Not Too Many Readers; Back to Work; Fudge!!; Riding the Metro Really Sucks Now; Phew!; Minneapolis Rioting; Chinese Like Gorillas?

• May 28^th, was the anniversary of my father's death in 2012. To mark the anniversary, I put a link to a website I have honouring my father. The link drew one visitor. Oh well. I blog because I must.

• May 28^th was also my first day at work since the lockdown started about four months ago. The return was underwhelming. There were no foreigners with whom to exchange anecdotes. The staff that was there were people with whom I hadn't been on a talking basis. So, I spent most of the day farting around like I was at home. I (not wearing a mask) did talk to one student (who was fully masked) in the evening at the Speaker's Corner. She had gotten back to work in her factory in late February. Because she had been in her hometown, she had to do two weeks of quarantine in Wuxi before she could return to work. Once back at her factory, she had to observe social distancing and other virus protocols. May 28^th she told me was a day off for her. Apparently, her factory's production is stuck in a warehouse, not moving anywhere.

• Sometime on May 28^th, I misplaced my bus card and keys. I discovered they were missing just as I was leaving work: reaching into my bag, I couldn't find the bus pass in the compartment I had expected them to be in. I then checked other bag compartments for them and when I couldn't find them, I had to go back to my desk. For twenty minutes, I searched furiously around my desk, and kept rechecking my bag. I thought of places I had gone to in the school and checked them with no luck. And so I left work hoping that at least I had left my keys at home, but it turned out not to be the case. I discounted the idea that my card and keys had been stolen because I still had my wallet. The most likely scenario I thought was that I had left them on the bus which I had taken to work about eight hours earlier. On the 29^th, I tried to see if the Wuxi Bus System had a lost and found, but I couldn't find any phone number to call. I tried asking a bus driver when I went to work on the 29^th, but he said "meiyou!" when I showed him a Chinese message that my wife Jenny had typed out for me to show him. So it seems, unless something seemingly miraculous happens, I lost the keys for our car, Jenny's office and to the apartment. There was about 45 rmb on the bus card, and the car key will be much more expensive to replace. As well, I lost a keychain from the RCA Museum in Brandon... Damn! Damn! Damn!

• Because of my searching for my bus pass and keys, I missed the last 25 bus (which I had taken earlier in the day) back to Compound Kaulins, and had to take the subway. Going to the platform, I was reprimanded by a security guy for not wearing a mask. On the train, everyone was wearing a mask, and the sight of this made me more depressed than I already was. I then overheard a father next to me tell his little son that they were sitting next to a laowai. I looked straight ahead and thought how the train ride couldn't end soon enough for me. Anyway, I will take the bus as much as I can, and avoid riding the subway. The subway is expensive and you can't avoid seeing others. On the bus, I can sit at the very back, take off my mask, and not be stared at.

• [Later!] Phew! Found the keys and the card. It turned that I had left it at one of the places in school that I had thought to look initially when I discovered they were missing. It was the cleaning lady who found them, during the day, before I went to retrieve them in the evening. It was my wife who told me to ask the cleaning lady if she had found the keys – something I never thought to do. And it turned out that the aiyi had them all the while I was stressing. And my ass was saved!!!!

• Rioting in Minneapolis. As my rare readers may know, my son Tony & I were in Minneapolis in August of last year. And before that, I had grandparents and other relatives living there so I have visited the area on many occasions. One of my best memories was being able to attend a Vikings exhibition game at the old Met Stadium in the 1970s when they played the Miami Dolphins. It saddens me to hear about the rioting because the Minneapolis I went to when I was young was a great place. When I went last year, however, I saw lots of latinos and blacks and somalis there. So, it seemed to me like it was turning into Los Angeles. I also have heard lots of reports that Minneapolis was turning hard left progressive. One bad memory I had of attending the Twins game last year was how I had to listen to intercom announcements telling baseball fans how progressive the Minnesota Twins were. Anyway, there were signs in retrospect that Minneapolis was going down a bad path. And the riots have proven it beyond a doubt. Sad.

• Just a thought: to be a popular laowai in China, you have to be gorilla like.