The Andis Kaulins in China Diary for March 18 to March 24, 2014

Highlights

• Five shifts this week at school.
• Jenny's uncle died. Jenny went to the funeral leaving Tony to be taken care of by Andis.
• On Sunday, the K family went to the Shengtai Agriculture Park.
• I thought to give up watching Downton Abbey.
• I started learning Java.

Tuesday [March 18]

[Home Laptop]

• My shift today will be 13:00 to 21:00 today.
• Right now, I am dealing with an IOS Update to my Ipad. Basically, my Ipad is out of commission because, for whatever reason, I am re-installing everything into my Ipad like all the apps and the books. It looks like it will take an hour.
• Speaking of taking hours, editing the diary entry of yesterday, that is the one that I published to the Internet, took hours. Editing is a painful and time-consuming process.
• The Ipad updating and reloading has thrown off my concentration for the time being. I haven't done anything to fulfill my daily requirements other than to make this diary entry.
• I was able to wander the area around Casa K yesterday. I took photos and videos of some things that I saw, like the Wuxi Metro train doing test runs.
• Last night, it took me an hour to put together Tony's 132 piece puzzle. Tony had poured the pieces on the floor and as was my habit, I cleaned up after him.
• Hopefully, I can continue today's daily sub-entry at school.

[School Laptop]

• As I walked to the bus stop, I passed an intersection where I saw a near collision between a left-turning e-bike and an oncoming car. It was the e-biker who was definitely driving imprudently. She made a left turn rather quickly and without looking. If I had happened to have had my camera pointing at her, I would have had a nice image of the e-bike turning right in front of an moving car. The car slowing down prevented the collision. Amazingly, the driver didn't honk his horn and shout epitaphs at the woman.
• I took the 25 bus to get downtown.
• I took the seat over the back wheel. In front of me sat a young man who opened the window and leaned his head against on the window edge so he could spit outside. Gross.
• [Later] I have done my Chinese study for the day. One of my projects is to create a database of the flashcards used for the 1,000 flashcards textbook on yellowbridge.com.
• I did an English Corner about Europe. There were nine students attending. It went okay, not great but any stretch of the imagination. I was looking for something to get everyone talking and make the time flow quickly but it didn't really happen. One student said that steak came to mind when she thought of Europe – a far cry from Hitler.
• In my wallet, I had a 100 rmb note and no small change. I was planning to go to the Xinjiang restaurant for my mid-afternoon meal but I didn't want to break the 100 there, so I went to McDonalds for the bacon potato double burger.
• No classes till 19:00. I may be able to get all the things I want to do today!
• John admires his sister only. What does this sentence mean? What is the only modifying. Is it modifying sister? Is it modifying the whole sentence?

Wednesday [March 19]

[Home Laptop]

• I tell myself to not be lazy. So I tell myself to make the date headline for this day's entry bold and not to save it for later.
• My shift today is 13:00 to 21:00. Yesterday, I had three classes. Having started out with five, I was dismayed, in a strange way, when the girl from booking told me that two of my classes were canceled. I took advantage of the free time to occupy myself with interesting things like my Chinese study, my daily readings, and my computer study. However, my hopes of being able to use databases with Python was dashed when a module, one of my Python textbooks suggested I download, didn't install.
• It is colder today. Yesterday was warm and I saw some foreigners walking around in t-shirts. It has cooled down overnight and it might rain today; and so I will have to don an extra layer when I go out.
• The big change in temperature is making me feel weary. The thought of doing anything – even writing in this blog – is wearying me.
• I began to watch the sixth episode of the second season of Downton Abbey last night.
• No binge-viewing for me.
• I wait for news about the missing Malaysian airliner. But it is drowned out, on the Drudge Report, by news of what is happening in Crimea.
• War?
• I hear fireworks nearby. Has someone moved into Jia Zhou Yang Fang?
• I carry Tony to the pickup stop from where he is taken to school. He tells me he is cold. Really, he is lazy.
• I hang laundry that Jenny had washed.
• They say it is all Malaysian Airliner all the time on the news. I wouldn't know. I listen to podcasts and don't watch any television news.
• I need to fill this entry with humor. I need some hilarious things to happen. I need to think some hilarious thoughts.
• Can the Winnipeg Jets make the 2014 National Hockey League playoffs? I doubt it. Jets 2.0 as bad as Jets 1.0.

[School Laptop]

• It is raining cats and dogs. So it is annoying to be outside and I am wondering if my 13:00 student will show.
• Walk into a shop on rainy day and there will be a place to put your umbrellas near the entrance.
• Now, my pink umbrella is open and laying on the floor beside my desk. Open umbrellas being dried in offices is a common sight in Wuxi.
• Co-worker tells me that swishing a certain kind of olive oil in your mouth for ten to fifteen minutes is good for your health.
• My 13:00 student didn't show up.
• I got a database program to work using Python. Now, I need to refine it.

