs to be moved to an area far from the tools. How is it that a bakery can be opened before its renovation seems screwball to me , but that is how they often do such things in China.

An old woman walks along the side of the road, seemingly to me, in defiance of modern civilization and its traffic rules. The bus I was in skirted by her.

At lunchtime, I phoned Tony and gave him instructions to find his birthday presents. It took about two minutes but he figured it out, and he was very happy with his two new Tomica firetrucks which he found in the drawer beside my bed.

Two boys tell me that their school makes them attend meetings of the Young Pioneers, a Communist youth organization. The students tell me that they use the meetings to do their homework. Asked what the meetings were about, the boys told me they weren't paying attention.

Saturday [August 24]

[School Laptop]

I work 10:00 to 18:00 today.

Last night, I sat with my sometimes 635 bus companion. I had questions to ask her about her school with regards to what I had heard had happened to Wall Street English which had received a three month suspension for hiring foreigners part-time to teach English. She told me her school had hired foreigners as part-timers over the summer. Some of the full-time trainers even brought in some of their friends to teach part-time. These friends were not from other schools but people passing through Wuxi. One such part-timer worked three weekends while staying three weeks in Wuxi. Leads to me wonder what it was that Wall Street had done wrong, or the school where my bus companion works hasn't been discovered yet by the authorities.

I then asked my bus companion to help me read a passage from a Chinese textbook I have been studying. She wanted me to pronounce the words which only confirmed to me that it is hopeless for me to try to speak the language, and I should have been learning to read on day one.

When I arrived home, Tony was eagerly waiting for me because he knew I had a second present for him, which was a fancy SIKU firetruck with ladder.

Now, let me blog about the now. Here I am, doing the stuff I should be doing before I do the stuff I want to be doing like reading The New Republic and watching Broken Arrow 1950 with James Stewart, one of my favorite movie actors.

[School Laptop]

Taking the 25 bus home after work today, I typed the following into my Ipod:
Rain！power failure! Second of week!
Shengyang student
Shirt draped on shoulder on 25 bus cloth shoes
Deep puddles!
Student going to Xishan school because it has a good environment兰州捞面。兰州捞面
Man beside me sees I can type some Chinese.
Box of live chickens on bus.

What does this stuff mean? Well let me tell you:

• Rain！power failure! Second of week! I was all excited because with my last class finishing at 17:00, I was going to go home early, but about 16:45, I saw a thunderstorm was rolling in. It then started to rain buckets and I was stuck at school till the rain stopped. During the heavy rain, the power at the school went out. It came back after twenty minutes but it was the second power failure to take place at the school this week. The rain did stop at about 17:20 and I went outside to catch the 25 bus home. To pass the time, I made the blog notes on my Ipad.
• Shengyang student My last class of the day was with one student, a male from Shenyang in Northern China. He was in Wuxi to study design at Jiangnan University. I asked him what he thought of Wuxi and he told me that he found it boring. Being from Northern China, he liked to go to a pub and have a drink after classes, but around the university, the pubs all closed at ten PM. I mentioned to him about how Northern Chinese were renown for being able to drink, and he told me that everyone in his family, even his mother, liked to drink. I asked him what he thought of the Nanchang Bar Street and he told me that he didn't like it because.... Searching for a word, he agreed with my suggestion of “it not being real.
• Shirt draped on shoulder on 25 bus, cloth shoes I saw a man, almost shirtless, board the bus and come towards the back where I was sitting. I say he was almost shirtless because he had his shirt, which was long-sleeved and heavy, draped over his shoulder. He had taken it off because of the humid Wuxi weather. I looked at his feet, and saw he was wearing cotton shoes worn by poorer Chinese.
• Deep puddles! The storm dumped more water on Wuxi that its drainage system could handle so I could see huge and deep puddles on the road.
• Student going to Xishan school because it has a good environment On the bus, I recalled a student, who during a conversation class I did about the environment, told me that she was going to the Xishan High School near Casa Kaulins because the environment, her father told here, was good there. I told her about the factory that was about one kilometer near her school and near a freeway in a setting that I told her was modern industrial hell.
• 兰州捞面。兰州捞面. I thought I saw these characters on a Lanzhou Noodles restaurant sign. Three of the four characters I recognized quite easily. It was the third of the four characters that I wasn't sure about, so on my Ipod, I changed the keyboard to pinyin enter mode to see if I figure out what the third character was. The only problem was that the bus pulled away and I couldn't remember what the third character looked like and so when I typed the four characters above, I thought I had it figured out; but just checking on Google Translate, I see that the characters, I did see were as follows: 兰州拉面. I had the third character wrong. It was la not lao. Anyway, I do this all the time with my Ipod because I find it is a great way to test my knowledge of Chinese characters. Now, I wouldn't have made mention of my doing this, this afternoon, but this fellow sitting beside me was watching me type in my Ipod and seeing that I could type Chinese characters, decided to talk to me in Chinese. It was torturous for me because I understood only about twenty percent of what he said. He asked me the usual questions of where I was from, where I lived, and where I worked. I also think he asked me about whether I was going to University to study Chinese and how tall I was. I think he told he was a worker in Yanqiao. My typing being scrutinized by a stranger was unnerving for me as well.
• Box of live chickens on bus. I wonder what the man made of my taking a photo of a box, filled with three live chickens, that had been placed on the exit stairwell of the bus.

