What AKIC Has Read in 2018, So Far.

For whatever reason, for the last four years,  I have been keeping track of the books I have read and annually publishing, in January, the list of them for the past year.  This year, I will publish the list of what I have read so far during the year.  So here is what I've read so far in 2018:

The Joke by Milan Kundura

Four Quartets by TS Eliot

The English and Their History by Robert Tombs

Righteous Indignation by Andrew Breitbart

Mother Angelica's Little Book of Life Lessons and Everyday Spirituality Edited by Raymond Arroyo

Watermelons: The Green Movement's True Colors by James Delingpole

American Pravda by James O'Keefe

12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos by Jordan Peterson

Bad Thoughts by Jamie Whyte

With the World's Great Travelers, Volume 2 by Various. Edited by Charles Morris & Oliver H.G. Leigh

Poems by Christina Rossetti

A Shropshire Lad by A.E. Houseman

What's Wrong with China by Rodney Gilbert

Philip Larkin Poems Selected by Martin Amis

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Village Life in China: A Study in Sociology by Arthur H. Smith

On a Chinese Screen by W. Somerset Maugham

How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big by Scott Adams

Hombre by Elmore Leonard

Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion

The Liturgical Year Volume 3: Christmas by Abbot Prosper Gueranger

The Balkan Wars: 1912-1913 by Jacob Gould Schurman

Gems of Chinese Verse by W.J.B. Fletcher

Angel's Flight by Michael Connelly

Selected Poems of Lord Byron edited by Matthew Arnold

The Liturgical Year Volume 6: Passiontide and Holy Week by Abbot Prosper Gueranger

Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man by Marshall McLuhan

The Rape of Lucrece by William Shakespeare

The Radetzky March by Joseph Roth

Poorly Made in China by Paul Midler

As You Like It by William Shakespeare

Currently, I am reading  Collected Poems of John Donne, Aphorisms of  Nicolás Gómez Dávila and a biography:  Kenneth Clark: Life, Art and Civilsation.

I Should Have Taken Photos

I am writing another one of these "trouble comes in three" entries. This time, I can complain mostly about bad timing, though number three of my troubles is a complaint about the locals which I will try to demonstrate has geo-political implications for the world.

First, I was walking on the second level of my local shopping center towards a spot that overlooks an open area where there is a often a stage set up for performances and promotions.  I came upon the sight of four slim twenty-something girls wearing red costumes that went down to their upper thighs. They were dancing and thanks to the red, their legs stood out from a mile away and I immediately thought to pull out my phone to take a photo of them. It was just my luck that they finished their performance before the camera app became fully operational.

Secondly, I was at school in its second-floor office when I heard chanting coming from street level. I walked over to a classroom and looked down and saw about twenty delivery drivers, all in uniform, standing in formation (ranks as they said when I was in the militia) listening to some supervisor.  I decided to take a photo. Only problem was my phone was in the office. By the time I came back, the group had broken up and all the drivers were getting on their special delivery e-bikes to embark on a day of restaurant food deliveries.

Finally, I was driving Tony to school and was stopped at a traffic light along the way.  I was in the right-most car lane, a barrier separating my vehicle from the bike lane, when I saw a white Kia Sportage in the bike lane stopped behind a bunch of e-bikers and cyclists. I had become familiar with this particular SUV and its driver because it was the third time in a week that I had seen the vehicle blatantly being driven in a bike lane that was barriered-off from cars. Its driver was male, probably in his thirties, and he wore aviator sun glasses. His hair was short, his face was square, and his mouth was wide with a very visible smirk. His countenance, his getup, and his driving habits indicated to me that he was a thug accustomed to getting away with things. This third time to watch him, I was close enough to get a good look at him as his SUV was stopped just a little in front of me. I had the perfect photo to put on my AKIC photo blog, but alas because of my fumbling and the camera app of my Apple Hitler Phone not setting up in time, I was again just a little late.  Just as the camera was ready to take photos, the light turned green and the SUV quickly sped off.   It went straight ahead, merging into the car lane.  What the driver had done was to get into the bike lane so he could get around all the other cars that were lined up in the proper lanes for the red light. [A fucking prick maneuver! Pardon my French!] Proceeding through the intersection myself, I was not far behind the SUV as I witnessed it turn into the barriered-off bike lane again so the driver could again get around cars stopped at the next traffic light. He continued on the route I was taking to school, where it turned out he was dropping off his son as well.  Just the previous week, it was at that service opening in the boulevard between the bike and car lanes that the driver had first entered my consciousness because then and there, I had almost rear-ended him because he had unexpectedly and recklessly slowed down his SUV quite suddenly to make the illegal and immoral turn. I only pray that I will have another opportunity to record with a camera his maneuvers. Of course, it would be much better if he stopped doing this, but being an adult male it might be too late to for him to change his ways.

As I was continually encountering this driver, I was following news of Trump's putting tariffs on Chinese products. Now, many places on the Internet say that Trump is starting the trade war. They have got it backwards. The Chinese started it years ago by having been cheating on trade and Trump is the first US president with the balls to do something about it.  How do the Chinese cheat?  In many ways.  A large portion of them arrogantly proceed through their days, like the SUV driver I witnessed above, as if the rules don't apply to them. The SUV driver's particular maneuvers mentioned above are not an anomaly.  I have been tiresome in this blog about the lack of consideration Chinese have for others as they go about in public. I have related many an anecdote of Chinese drivers selfishness and trickery in traffic.  One can only imagine the lack of consideration that goes on in their business dealings, especially with foreign devils. So.  Go get them Trump!

Tony Questions My Sanity

It was Saturday evening.  Tony & I were walking away from Burger King, heading to our car so we could drive to his 1830-2000 swim class.  Tony is not very enthusiastic about swimming classes but has to go because his mother insists and because she has paid for a year of them.  So, Tony was in a griping mood and blurted out the following:  "China is so boring!  I want to go to Canada!" to which I told him I heard and understood.

Tony then asked me a question that put me on the spot:  "Why did you decide to move to China?"  He asked this question in a tone that suggested I was crazy for having decided to come.  I answered him by saying that I came to China for the sake of travel.  I then told him that if I hadn't come to China, he wouldn't never have been born.

Really, he should have asked why I was still in China and why I was so crazy as to have not gone back to Canada.  I would have answered that there were a number of reasons:  going back to Canada would be hard; his mother wants to stay in China; and despite the dullness of our life in China, we were doing fairly well with a car and a paid-off apartment.  And yet, I feel like I am at the end of my string in China and that Tony needs to experience something other than the mindless and soul-killing Chinese Schooling System.