Thursday [March 20]

[School Laptop]

• My shift today: 10:00 to 21:00.
• I ran into 635 Sophia when I went to McDonalds to buy my second breakfast of the morning. She was off to her school where her day today consists of prepping for her weekend classes. My day, I told her, consists of doing a little bit of prepping, some teaching, and studying Chinese and Computer.
• I took the 602支 and then the 118 buses to work. The 118 bus was nearly empty. There was nothing but a driver, me, and another passenger on the bus. It was very unusual and contrasted with the packed-like-sardines 635 bus I took home last night.
• On the 635 bus home, many of the standing passengers were playing with their mobiles. One standing passenger earned this mention in my blog because she was watching a video on her Ipad. This is something I would never have thought to do if I was standing.
• Having a wife and son to support, I am glad I don't have much social intercourse outside of work because, really, my days at school are very, very cushy.
• What is my work? Talking to students and sometimes correcting their English. Reviewing an old English grammar yesterday, I realized that I don't know as much about English grammar as I thought I had, or thought I did. Some of the test questions in the test-section of the grammar were real head-scratchers for me. I could say that some of the grammar presented in the book was obsolete, but there were many questions in the test that I should be happy I don't get asked by the students. [I should say I should be happy if the students challenge me with these questions.]
• Missing Malaysian Airliner: 1) I saw William, our student from Malaysia, last night and I teased him about the airliner. He did say that it was the biggest crisis that Malaysia has ever faced. 2) Apparently, two employees from an insurance company in this building were on that flight.
• I spent about 45 minutes prepping for my classes. Most of the work for them had already been done, but I have been trying to supplement the lesson plans and my lesson plans with additional material.

March 21 [Friday]

[School Laptop]

• The shift today: 11:00 to 21:00. I arrive at school at 9:30. I am eager to install a Java Developers Kit on this machine. I tried yesterday but I couldn't get jvac to compile my first java program.
• This morning, Tony told me not to go to work. I asked him why and he told me that he wanted to play train simulator on my home laptop. It wasn't like he wanted to be with Daddy.
• Jenny's uncle, his father's brother, is at death's door. That is what Jenny told me this morning. He was at the hospital but because there was nothing they could do for him, he was taken back to his room at the family compound. Jenny's uncle was a quiet fellow who always wore a hat of some sort and was always wrapped in layers of clothing. He spent his days, when I saw him, sitting in the compound. If he dies, Jenny & Tony will go to the funeral. His manner of death seems particularly forlorn for his is dying like a ward or a pet in the forgotten countryside of China.
• When buying my breakfast at McDonald's, I noticed this old woman, who looked like she hadn't showered in a week, eating her breakfast in the most ungainly manner. She was using the thin brown stir stick as a straw to drink her coffee and her half-eaten breakfast sandwich, which she was clutching onto loosely while still in its wrapper, was held at chest-height as she went to get a refill of coffee. Squeezing the cup as she sipped the coffee, the plastic cap came unloosened and was dangling on the stir-stick straw.
• [Later] I have gotten the jvac compiler to work. Yes!
• Nothing worse than doing a salon class about Global Warming. It is the most boring topic for a salon ever!!!!
• The only thing I found interesting about the class was having two of the students tell me that they had been robbed. One student had been robbed in her office at work by a girl who had managed to get through the security doors. The other student said her apartment had been broken into and she had lost an Ipad and two gold rings. She didn't know how the thief had broken into her apartment. There was nothing broken in her apartment.

Saturday [March 22]

[School Laptop]

• My shift today 10:00 to 18:00. My last class ends at 17:00 so I will get off early.
• When I got home last night, Jenny was mad at Tony because of his lack of progress in Math class. Tony had, in the morning, been telling me I shouldn't work so he could play Train Simulator on my home laptop. In the evening, he was too shell-shocked by Jenny's scolding to talk about this and he went to bed rather quickly.
• I took the 602支 to work and sat at the extreme back of the bus. Two people in front of me decided to open the windows causing a cool and uncomfortable breeze to blow in my face. A woman sitting in a seat right of front of me was the first to open the window and I moved to the seat on the other side of the aisle. But then a man sitting two seats in front of me decided to open a window very widely so I had an even more uncomfortable breeze in sit in. I ended up sitting at a seat in the aisle sort of between the two breezes. Eventually, The woman smartened up and closed her window; however, the man didn't and I cursed him loudly hoping he heard my f****s. After about three minutes, the woman then did what I didn't have the balls to do and went over to where the man was sitting and shut his window.
• I saw a blind woman being helped by another woman. I don't often see blind people.
• I listened to a depressing podcast about the employment prospects currently of people in their late forties and early fifties. The new technology is making them unemployable.

Sunday [March 23]

[Home Laptop]

• When the wife's away, the boys will play? Not really. I have got Tony in bed at 9:00 PM and I have to prepare his clothes for tomorrow and do some cleaning and I want to make a couple of blog entries – for this blog and another.
• So, I will blog about today tomorrow.

