Diary: April 15 to April 21, 2014

Highlights

• This week's question: What is it that you believe that Leftists and Progressives believe?
• I worked an extra shift on Sunday. My shifts on Friday and Saturday were not so busy.
• My literary sidekick or nemesis Lector made a reappearance in this week's blog entry. [I came up with the idea of Lector from Hillaire Belloc's The Path to Rome.]
• I was able to take a photo of the Wuxi Metro Train on the Hui Shan Metro Bridge

Tuesday [April 15]

[Home Laptop]

• My shift today will be 13:00 to 21:00.
• This morning, I publish last week's diary entry.
• Yesterday evening, I took Tony, who brought along his push bike, to the Hui Shan People's Square and the Hui Shan Wanda Plaza.
• There were lots of people dancing at the Square. I counted about four groups, each of which was dancing to its own music. You would think there were would be spots on the square where you had to listen to two different songs. Two of the groups were ballroom dancing. The other groups were dancing as a team. One group of women seemed to be practicing for a show. They began their dance by standing very close together. They would then fan out in unison. I wanted to watch them but Tony decided he wanted to go home. I convinced him to instead go to the Wanda Plaza where I hoped to take Tony and his push bike on a circuit of the mall, but he dragged me inside to the arcade – 15 rmb was what it cost me to convince Tony to go the mall.
• What is it that you believe that Leftists and Progressives believe? They believe that Conservatism is the ideology of White Racists. Any policy that Conservatives advocate is meant to disadvantage minorities. Everything Conservatives say is a Racist Dog Whistle. [I am not one of them because I know that this belief is irrational. (This is one of the many things I know that cause me to not be one of them or one with them.)]
• As I type this, I report that I am thinking of taking the 25 bus in order to hopefully get a photo of the Wuxi Metro train on the Hui Shan Metro Bridge.

[School Laptop]

• I took the 25 bus to school. The train wasn't on the bridge – it was to have crossed it two minutes later. “Miss it by that much!” as Maxwell Smart would have said.
• I will maintain a Trappist-like silence.

Wednesday [April 16]

[Home Laptop]

• I finished reading Mary H Kingsley's Travels in West Africa last night. I then read chapters one and two of a Johnny Carson bio.
• Kingsley, a woman, traveled in highly malarial West Africa and had the same attitudes towards the blacks of her male counterparts at that time. In fact, the book could easily have been written by a man or rather have been changed to look like it was written by a man with just a few changes.
• It rained last night, and I think I am going to have to pull out my umbrella when I go to school.

[School Laptop]

• The shift today: 13:00 to 21:00.
• I saw the metro train on the bridge! Only problem was that I was on the 602支 and thus too far away to take a good photo.
• I just had a coffee and two pies from McDonalds.
• What is it that you believe that Leftists and Progressives believe? They believe that America is bad, and that Americans are evil except if when they are members of the Democrat party or are America-loathing Americans.
• Twenty Five Years ago, students gathered at a square in Beijing.

Thursday [April 17]

[School Laptop]

• My shift today: 10:00 to 21:00.
• Heavy rain this morning as I took Tony to be picked up. Heavy rain as I walked to the bus stop to go to school. But at least I had good timing as far as catching buses. The 602支 arrived at the California Villa bus stop the same time as I did. Downtown, the 81 bus came as I got off the 602支。
• What is it that you believe that Leftists and Progressives believe? They believe that they themselves are thoroughly decent people, and that anyone who disagrees with them is evil. They don't believe in right and wrong. They believe themselves to be always right. They believe that all the problems of the world can be solved by government.