After all this, I arrived home and I finished watching the film Broken Arrow starring James Stewart. A great Western I thought. The Wikipedia entry about the film said it was the first Western made after WWII to portray the Natives in a sympathetic manner. The major Indian character in the movie was called Cocheese a name which I love and which I may not be spelling right. The movie has you rooting for Native Apaches against the Americans who are, with the exception of the James Stewart character, a Christian General and a few other whites, very hostile and prejudiced against the Apaches. Spoiler Alert: the ending brought tears to my eyes.

Sunday [August 25]

[School Laptop]

No work today.

I was up too late last night playing on the Ipad. At 3:30 AM, I was preparing files of Elmore Leonard novels to put on my Ipad.

Grinding noises come from a nearby apartment. Tony plugs his ears.

[iPod]
I just wanted to watch my movie. 

We went to the Tesco and Wanda Plazas in the afternoon.  Things were going as well as could be expected.  Jenny bought Tony a pair of shorts and a cake.  We were then having dessert at a place called Honeymoon Dessert when just as we finished there, Jenny realized she had forgotten the shorts she had purchased at the cake shop.  She ran over to the shop immediately only to find that the bag with Tony's shorts was not there.  Someone had taken them and Jenny was pissed.  Jenny getting angry is like a storm coming in, you have batten down and wait for it to come to an end.  I never feel so helpless as during a storm...  Anyway, it was somehow my fault that the shorts were lost.  I should have been more vigilant and done more to help her when she was buying the cake. 

Tony wanted to go to the square so I took him to get away from Jenny.

[Home Laptop]

Tony & I spend a short time at the square. After about thirty minutes, we returned to Casa Kaulins where we ate the cake that had been purchased, but we had no supper, and I dared not ask Jenny to make any. Not standing the tension, I started up the Ipad and watch the remainder of the Western film The Man from Laramie – what can I say? I love Westerns.

Happy Birthday Tony Kaulins!

Anthony Arnis Peng Kaulins is six years old today!

The Andis Kaulins in China Weekly: August 12 to August 18, 2013

Gratitude:  I am thankful I have a wife who prays.

Acknowledgment: I do things out of pure pique.

Requests: Please visit Views of China from Casa Kaulins! Lots of interesting things to be seen if you spend a little time exploring it. Also be sure to visit the page dedicated to my father.

The AKIC Week in Brief: Another week of Summer over and done with. With the temperatures still hot, I became lackadaisical in doing my daily chores and rituals whether for myself or my wife. Highlight of the week was getting two emails from and old friend and an old acquaintance.

About AKIC: If you want to learn what Andis & AKIC are all about, you can visit here.

An AKIC Glossary

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!  我住在中国九个年。这个星期 是太热了。我不喜欢无锡的夏天。

每天我看书。每天我喝茶。每天我练习看中文词。

I am Canadian! I am thinking of the Manitoba prairie now. I am thinking of the snow and the cold; and how I have lived it and survived it.

I am Latvian (sort of)! The old Latvians in my family are dying off. Will I ever hear a Latvian accent again? Alas, I probably won't.