Monday [March 24]

[Home Laptop]

• Why is Jenny away? Well. Her uncle, who lived with her parents, has died and she is attending the funeral. She will be back at Casa Kaulins on Tuesday.
• I will have to see if I can dig up a photo of the uncle and publish it on AKIC Wordpress. I know there is one somewhere on some drive.
• I got Tony off to school. I hope I didn't forget anything. I was thinking to deliberately put something Tony backwards so as keep up the conceit of wives that husbands don't know what they are doing.
• A shipment of Ritz Cheese Cracker sandwiches arrived yesterday. I love them. I could crumble them up and throw them in my bath so I could luxuriate in them for twenty minutes or so.
• Sunday, the K family was driven, by some neighbors in their mini van, to the Shengtai Agriculture park in Jiangyin. To get to the park from Casa Kaulins is easy. You take Hui Shan Da Dao road to Jiangyin, cross the bridge to Jiangyin (the one where Tony & I go trainspotting), and continue along the road for a few kilometers. The park would be on your left.
• At Shengtai, we saw greenhouses with plant pots hanging from the ceiling so the visitors felt themselves to be in a completely luxuriant environ; we saw peacocks with magnificent rear end plumage; we saw gobbling turkeys and lanky storks; we fed a lot of gold fish; we saw what I thought was a black swan; I saw a swan get very pissed at a duck and change it all over the pond (around which was built a wooden patio deck.); and we ate at a table surrounded by plants.
• I finished watching the seventh game of the 1965 World Series (which I downloaded from Youtube). Koufax three hit the Twins on two days rest throwing mostly fastballs because his curve wasn't working for him. Amazing. The game seemed to have been played in another planet, not just another era. The spectators were mostly dressed in suit and ties. They weren't braying like monkeys through the game. And when the game ended, the Dodgers were dignified in their celebrations. And the Twins had nice uniforms.
• I also finished watching the seventh episode of the second series of Downton Abbey. I don't know if I will watch the third season. The episodes are becoming more and more like soap operas. Perhaps, I will check out house of cards.
• Tony & I went to the Wanda Plaza where we ate at Pizza Hut and visited the Apple Store for a brief visit. Every time, I go to the Hui Shan Pizza Hut, I always end up vowing to never return. The food is always mediocre and the pizza is not made properly. But, fool I am, I always return.
• My going to Pizza Hut causes the staff to jokingly made English phrases. Tony also always seem to attract the attention of the female staff members. Yesterday, Tony was too intent on the Ipad mini to notice. When the female manager gave him some gifts, I had to force him to be thankful.
• Tony & I were in bed by nine.
• Jenny phoned me and reported that a lot of people were attending his uncle's funeral and she was staying in a hotel.

The Andis Kaulins in China Diary for January 30 to February 5, 2014

Highlights

• The K family went to Beixin, just north of the Yangtze, for six days to celebrate the Spring Festival.
• Andis finished reading three books while there.
• He also watched three movies and four episodes of some TV series he liked.
• Tony never got over his fear of fireworks.
• Andis paid a visit to a Beixin Church.
• Andis saw a ghastly sight.
• The best part of the six days was the motorcycle ride to one of Jenny's other relatives' home.

Thursday [January 30]

[Ipad]
[On the bus to Taixing where Jenny and Tony have already gone.]

Stragglers coming on the bus were mocked by driver.

The bus station wasn't crowded.  It seemed quiet.

Weather.  It seems it is sunny.  Smog makes it hard to tell for sure.

[Later]

At the Taixing bus station, I was picked up by Jenny's brother.

He had a baseball bat, in his car trunk, which he said he used for hitting people.

In Beixin, I give the mother-in-law a big kiss. I hadn't seen her in over a year.

Friday [January 31]

[Ipad]
Last evening, had big CNY supper at Mama & Baba's with two of J's brothers and their families.

Now, have 4 packs of cigarettes.

Yesterday, I tried to take Tony for walk but he was scared of the fireworks.

Y, I bought T a toy train.  Seller spoke English.

Last night, went to bed at 9.

Lots of FW at midnight.

This morning, went to visit relatives.  Happy to pose for photos with them.

Poor relatives moved.  Their home now above gutter.  One room home they have.  The ceiling was tarpaulin.  Roofing tiles laid on top of it.  Floor was cement. Photo of Mao on wall despite poverty.  Trash all around the house.  Frightful way to live.

Spending afternoon at home.  Tony lets me use Ipad.


Saturday [February 1]
[Ipad]

Bathing here is torture.  For one thing, it is bathing.  There is no hot water in the shower.  Water is instead boiled and put in thermoses, and then it is mixed with cold water.  I do the washing with a plastic basin.  I then wipe myself with towels and rinse by pouring water on myself with the basin.

