Black Van; Politics; “I don't know!”; Famous Chinese People I Can Name; Mailed My Ballot; Tim Hortons in Shanghai

• One Saturday Morning, I was standing at the intersection of Jiankang and Zhongshan Roads near Nanchang Temple. A black van with caged windows pulled up near me. Inside were a bunch of men in green military uniforms. The back door of the van opened and three of the uniformed men jumped out. They were stern-looking, wore helmets and one of them had a side-arm. Scary I thought. I wonder now what was the need for such over the top security.

• To follow politics and the news, or to not to follow politics and the news? That is the question. There is no point for me to blog on it unless I can report how it has impacted me in China. So much of what is political news is soap opera. And it is so anger-inducing that I wonder if I am being manipulated. These progressives can't be that stupid and disingenuous as they are being portrayed? Just to let my few readers where I stand, I will say this: Impeachment is bullshit. I support the HK protesters. Greta is a little horror. I hope Justin Trudeau is defeated. I hope Brexit happens. 

• "Can you tell me a popular thing that you don't like?" After ten seconds of hemming and hawing, and shifting back and forth of his head, the teenage student whom I asked the question to, said "I don't know!" "So you just follow the crowd?" I asked. "Yes, I follow the crowd." Earlier when I asked him who the most popular person was in China, he answered Xi Jing Ping. When I get these answers from students, it is never safe to assume that they mean what they literally said, because you have no idea what they know and or understand of what you have said. The student maybe didn't know the difference between fame and popularity. And later when I asked the student if he liked something because he himself liked it and not because it was popular, he said yes which contradicted what he had told me earlier.

• I can name maybe four or five Chinese people who are famous and active at this time. They are Xi Jing Ping, Yao Ming, Jack Ma, Jackie Chen, and Fan Bing Bing. For the size of China's population, you would think that one could be able to name many, many more famous Chinese people.

• I mailed my Canadian Federal Election ballot on October 5^th. Hopefully, it will arrive in Ottawa before the October 21^st deadline. Who did I cast my vote for? I will tell you now that I didn't vote Liberal, I didn't vote NDP, I didn't vote Green, I didn't vote Marxist-Leninist and I didn't vote Conservative. 

• The Kaulins Family went to Shanghai on October 6^th. We hadn't visited the city, except for going to Pudong Airport, in over four years. Our main purpose in going was to visit the Tim Hortons that had recently opened there. Jenny had really liked the bagels with cream cheese at the Tim's in Canada and Tony had really liked the steeped tea. I was very curious to see what a Chinese Tim's would be like. Would it be completely authentic or Sinofied? I looked forward to be able to write a blog review of it. 

• Which, I will do now: I will first say that Jenny was happy with her coffee and bagels, and that Tony said the steeped tea tasted just like it had tasted in Canada. He also liked his bacon & ham melt sandwich. And so the wife & son were satsified. For my part, I was underwhelmed. The service was slow compared to a Canadian Tim's. Upon making our order, we were given an electronic pager that would tell us when our order was ready. We sat at a table for five minutes before the pager started buzzing. I then discovered when unwrapping the bagels that two of the three we ordered didn't have cream cheese that we requested, and so I had to take them back. The bagels weren't sliced in half like they would have been in Canada. The portioning of the cream cheese then didn't seem as large as it would have been in Canada. And the coffee was not as good as it would have been in Canada. The Shanghai Tim Hortons seemed Sinofied in the worse way.