In
Beixin in the Jiangsu countryside, Jenny told me that Tony followed
some countryside boys to a field and played with them. He didn't
tell any adults that he was doing this and so they got worried and
went to search for him. Whatever he did with the boys in the fields
was all good boyhood stuff and so I told Jenny to not worry so much
about him getting his socks and shoes all dirty.
Jenny
told me that she had heard that a policeman had been hit at the
gathering I had seen at the entrance to the Hui Shan District
government complex. (See October things seen.)
Jenny
told me that Tony did some work in the countryside. He helped scoop
up harvested peanuts which had been lain on the ground to dry.
Jenny
told me that her sister (Jenny has two) had gotten into an evening
argument with her husband and got beaten. Earlier that day, her
sister had driven us to Taizhou, and had been exceedingly nice to
Tony, in fact being very motherly to him. Jenny's sister spent the
whole next day lying down. (Chinese men, I have read and I have
been told, think nothing of slugging their wives in arguments.
Whether this trait has changed in modern times is hard to discern.
I read a book about China from over a hundred years written by a
visitor that reported this. Foreigners have told me that it still
happens a lot in these times.) Jenny also told me that her mother
didn't see what the big deal was about the incident. Jenny told me
she would visit her sister to see how she was doing.
Student
told me that in Nanjing during the October holiday, the subway
station was so crowded that she had to wait three trains before she
could board. In Nanjing, the trains come every four minutes. In
Wuxi, they come every ten.
Jenny
tells me her sister was staying with her mother.
In
my first class back from the holiday, a student told me that she
supported the demonstrators in Hong Kong. She said she wanted
democracy in the mainland. The two other students in class told me
that they hadn't been paying attention to what was happening in Hong
Kong. One of these two students told me that she didn't like Hong
Kongers, having been treated rudely by them, she said, when she
visited that “small land where the people had small minds.”
I
asked another student about what was happening in Hong Kong. He was
an older gentleman in his thirties. He said he hadn't been paying
attention. I told him that the world was thinking it was big news.
I told him it was the biggest protest in Hong Kong since the 1960s.
He misunderstood and thought I was talking about all of China, and
told me how students were killed in Beijing in '89.
On
the first Friday following the Golden Week, a student told me that
his school was having classes on Saturday but on a Monday schedule.
And then the next Monday, following the one day off on Sunday, would
be another day with a Monday schedule. So, the student was telling
me that he was having a weekend with a Monday and a Sunday, followed
a Monday. Two Mondays in three days.
Someone
told me that they saw someone wearing a Mickey Mouse Jacket. Under
the Mickey Mouse was written Sewer Rat.
An
acquaintance, a businessman who lives in the Hui Shan District, told
me the following:
HK
can't succeed or the Party will have trouble on the mainland with
citizens there wanting what HK got.
The
most powerful person in Wuxi city is the Wuxi Party Secretary, not
the Wuxi Mayor.
Thirty
years ago, a Chinese delegation to New York City was surprised that
American city delegations didn't have party secretaries but only
mayors.
Five
star hotels in China have been desperately trying to downgrade
themselves to four star after the central government, in its effort
to fight corruption, said that party conferences would no longer be
held in five star hotels.
The
problem the Chinese economy is that the central government wants to
control everything.
Only
three our of the sixteen subway lines in Shanghai make money. The
rest have to be subsidized. (I had to teach the word subsidized to
my acquaintance.)
In
the 1950s, the Chinese Communist government sent a letter to Hong
Kong telling them to not give their citizens so much freedom.
Hong
Kongers have a bias against Mainland Chinese. So, my friend would
rather shop in Dubai.
The
local Lexus dealership sales are down which is a sign that the
Chinese economy is slowing down.
Buses
in China can be very crowded and sometimes, the driver will tell
passengers to pay and then get on the bus through the back door
because for whatever reason some room is to be had there. I had a
student tell me that one time he did this – that is, he paid at
the front – but couldn't get on the bus because the driver closed
the door on him. He was part of a group of three or four people who
were told to pay at the front and board on the back, and he was the
last to try to board. Usually, I find myself a seat on the bus
because I take the time to wait for an empty bus. But I remember
one time, I boarded a bus where this was not an option, and I
boarded the bus at the back and then made a point of rushing to the
front when I got off to pay the fare by swiping my card.
Student
told me that his company was getting less orders from Russia.
A
student told me that the workers hadn't got their pay from their
company.
A
student told me that he was going to a notary to have a criminal
records check done for his Australian Visa application. He will be
going to Melbourne to study for a Master's Degree.
A
female student, who is attending FAS school, told me that she was
feeling sad because she wasn't able to get a job with Hainan
Airlines who had come to her campus to recruit. The thing that
really got her was the fact that she didn't even get an interview
because she wasn't slim enough.. As it was, her chances were slim
(pardon the pun) to get the job. Only nine out of four hundred were
selected she told me.
What's
happening in Hong Kong, a student told me, would be dealt with
quickly in Mainland China.
Problems
with Italian components are causing delays on an assembly line in
Wuxi, said a student working at the company.
I
should instead of calling this the “told things” entry to the
“things told and overheard” entry. I overheard that local
businessmen are finding the inability to bribe government officials
hard to deal with, because the incentive of government officials is
to do not anything efficiently for a businessman because they don't
want to be suspected of having been bribed.
I
also overheard that local mayors and party secretaries in China are
jockeying to become heads of committees investigating corruption
because they would be immune from being investigated for corruption.
I
asked a student, with the English name Leo, why he had the English
name of Leo. He told me that he had previously had the English name
Hunk but felt compelled to change it because somebody already had
that name at a company he had just joined. I explained to the all
the students in the class with Leo, what a “hunk” was in
English. To the young female who was a fan of the NFL, I said that
she would think that all the players in the league were hunks
because they were all so handsome and strong; but she said she only
thought the quarterbacks were hunks. I asked a married male student
if his wife thought he was a hunk and he coyly said yes. I then
asked a married female student if her husband was a hunk and she
said in a flat manner that he wasn't.
A
student named Terry tells me that fitting rooms are places where
people can change their clothes.
A
student tells me that the banks are in bad shape in China and that I
should take my RMB and convert then to dollars or euros.
A
middle school student told me that his friend broke his leg when
trying to dash in front of oncoming traffic as part of a school boy
dare; and that after the accident, the boys took the injured boy on
a bus to his where they were subjected to severe questioning by the
boy's parents. Stupid kids.
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