I have watched Blood Simple, an episode of Duck Dynasty, and A Stolen Life (starring Bette Davis).  All were okay.  Duck Dynasty was the most enjoyable.  Blood Simple was gory and dragged at times.  A Stolen Life was a classic though somewhat melodramatic.

[later]
I went for a walk at lunchtime.  I saw two things.

First, I saw a man whose face was a sight that could only be photographed for medical textbooks.  It was so grotesque that I had to look away and shudder that a human could have a deformity on his face.  His lower lip had swelled to such a size that from a distance it looked like he had a big loose piece of flesh dangling from his face.

I then looked for and found the Christian Church.  It was located behind buildings fronting a road.  To get to the church from the road, I had to walk down a narrow alleyway which I found between the frontage.  The church was enclosed behind walls.  I had found it because I did see its spire when I had been wandering in the fields which lay beyond it and the buildings fronting the road.  I would never have seen it if I had been walking along the road.

I walked through the church's entrance way, and my appearance caused quite the stir.  Shouts of foreigner! brought out a man who I assumed what the head of the place.  He gave me a tour of the grounds.  I  saw the chapel, saw some sleeping quarters and the dining hall.

The chapel had a wooden stage at one end -- I was reminded of a stage that you would see in a school gymnasium.  The congregants had long wooden benches on which to sit before the stage.  I didn't see any images or photos of Christ.  There were crosses on these plush fixtures at the side of the chapel.  I thought for a second that they were confessionals, but then examining them more closely, I saw they were too small and were probably for decorative purposes.  I picked up some of the books on the benches.  They were in Chinese.  The only English in them indicated they were published by the Seventh Day Adventists.  This didn't necessarily mean the church was of that sect.  I was able to figure out that one of a books was a Bible by looking for the characters for new and old in the titles of its two major subdivisions.

After looking around the chapel, I went to its back, passing a woman praying, I espied a box near the chapel entrance with a slot on top.  I said 钱 to the man accompanying me, and getting a positive response, I made a donation.

The man then lead me to the dining area and sleeping quarters.  There were about a hundred people eating which explained the size of the kitchen's cooking pan -- it was the biggest I had ever come across.  I was asked if I wanted to eat, but I declined.  I felt rather shy about being there, I must confess.

The man showed me a couple posters he had on the wall.  They were full of Chinese writing so I took a photo of them to get a translation later.

I then posed under the church's entrance with the man and some others.  I awkwardly bade them farewell and wished them 新年快乐。

Thus was my visit to the 北新 church.

I have spent the afternoon eating snacks. There is nothing else to do. I have seen all there is to see.



Sunday [February 2]

[Ipad]
I finished watching Oklahoma! and reading Jeeves and the Wedding Bells.

In the afternoon, we went to the home of J's Shanghai relatives for supper

We were taken there by e-bike and motorcycle.  On the motorcycle, I rode with two others and I took some great video.

At the home, which was down some narrow lanes and in the midst of fields, lived a brother who had MS and a grandmother, in her 80s, who was hunched over.  I took photos with them thinking they would suit my purposes for blogging.  These two poor souls brought out the sappy sentimentalist in me.  The brother who had MS was always smiling at me, or so I thought.

The home while not in a prime location was spacious.  Too bad, there had to be garbage everywhere.

I had two beers at supper:  my first since coming to Beixin.

We were driven back to the in-laws compound by car.


Monday [February 3]
[Ipad[
I forget to mention.  I played badminton with Jenny and then her Shanghai female relative on yesterday's excursion.

Today, we were driven to Jiangyan, a part of Taizhou.  Jiangyan, not Jiangyin, is said be where Hu Jiantao, spent his childhood.  We weren't in Jiangyan long.  We went to a tea museum and then picked up pizza at a Pizza Hut.  While the pizza was being ordered, I got myself a coffee at a nearby Starbucks.

I would have liked our visit to Jiangyan to have been longer.  The area we went to seemed worth exploring.  As it was, the drive to Taizhou and then back to Beixin afforded me some interesting sights.  I saw a yard where canal-faring barges were under construction.  I also saw a decorative erection of columns and pillars that reminded me of the Champs D'Elysee.  On the drive, I reflected on how vast China's population is and how massive it's development has been as well.

We passed a factory for a company called Elite.  I would have pronounced it E-Light because the E was highlighted so that it stood out from the lite.

I was thinking to throw my Starbucks paper cup on the street of Beixin.  It would elevate its street trash I thought.

It is cold today.  I have put on my long underwear just now.

One more night.  Tomorrow, we go home.

Oh.  The pizza was good.


Tuesday [February 4]
[Ipad]
[I am typing this on the bus.]  We are on the way home!  Behind us, sit Alison & Vaughn.

How was my trip to Beixin?  I survived.  That's all I can say.

At midnight last night, the locals went crazy with the fireworks.  I recalled there was some tradition about the fifth night of the new year.