Politically I am Conservative/Reactionary! I always harken, in an ironic manner, to a time in the past where people were more enlightened than they think they are now.

I teach English! I feel like I am more of a conversation facilitator.

I am not a freak! If there was bell distribution of freaks and their authentic freakishness quotient, based on extensive surveys of all the people there are, and ever were, I would be on the tail where the freakishness quotients are low.

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 #166 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 Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Colossians, the First Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Thessalonians, and am now reading the Second.

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.

Four Men by Hilaire Belloc. Grizzlebeard, the Sailor, the Poet, and Myself are the four men. They travel and talk. It gives me an idea for a book and a blog. The pdf copy of the book I was reading was missing a few pages so I had to interrupt reading the book till I found a better copy on the Internet.

Diary of a Nobody by Weedon Goldsmith. I don't know if I got this book because I liked the title or because I found a recommendation for it on the Web. Either way, I like it. It is funny! Mister Gowing is coming, and Mister Cummings is going! What fun!

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:

From Don Colacho:

2954: Modern man calls walking more quickly in the same direction down the same road “change.” The world, in the last three hundred years, has not changed except in that sense. The simple suggestions of a true change scandalizes and terrifies modern man.[But hasn't technology really changed things?]

2955: Those who insist on being up to date with today's fashion are less irritating than those who try too hard when they do not feel that they are up to date with tomorrow's fashion. The bourgeoisie is aesthetically more tolerable than the avant-garde.

2958: A bureaucracy ultimately always ends up costing the people more than an upper class.

2962: Unlimited gullibility is required to be able to believe that any social condition can be improved in any other way than slowly, gradually, and involuntarily.

2965: If ones does not believe in God, the only honest alternative is vulgar utilitarianism.

2972: Fashion, even more than technology, is the cause of the modern world's uniformity.[To rebel these days is to conform.]

2973: In the Modern State there now exists only two parties: citizens and bureaucracy.[If you don't work for the government, you live with the fear of maybe one day having to eat grass and bark while the bureaucrats go on nice vacations.]

2974: Society until yesterday had notables; today it only has celebrities.[Clinton and Obama are celebrities.]

2975: The Modern metropolis is not a city, it is a disease.

2976: When Christianity disappears, greed, envy, and lust invent a thousand ideologies to justify themselves.

2978: Nobody in politics can foresee the consequences either of what he destroys, or of what he constructs.

2980: It is not just that human trash accumulates in cities – it is that cities turn what accumulates in them into trash.

2983: The Gospels and the Communist Manifesto are on the wane; the world's future lies in the power of Coca-Cola and pornography. [Game of Thrones is indicative of this.]

2985: Envy tends to be the true force behind moral indignation. [Obama 2012 won the election by cynically exploiting this fact of human nature.]

2988: Writing is the only way to distance oneself form the century in which it was one's lot to be born. [I love this because I wish it was true.]

I fashion myself to be a 21^st Century Pepys

Monday [August 12]

I didn't work. I didn't do much other than watch a film called Mean Streets starring Harvey Keitel and Robert DeNiro. The film was nothing special. I enjoyed A Bad Day at Black Rock ,which I had watched the day before, much more.

I took Tony downtown so we could look at toy stores in anticipation of his sixth birthday coming on August 23^rd. I now have a good idea what I will buy him.

Tuesday [August 13] [Chinese Lover's Day]

I work today 13:00 to 21:00. I arrive at the school at 11:00.

The hot weather continues. As I waited for the bus, I stood under the shade of a tree.

I took the 25 bus downtown. When it came to its terminal stop near Nanchang market, I went to the 85 degree bakery and bought two loaves of bread.

At the Parkson's supermarket, yesterday, Jenny bought a toy for Tony that contained a lollipop – the type that is shaped like an orb and not a flat disk. The lollipop was encased in the toy car. To get the lollipop, you had to open the toy car which was really a small plastic case with snap-on lid shaped like a toy car; but this proved not so easy to do. Tony, Jenny, and I all made attempts, for two hours, to open the car but couldn't get it done. It was Tony who was finally able to do it as we were walking to Casa Kaulins “Daddy! I opened the car!” were five words which surprised me and filled me with pride. “You are smarter than Mom & Dad!” I told him.