Friday [April 18]

[School Laptop]

• My shift today: 11:00 to 21:00. Nothing to do till 18:00. I have no daytime classes. So I have plenty of time to finish off my next piece for my Wuxi China Expatdom Blog.
• “Tony, what day it is?” He told me it was Friday. He knows that Friday is regarded as a good day.
• Friday isn't regarded as a good day by me. To my way of thinking, Friday is actually Thursday.
• Last evening, I did a salon class about Social Networks. As these classes go for me, I thought it was interesting. The students gave some interesting answers to my questions. One student told me that her friends were her friends because they were the same height as she was. She had a theory about this that I found interesting.
• So, I asked the other students about this and they said that they had friends who were shorter than them or taller than them. Still, I thought there was something to what the student said; and as I am wont to do, I tried to apply the theory to myself.
• I first have to admit that I don't have any close, close friends – none that I talk to everyday or have a beer with. On my days off, I see only Tony and Jenny; I never meet any other people. The last thing I ever want to do is have lunch with the people I am acquainted with in Wuxi. The only person I talk to on my mobile phone is Jenny. I have deleted most of the phone numbers I do have on my mobile phone so that I have about four names on my contact list. I don't bother anymore getting the phone numbers of the others who work at school.
• Why have I adopted this curmudgeonly and misanthropic habits? It goes back to what that student said about having friends who were the same height as her. No one in Wuxi, in my estimation is the proper height. They could in fact be higher and taller and mightier than me. Heck, a few could even be lower than me. And nightmares of my nightmares, some could in fact be the same height as me. But no one I have meet in Wuxi has the height or stature, in a moral and metaphysical sense, for me to even to begin to want, or even have regrets on not being able, to befriend. I am spinning my wheels for lack of people I could befriend in Wuxi.
• LECTOR: Do you think that perhaps you are asking for too much? ANDIS: Hey Lector! Long time no see! I don't discount that possibility. (He he ha, I typed that cliché on purpose.) But on many levels, there is no common ground with these people. I will have to suppress myself when interacting with them, and it is not worth the bother. Better to pine for someone who I can get along with and argue with. LECTOR: What don't you try to be a happy warrior? ANDIS: Good question. Why don't I? I am shunned either way.
• I have downloaded the first two episodes of Season Four of Game of Thrones. Jenny is keen to watch the show with me. It is the one TV series that we are both keen to watch.
• What is it that you believe that Leftists and Progressives believe? They believe Conservatives and Republicans are Nazis. They believe private citizens shouldn't have guns for self-defense purposes. They believe that calling people names hurts people. They believe that it is bad to judge others. They believe the Catholic Church should adopt all the mores of the modern world. They believe that abortion, the killing of fetuses, is okay, and is a woman's right. They believe that smoking is immoral. They believe that eating fatty food is immoral. They believe that children have better morals than parents. They believe that old white people have bad ideas. They believe that young people and young single woman have good ideas.
• I just read the latest piece by John Derbyshire at Taki's Magazine. Sitting is the new smoking. Sitting all day at a desk is bad for one's health. I had been thinking, only yesterday, that being able to sit at a desk for four hours concentrating on something was a sign that one had some self-discipline.
• As I made my way to school and the laptop, I was passing one of the many construction sites currently in Wuxi and I saw three men, two of whom were wearing construction helmets, squatting in the Asian manner so that their butts were near the ground and their knees were bent so that that they pointed toward the sky. Something about the sight of them made me take a photo and immediately make a point of mentioning them in this blog. The squatting seemed remarkable to me for at least two reasons. One was their location: they stood outside the construction practically on the road. The other was their slight and diminutive statures: if they stood up, they would have been maybe a head taller than Tony. If it wasn't for their faces which showed their age, they would have looked like nine years dressed as workers.

Saturday [April 20]

[School Laptop]