I finished reading Ameritopia by Mark Levin.  Levin is on the side of the angels, but this book was a bore I thought.  He spent too much time regurgitating Locke and Montesquieu, not enough time writing about himself.

We are on the freeway, and traffic has come to a halt.  We could be stuck in one of those notorious Chinese holiday freeway jams.

[Home Laptop]

The jam was just a temporary bottleneck caused by vehicles stopping at the toll gates of the Jiangyin suspension bridge. The traffic was slow enough that I was able to take some great video of the Yangtze.

I am in a daze. So many things to catch up on like blogging and emails and podcasts.

The Seahawks win the Super Bowl in a handy fashion. You can read the real story about it at the Wuxi China Expatdom Blog.

Wednesday [February 5]

[Home Laptop]

Well. That's it for this diary entry. I will publish it after some editing.

The next time, you will read this diary. I will have been to Hong Kong.

Happy Year of the Horse [and the Firearm, Harry!]!!

The Andis Kaulins in China Diary for January 6 to January 19, 2014

Highlights

• I was on vacaction for these two weeks. I didn't go anywhere. I didn't do much.
• I did go, with Tony, to Shanghai for a day. That was all the travel I needed to do. Traveling is for Idiots I have decided.
• I found I enjoyed hanging out at Starbucks where I'd sip coffee and read on my Ipad.
• I did enjoy spending more time than usual with my son Tony.

Tuesday [January 6]

[Home Laptop]

• It is the first day of actual time taken off from school for my vacation.
• Yesterday, I didn't make a diary entry. So, here is what happened yesterday:
• Or rather, I should say highlights.
• I was at home working on the computer.
• I decided that I wasn't going to my school's Spring Festival dinner because it is during my vacation. This fact was my get out of jail free card. And plus my company isn't going to be missed by the others, foreign or Chinese.
• Tony said I wasn't an a-hole after Jenny said I was. “Daddy not an a-hole!” he said. Jenny uses the a-word gratuitously. I don't think she grasps the subtle connotations of the word's usage.
• In the afternoon, Jenny & I went for lunch at Wanda.
• In the evening, Tony & I went to Wanda. He played games at the Apple store and one game of the Truck game at the arcade.
• Coming home from Wanda with Tony, we witnessed a street fight, I think. We were walking down the road which can be seen from the Casa Kaulins living room and master bedroom – the road which you see in most of the photos taken from the Views of China from Casa Kaulins blog. From a distance, we saw a man kicking and hitting the hood of a black car that was parked at an entrance way that was across the road from the main guard shack and the main entrance of the California Villa apartment complex which contains Casa Kaulins. It seemed to me that the man was drunk because he was hitting the car with what I thought was mamby-pamby and slurred force. Standing near him was another man and a woman. All three of these people seemed to be middle aged. The man grabbed a purse from a woman and threw it at the car. She tried to hit him a few times. The man swung at her and one time gave her a good kick in the stomach, and the woman keeled over on the ground. The second man was watching. Tony & I watched and stopped at the guard shack where the security guard was smoking and watching the goings-on as well. The guard thought it was vaguely amusing and I heard him say 酒 which means he thought they were drunk. A man on an e-bike stopped by the security guard and said 老魏 which means foreigner. He was talking about me. I surmised from his tone in talking to the security guard that he wanted the security guard to do something about the fight because a foreigner was witnessing it. This spooked me to stop being a lookie-lou and I took Tony home. At the same time, the fight crossed the street towards the the entrance area of the California Villa as the woman got up and from having been kicked and was chasing the man. I got a closer look at the man who was hitting the woman and the car, and he definitely looked drunk.
• So two trips to the Wanda Plaza today.
• When we got home, Tony told Jenny that he had seen a man hitting a car. Jenny seemed blasé about the incident. She said that was just two people fighting. Her tone implied that it was nothing out of the usual and it wasting her time for us to be even telling her about it.
• I finished watching the movie 99 River Street. A good black and white movie, possibly earning the classification of film noire, done in a glorious time when b&w was often how movies were made.
• I decided to make a list of movies I will have seen in 2014. So far, two on the list: 99 River Street and the Long Voyage Home.
• I did some organizing around the house. The lack of space in Casa Kaulins because of accumulated things was getting to me. I decided to get rid of all the boxes that my boxed DVD sets were in. This gave me more shelf space but I still have a stack, a foot high of DVDs to add to this big box I have that is already over-stuffed with them. What should I do with all the DVDs? Are they garbage?
• And then there are all these books I have that have rendered superfluous by the collection of e-books I have on my Ipad. Should I throw those books out? I suppose I will weed my collection of the ones that I will never read.
• Back to Today.
• It rains outside. A fine way to begin my first of my vacation days taken from work.
• I will get to take Tony to Shanghai one day during my vacation. Unfortunately, we won't be able to visit the 2013 Shanghai Expat of the Year's residence because he will be out of town, in Korea, in fact.
• Dull and dismal as Wuxi is, Manitoba is a lot worse. I have been listening to podcasts from CJOB Winnipeg and it brought back bad memories. On the podcast, they talked of roads not being cleared properly, cars doing 360 degree spins because the roads are slippery, lane ambiguity brought on by deep snow on the street making driving dangerous, and cars not being able to start because of the cold.
• Jenny tells me that the other parents are bribing the teachers in Tony's primary school. The teachers then give the briber's children more attention.