As I walked to the 85 Bakery this morning, I saw people holding bunches of roses for sale. It must be 7/7 which is China Lover's Day, I thought. The 7/7 means the seventh day of the seventh month on the traditional Chinese calendar. I confirmed that it was 7/7 with the estimable Edith, a new study adviser at our school, and phoned my wife to tell her I took our the garbage from the bathroom.

Why do Americans electrocute their pigs when they slaughter them? some Chinese students asked me. I couldn't answer that question, having no idea how the Americans killed their pigs and having always assumed that they used machines with lots of blades in them to turn pigs into bacon and delicious ham.

Wednesday [August 14]

[School Laptop]

I work 13:00 to 21:00. I arrive at school at 10:40.

Last night, the students told me that in America, children can take their parents to court. The students thought this was a good thing.

My last student of the day, yesterday, confirmed my suspicions that restaurants were very crowded on account of yesterday being Chinese Lovers Day.

Last night, Tony was at the public square near Casa Kaulins. A boy apparently kicked Tony in the chest and left a footprint on Tony's shirt. Tony was knocked to the ground and got a cut on his knees. Jenny wanted to chase the boy down but Tony told her not to.

Cuts and bruises are parts of growing up, so there is no point in worrying about them per se. But the manner in which Tony got his injuries last night was worrying. Of course, I don't know what lead to the incident. Tony could have been playing Ultraman with the boy and provoked him.

This morning, I took the 602支 to get downtown. My plan was to get off at a stop near a 85 bakery where I was going to buy another loaf of wheat bread. On the bus, I read my Chinese textbook, a passage from the Bible, and entries of a Diary of a Nobody. When I got downtown, I got off at my normal stop which was not a stop near a 85 Bakery. So, I got on a 79 Bus, took it two stops to get to a stop near a 85 bakery where I bought my loaf of wheat bread. Loaf of wheat bread in my hand, I then caught the 81 double-decker bus and got to school.

Entering school, someone saw me with the bag of bread and asked if I had brought my lunch. “No, I am taking the bread home tonight!” I said.

Speaking of the Iliad, which I did in last week's blog entry, I did see a wooden Trojan horse on wheels figure at Kawaii.

I just had that student named Stella in class. I was quiet with her. I didn't yell STELLA!!!!

I got an email from a man who has spent ten years teaching English in China. Punk kids, he tell me, come over, get drunk, come to school hung over and show movies, and then have sex with the students. Awesome. That is ESL in a nutshell. Those who aren't like that end up as a lefty social worker wannabees.

Thursday [August 15]

[School Laptop]

The 85 Bakery next to our school will re-open on August 18^th. Hurray! Although I don't plan on going to the bakery on that particular day. It will be very crowded!

I work 10:00 to 21:00 today. I arrive at the school at 9:00.

I take the 602支 to school today. I was thinking to take the 602, but decided, rather hesitantly to not, and then immediately thought that, as it pulled away that I should have taken it because I hadn't seen the new metro bridge for two weeks – bridge construction interests me. Downtown, I decided to get off at the stop I should have gotten off at the day before. A change in routine now or then is a good thing.

The electric razor that I inherited from my father fell apart this morning. I will have to see if I can find replacement parts for it. I loved the thing, and I hate to lose any legacy items I have from my father.

I went to get my breakfast from McDonalds. Only one cash register was open and there was a lineup seven people long when I came in. Amazingly, the customers were lined up and not bunched around the register as is the Wuxi habit. A second till opened, and five people raced over to it. I stood where I was and got to be second in line – not that it mattered for my exotic foreigner order was not processed quickly, and I saw that the people who had ordered after me, had gotten their orders filled more quickly and were out the door as I stood looking at my watch, ruing the Chinese taste in crappy breakfast sandwiches.

Last night, I finished watching S21, the Khmer Rouge Killing Machine. The documentary featured interviews with survivors; and with the guards who worked in the prisons, and did the tortures and the killings. Grim stuff to watch. The film ended with some of the members of S21 explaining and demonstrating the procedures involved in executions. Instead of being shot in the back of the head, the victims were blindfolded, hit in the back of the neck with a metal rod and then had their throats cut. Their bodies were then thrown into pits that had already been dug....