• I took the 25 bus this morning to get to school. On a Saturday, it is not something I normally do; and this morning I intended to take the 602支，but the a 25 bus came with available seats and I thought of taking that hoped-for photo of the Wuxi Metro on the Hui Shan Metro Bridge.
• And I am happy to say that the train was on its bridge as the 25 bus was on its, and so I got the much sought photos. However, they were not as nice as I hoped. The photo, which I have already published to the AKIC wordpress blog, shows the bridge, a boat in a foreground, and the entire train on the bridge, but the train is hard to see on the Ipod with which I took the photo. It seems small, like taking a photo of a worm from across a room. Perhaps the train shows up better when you look at the photo on my blog.
• Last night, my wife watched the first episode of the fourth season of Game of Thrones on my Ipad. Earlier, I had finished watching an old Astaire – Rogers flick Roberta.
• I published a six page long piece to my Wuxi China Expatdom blog. I will use the spare time I have this morning to write another with the headline Wuxi Expat Pub to serve Caesar Salads with Gun-Shaped Croutons.
• Today's shift: 10:00 to 18:00. I arrived at school at 8:50 and learned that my two morning classes were canceled. So, I don't have much teaching to do till 14:00. I do have ways to keep myself busy, but that does mean that I can say I have things to do? [Lector: You do have things to do, but the things you will do are not the things you should be doing. You have to think of your wife and child.]
• What is it that you believe that Leftists and Progressives believe? Some large amount of government action is required to combat climate change. Government action is required to force people to interact with each other. Government should regulate the media and the Internet. Regulation is good.
• A former teacher at this school has returned to his home country. He couldn't find a job in China because he was too old.

Sunday [April 20]

[School Laptop]

• Easter. I listen to Father Z podcasts all morning. I can't tell if the church, next door to our school, is busier than normal. It definitely isn't as busy as it has been at Christmas when security barriers are placed around the church.
• I am doing and overtime shift today: 10:00 to 17:00.
• Traffic put me in an I-think-the-Chinese-are-a-bunch-of-inconsiderate-pricks mood. I was really annoyed that car drivers were not slowing down as they approached a pedestrian crossing. I wanted so much to make them stop and let pedestrians cross but they were driving too fast.
• The K family had Korean food at the Hui Shan Wanda Plaza.
• At home, Jenny watched the second episode of the fourth season of Game of Thrones on the Apple TV. The video file that she was watching was on the Laptop.
• I published two articles to the Wuxi China Expatdom blog. My partner-in-crime on the WCE blog, HM, published some brilliant Sarah Palin pieces.
• This morning at McDonalds, a man from Arizona asked me about the Gonzaga sweatshirt that I was wearing. I had to tell him that I didn't have it because I attended Gonzaga and that I had in fact bought the sweatshirt in Wuxi. Anyway, it was an ice-breaker. I learned that he was teaching English on the Jiangnan University campus.

Monday [April 21]

[Home Laptop]

• No shifts today. It is raining. I stay at home.
• After school yesterday, I meet Tony & Jenny at Baoli where we did some grocery shopping at Carrefour. We then took the bus to Casa Kaulins where we were to have sandwiches and potato salad for supper. I was excited at the prospect of this dinner because we had bought a lot of cold cuts, not easy to find in Hui Shan, at the Carrefour. But fifteen minutes after we arrived home, Jenny told me that we had forgotten to retrieve the bread that we had put in a Baoli locker. I immediately took a bus downtown to get it. Ninety minutes lost.
• What is it that you believe that Leftists and Progressives believe? They believe they are tolerant. They believe people who aren't like them are intolerant. They believe White people are intolerant and that religious people are intolerant. They believe that people who are from victim classes are understandably aggrieved. They believe that all groups of people share the same capabilities. They believe that a room containing ten white men, no women, and no black people is proof of racism.
• The thought does cross my mind that I am a rat bastard. For I keep to my haughty self and act rude by ignoring many people around me, and I make a point of it to never bother greeting them. I am being passively aggressive. And yet, people do things that I would never do, and if I am a rat bastard, I am a small one on the scale of things. I am not openly self-righteous, I am not licentious, I try to not talk about others behind their backs, I keep my loathings to myself, I rarely say things to make others feel uncomfortable, and I am capable of feeling shame.
• But I do face a quandary. Do I keep to myself, should I be polite and fake fellowship, or should I tell people what I really think of them? I have chosen to be passive.
• [Later] Thinking about what I have just written, I can recall things I have done that show me to not be pure of soul. Reading the Johnny Carson bio, which is really a memoir of his lawyer, is what made me think of the words rat bastard.
• Last night, Tony had a sore throat, cough, and a raspy voice. He went to school this morning but came home in the afternoon. Now, he sleeps.
• I have just downloaded the third episode of the fourth season of Game of Thrones.
• [Even Later] The things that I am really ashamed for having done, I don't do anymore and wouldn't dare do anymore.