Wednesday [January 8]

[Home Laptop]

• I got two replacement teeth put in the upper right side of my mouth this morning. Jenny accompanied me to the dental office in the Yanqiao Hospital.
• Afterward, we went to Wanda. We spent an hour at Starbucks drinking coffee and serving the Internet on our Wifi-enabled devices.
• I saw a foreigner while there. Damn! I said like the would-be ascetic who wanted to maintain a fifty year vow of silence. I wanted to go back to school and say that I hadn't laid eyes on a foreigner in two weeks. Well. At least, I may be able to say that I didn't speak to a foreigner for two weeks.
• Does texting count as speaking?
• We wanted to see a movie at the Wanda cinema in the afternoon but there was nothing playing that would have interested me. All the films were cartoons and all were in Chinese w/o subtitles
• Perhaps, we will go to Suzhou on Saturday.
• I have made photographic entries to my Wuxi China Expatdom and Casa Kaulins blogs.
• I read a chapter of John Keegan's U.S. Civil War book. I have had to go on the Internet and look for maps. I now know more about the battles of Bull Run and Wilson's Creek.
• Instead of watching a movie in the cinema, I will watch a movie on my Ipad: The Adventures of Mark Twain. Depictions of Negroes in this movie, so far, are definitely not p.c. The young Mark Twain in this movie is played by an actor who looks like Leonardo Decaprio. Actually, I should say the young Samuel Clemens. However, as soon as Clemens becomes an adult in the movie, the resemblance to Decaprio comes to an end.
• Yes. The fourteen year old Mark Twain looks like the forty year old Leo Decaprio.

Thursday [January 9]

[Home Laptop]

• For lunch, I went to the McDonald's at the Hui Shan Wanda Plaza. It wasn't very busy. There were but four customers.
• Walking in the area around the Wanda Plaza, I saw a shop with a Chairman Mao portrait in it. WTF? In this day and age. I mean, really.

Friday [January 10]

[Home Laptop]

• Last evening, I came within three minutes of having finished watching the 1940s biopic The Adventures of Mark Twain. Jenny got mad at me and told me to turn off the movie which I was watching on my Ipad.
• I finished watching the movie this morning. Part of me wants to say that the movie was like saccharine, but I did enjoy the movie and found it moving. I was aware of the time where Twain became bitter, and so it would have seemed that the actor portraying him made Twain appear to have been placid. But, Twain did live quite the life – becoming both famous and achieving much career satisfaction while at the same time having to endure bad luck, personal tragedy, and tremendous debt.
• The portrayal of Negroes in this movie wouldn't pass muster these days. They were made to look like simple-minded oafs.
• I also finished part one of the Rise of Modern China by Immanuel CY Hsu. I will read part two eventually.
• Who knew? The Great True Git & I are Capricorns. The 2013 Shangai Expat of the Year's birthday is on January 11.
• The forecast says it will rain tomorrow. So, we won't be going to Suzhou.
• I suppose that we will go to the Jin Ling Hotel for a deluxe buffet lunch.
• A student first told me the story about the North Korean Uncle being fed to 120 starving dogs as his nephew the leader of North Korea watched. My first reaction was no way. It seemed too incredible to be true, and it turned out it was for the story originated with a satirical blog somewhere on the Internet.
• My definition of torture. Having to stand around as Jenny “helps” Tony do his homework. It seems to me that she is torturing him. She screams at him and slaps him at times. I suppose this is par for the course for Chinese parents helping their children do their homework.
• Either this builds character in Tony or it breaks him.
• Tony when he has Jenny helping him do his homework, cries and whimpers.
• These tutoring sessions can last three or more hours at times.
• And yet when they are finished, Tony is all happy and shows no lingering signs of depression.
• I finished Canada Under British Rule. The second book I have finished reading in 2014. [I am keeping track of movies watched and books read in 2014.]

Saturday [January 11]

[Home Laptop]

• I have a head-slapper of a problem to deal with today. I watched an episode of Downton Abbey this morning, after having read John Derbyshire praise the series in an column at the Taki Mag site. Having watched it poses me a quandary. Do I add it to my list of movies watched in 2014? It is a television show but seeing how I watch TV shows and movies on my Ipad, I really can't tell the difference. So I will add season four, episode one of Downton Abbey to my list of movies watched in 2014.
• What did I think of Downton Abbey? It is a great show. I love the quality of the dialogue. However, there hasn't been a reference to religion at all.
• I now want to become a butler. And I want to tell all the Marxists in China about my desire to be a butler – it beats the heck out of being a comrade.
• Friday night and Saturday morning, the K family was lazy. Instead of going to Suzhou – it was raining anyway – we stayed at home and slept in.
• Jenny & I stayed up late last night. I began to read two books by Theodore Dalrymple and Charles Krauthammer.