Last night, Tony made his first purchase in a store. He went to the corner shop with five rmb and bought two bottles of ice tea.

I got it into my head to listen to some Guns N' Roses. I don't why I did. It was a dumb notion and all I had to do was listen to half a song to realize it was so.

The kids I had in my class about disasters did not know about the famines caused by the Great Leap Forward or about SARS. These two items were telling for different reasons. Together it said something about how long I had been in China, the youth of the students, and what they are taught about history.

Friday [August 16]

[School Laptop]

I work 11:00 to 21:00 today. For what it's worth, and I know it isn't worth much, I arrive at school at 9:45. [LECTOR: Why? ANDIS: I should get out of Casa Kaulins before Tony wakes up. It makes life easier.]

Yesterday morning, as I was getting ready to go to work, I looked in on Tony who awoke from his slumber and told me that he felt like having pizza that day. When I got home last night, I saw there was left over pizza from Pizza Hut in the kitchen. Now, what I would love to do is to be able to take the above sentence and sub in other words into it for “pizza” like “Crown Royal” or “Beijing Roast Duck.”

This morning, I took the 602支 bus to downtown and then transferred to the 79 bus to get to the school. [LECTOR: Oh! That is so interesting. ANDIS: I did it to get a reaction from you. LECTOR: So if you have nothing to say, you try to get a rise out of me eh? ANDIS: I see you are Canadian. LECTOR: Well, I am a figment of your depraved imagination.]

Just had some student ask me questions for a video survey he was doing of foreigners in Wuxi. My feelings about Wuxi are quite complex so I fell back on screaming platitudes just to get it over with.

Me: Make a sentence with “apologize.”

Student: I'm sorry. I don't know what “apologize” means.

No 18:00 class. I wait for a 19:00 and 20:00 class. As I wait, I am thinking I don't want Tony to use my Ipad tonight. He has been using it every night this week and I can't wrest from him so I can read a book.

Saturday [August 17]

[School Laptop]

I work 10:00 to 18:00. It is my Saturday.

Much to my horror, Tony awoke with me this morning. That is, he was up at six AM. I had the laptop on overnight so I could upload some torrents (the films Monte Walsh, The Man from Laramie, Broken Arrow – 1950, Of Gods and Men, and A Man for All Seasons) and Tony saw the computer and wanted to get his Shaun the Sheep fix. I let him have it because I didn't need to deal with his fussing so early in the morning, but I declared that I would turn off the computer before I left for work. As the time got close for my departure, it seemed like I was in for a confrontation. Tony always pretends to not be concerned with my declarations that I will take the computer or the Ipad away, but then starts wailing and kicking up a storm when I follow through. He was quiet this morning so I put off taking the computer away. Finally, though, just as I had to go to work, I turned off the computer expecting the worst; but Tony just sighed and walked into the living room to turn on the television. Sometimes, Tony can surprise us with good behavior.

A young male student has a pencil case which said the following: “Hello, I am mister happy. I want to be your friend.” I showed this to a fellow trainer and he laughed.

Sunday [August 18]

[Home Laptop]

Not working today. We are to go to Nanchang Temple. Jenny is up early this morning. I get up after her. I first go to computer to see the status of my uploads and downloads. Youtube upload failed – further attempts seem hopeless. So, I take photos of Tony and of the outside for my two photo blogs. Still sleepy, I decide to do the blog entry in stream-of-consciousness style.

I watched the 1975 movie Nashville. It had lots of musical performances but not much of a story and yet is still said to be a classic by some, or so I read in the Wikipedia entry and I then started to watch a Man for all Seasons about Thomas More and King Henry the 8^th.

Back to bed where I will hug my Tony....

Out of bed. Jenny has left the apartment. She is going to Nanchang Temple to pray to the Buddha for the health and wealth of Tony & me. Sunday morning. I should be going too, but I passively and wishfully think of doing it and put it off till some unforeseen time in the future.

I can hear a good photo coming by but I left my camera in the other room and so don't have enough time to take it.

Jenny comes back. She forgot her phone. I was on the toilet having a morning sit but she had to go and so she wasn't happy because of the odor and I am not happy because of the interruption of my pleasant morning ritual.

Tony keeps sleeping. When will he get up?