Sunday [January 12]

[Home Laptop]

• Yesterday, I left the house once. Tony & I went to the Wanda Plaza to buy a few groceries and a bucket of KFC. I didn't want Tony to accompany me because it was raining outside and he had a sore throat (he was clearing it all day long making a sound that was annoying to hear.) We ended up taking a motorcycle pedicab to and from Wanda. Tony was annoyed when I asked him to carry the umbrellas. At KFC, the bucket we usually buy was not available. They wanted us to buy a more expensive Spring Festival Themed bucket instead. I phoned Jenny about it and we ended up buying it though I don't think we are going to buy it again. The extras offered in the bucket were no good.
• It looks like I will be spending today at home as well. It is cold outside and we all have colds.
• I am live-streaming the Patriot-Colts quarterfinal playoff game. I am cheering for the Patriots.
• I have been following Twitter recently. I do so to check out David Warren's tweets. Following his followers and the tweeters he follows, I have come upon some agreeable thoughts. One tweeter said Body piercings perfectly illustrate our descent into barbarism.
• HM from Australia made a brilliant addition to my Wuxi China Expatdom blogspot blog.
• Last night, I watched Downtown Abbey S04E02. It had some touching moments. As John Derbyshire says, the show has characters you can actually care about.
• I have had this cold for weeks. Symptoms are a raspy cough, a sore throat that makes it hard for me to speak, sinus pain and pressure, and a very runny nose.
• Ten minutes to go in the third period of the NFL quarterfinal playoff. Patriots are leading the Colts 21-15. I think the game will end with a flurry of touchdowns. I have a bad feeling that the Colts will prevail.
• [Later] I was wrong. Patriots are winning 43-22. I was right about the flurry of touchdowns at least.

Monday [January 13]

[Home Laptop]

• I won't publish my diary today. What I am going to do is publish a two week long diary entry on January 20^th. No one will care anyway.
• Damn! I missed the two NFL quarterfinal playoff games today that were won by the Broncos and the 49ers. The 49ers scare me because they have just won two playoff games on the road, they are the defending conference champions and they are going to meet my Seahawks next week in Seattle in the semifinals. I hope the Patriots can smoke the Broncos.
• The 49ers-Seahawk semifinal will be ugly to watch because the uniforms that Seahawks now wear are an abomination against good taste; and because the players wear tattoos and wear their hair long. I hesitate to say that they overdo it with the tattoos because I think one tattoo is too many. But to cover their entire arms with them is gruesome. That quarterback of the 49ers looks ape-like with all that crap on his arms. [And his chest as well.]
• That is why that I will ,with relish, enjoy watching the first season of Downtown Abbey. To hell with the football.
• I did walk around this morning. At one end of an apartment complex, I saw a high-rise, cars parked just outside, a fence, and then a pile of rubble. Who wants to live beside a garbage dump?
• I also walked past a car dealership. On one side of its building, there was pavement, then a high barrier, the other side of which was a field where crops were being grown. An ugly contrast.
• [Later] Walking around the area I saw a foreigner but I don't know if he saw me. The green walk signal came up and I wanted to get home.
• This morning, (I shouldn't have mentioned earlier) Tony asked me for a hug. Unusual. Usually, I am asking him for hugs.
• I was listening to a podcast about an architect named Le Corbusier. I thought he was a socialist of some sort. For one thing, the podcast was from the BBC. I then heard he was an architect and I wondered if he was the architect who I vaguely recalled being denounced for having designed huge impersonal apartment complexes. He might have been but I will have to so some research. [I had first read of the Le Corbusier from Theodore Dalrymple who denounced him in very strong terms.]
• I was sitting at the dining room table typing something into my laptop when Tony walked into the kitchen from the study. He was working on his homework – practicing writing Chinese characters and wanted to show Mom the progress he was making. He really just wanted her to say he was finished. When she said he wasn't, he whined and then walked past me. I tried to stop him and get a hug, but he ignored me and brushed past with a don't-bother-me-I'm-doing-something determination. The first time he has ever done that and so it was cute and amusing. I hope he doesn't carry on with that practice into adulthood.