I should think of something LECTOR would say. When I think, do I capitalize the words? Silly. Very silly. Let it happen. Don't force it. I hear someone is using a power tool possibly for apartment decoration. Into my head pops the question of whether the bakery near our school is buy today on account of it being the opening day.

Now an idea for a short film. Short shot of X. Hi I am X and I am a role model. Next shot. Boy in wheelchair with cast on leg and arm and bandaged head declares that X is his role model. Then a whole series of people having been in mishaps tell the camera that X is their role model. Next a man has 100 bowling balls fall on his in succession, and he then declares that X is his role model. Then a man furtively looks at the camera, says X is his role model, looks behind him and then runs. Into the camera appears an angry woman with a broom over her head. She screams with many expletives. “You *****ing piece of ******. I should ****** your ******!” Then two men with no shirts on in a gym dressing room say that X is their role model. The film ends with a group of boys showering together declaring X is their role model.

Jenny leaves again. She tells me it is okay to say no to wanting to go to Nanchang, but I won't take the chance and think she might mean it. I tell Tony to get up so we can get going to meet Mom.

I enter a thought in another blog.

Who is going to read this crap? Now, that would be a good way to end this blog entry, but seeing how this entry is blogging about blogging, I obviously can't and I have to record that I made the thought.

Am I going crazy like that singer in Nashville? That one who got shot in the end of the movie. What was the point of the assassination? A condemnation of America especially the South, I would suppose.

Just in time, I took a photo of two ladies with umbrellas walking below my bedroom window – I should mention that they carry the umbrellas because of the heat, not because of the rain.

Game of Thrones could never displace the Lord of Rings in the pantheon of literature and the fantasy genre. One can read Lord of the Rings over and over again. Game of Thrones is based too much on the capricious nature of the characters. The plotting of Game is great, but once you have seen the next episode, you never want to watch that episode again. Game of Thrones is a soap opera fill of sex and violence set in a mythical time in the past – it isn't an epic.

Tony still sleeps.

Tony still sleeps.

I haven't taken a shower yet. I should soon.

I was going to take a shower but I had to hang laundry. I may now.

Tony still sleeps.

Jenny phones me and says I can borrow a car and go downtown. I tell her I am not interested because I don't have a license. Thinking a little later, I also wouldn't know where to park the car. I would take the car to the countryside but not downtown!

Tony awakes and does his ablutions. He takes my Ipad and goes back to bed.

Now he tells me he doesn't want to go downtown.

Ten hours later, my stream-of-consciousness entry continues. I put Tony on the phone with Mom and so I was able to get him to go downtown with not so much fuss.

On the bus, Tony played on the Ipad while I recorded footage for Scenes from My Life in Wuxi, China #44.

We meet Jenny at a swanky Hot Pot restaurant near Wu Ai Road and a bridge. (So, we didn't go to Nanchang) As I like to say, I had a good fill, and I can add, to annoy some, that I drank two bottles of Budweiser 啤酒。Jenny, at the end of the meal, made Tony & I wait half an hour as she got her nails done for free at the Hot Pot restaurant. As I said, the restaurant was swanky for it also had a playground for Tony to play in and the servers entered our orders on Ipads.

We then caught a taxi to this children's mall near the train station. Jenny meet her friend Ling Ling and Ling Ling's son Jerry. I found the mall boring – it didn't have a good toy store – so I tried to watch A Man for All Seasons on my Ipad. However, screaming at the playground by children, including Tony and Jerry, caused me to put the Ipad away.

I saw these two kids guard a playhouse at the playground and push the other kids out. Little Jerry was pushed out and he landed on his back and hit his head against a plastic toy car. Tony screamed at the kids in defense of his little buddy – Jerry is three years old or thereabouts.

We then walked to Baoli for dinner. I wasn't really all that hungry after having eaten Hot Pot and so when it was decided to go to Pizza Hut, I agreed but told Jenny to not order much food.

Because Tony slept, his head on my lap, I was able to finish watching A Man for All Seasons on the bus. It was a great movie done in a conventional studio way with actors, competent in the classical way, and with great sets – no CGI graphics and special effects. If I matched A Man for All Seasons with Nashville in a movie showdown, the movie about Thomas More's refusal in cave in on a matter of conscience wins 35 to nil.