Tuesday [January 14]

[Home Laptop]

• My life should be fodder for my diary you'd think, but it isn't.
• But something has happened today that I can report to you. Jenny pulled Tony out of school to take him to the doctor's. He has some skin problem on his face that has Jenny concerned. To be honest, I look at his face and I don't see what the big deal is. So he & Jenny are going to the Yanqiao hospital as I type this. I am in a subdued mood.
• “I don't want to do homework! I don't want to do homework! I don't want to do homework! I don't want to do homework!” says Tony.
• “I know. I wish you didn't have to do homework!” says I trying to console Tony.
• I watched the first episode of Season One of Downton Abbey. It had to have two men kissing. Is that what it was like in England at the time of the sinking of the Titanic?

Wednesday [January 15]

[Home Laptop]

• I finished watching the film Monte Walsh last night. Great movie with a great song on its soundtrack sung by Mama Cass.
• If I can pull it off, I will go to the local Starbucks for coffee.
• A delivery came this morning. Twas something that Jenny ordered on the Internet. Unlike the numerous other deliveries that come as a result of Jenny ordering things on the Internet, this delivery would have a profound effect on Andis's life; or at least ninety minutes of it. It was a new desk for Tony, a desk that had to be assembled just like it came from Ikea. But it was a 200 rmb primary student's desk which had parts made of cheap particle board and what looked to Andis like reconstituted pieces of scrap metal. The fact that the desk was cheap did reconcile Andis to its metal pieces being bent, its plastic parts being thin and fragile, and its wooden surfaces already being gouged. But it didn't reconcile Andis to the paucity of instructions which, while providing an idea of what the desk was to look like when it was assembled, didn't adequately explain what screws, bolts, lock nuts, and washers were to go where. And it didn't make Andis any happier that it was taking away time that would have been better spent reading on his Ipad.
• Andis and Jenny went to the Wanda Plaza Starbucks in the afternoon. Andis had a good time reading on his Ipad and sipping American coffee.
• Andis was crossing at an intersection in the Hui Shan District that was being monitored by policemen. The intersection was six lanes wide. When Andis started crossing it, he did have a green walk signal though it was probably a stale green. And so when he reached the other side, the signal was red. Still when he started he had a green light and so he was surprised when the cop looked at him sternly and pointed to the red light. Andis wanted to protest and tell the cop he had had a green signal when he had started but he didn't know what Chinese he could have spoken. The cop waved him on and Andis was confused. “I suppose I will have to wait for a fresh green walk signal before I proceed when a cop is around” said Andis to himself. He also imagined himself telling this story when he returned to work.

Thursday [January 16]

[Home Laptop]

• I saw the Wuxi Metro pull into the station near the Hui Shan White House. I was walking by so I pulled out my Ipod and took photos and video.
• I hadn't known that Milt Rosenberg started doing podcasts for Ricochet.com after his run with WGN came to a sudden and surprise end. Better late than never to have known this. I am glad to be able to listen to him again.
• Tony's last day of school before his Winter holiday is tomorrow.
• I told Tony that he could have the Ipad Mini for twenty minutes. When he had twenty minutes on the Ipad, I took it from him and he didn't protest. Believe it or not!

Friday [January 17]

[Home Laptop]

• I still have shaken my cold. I woke up this morning with a headache brought on sinuses that clogged overnight. At least, that is my guess. I suppose I could also say I felt sinus pressure.
• Tony finished school today at 3:00 PM, not the usual Friday 2:00 PM. He will then have a month of school holiday.
• Wife bought Tony & I train tickets for tomorrow. Good. Wife ordered a new belt for me on Taobao. Unfortunately, it was a foot, yes a foot longer, than it should have been. If I wore it, the end of the belt, after I buckled it, would by my back spinal column.
• Tony & I will be going to Shanghai. I have vague plans for what we will do. I would like to take him to the Old Shanghai Museum under the Oriental Pearl Tower. I would also like to ride the subways of Shanghai all day with him.
• I will go to Starbucks this afternoon.
• This morning, I read in bed for ninety minutes.
• Spent a few hours at Starbucks. I watched the second episode of the first episode of Downton Abbey. I read three essays by Theodore Dalrymple. I read half a chapter of Keegan's American Civil War.
• Tony will come home at about 3:30 PM. I will meet him at the Small Shop.
• [Later] As we were walking home from the Small Shop, Tony espied a Jaguar automobile. “What's that?” he asked. I noticed the Jaguar then, parked near our apartment building, though to be honest it looked like just another oversized sedan. If it wasn't for the Jaguar logo on its trunk, I wouldn't have thought anything of it.

Sunday [January 19]

[Home Laptop]

• Tony & I took the train to and from Shanghai yesterday. In the morning, our train left Wuxi at 8:00 and arrived in Shanghai before 9:00. In the evening, the train left Shanghai at 6:00 on the dot and arrived in Wuxi before 7:00.
• So we spent about nine hours in Shanghai. We would have been happy if it had been six.
• Having arrived in Shanghai, I took Tony, right away, to the Shanghai Railway Museum. To get there, we took line 3 and 4 (it seemed the line splits from a ¾ to a 3 & a 4 after the stop we got off at.) to the Baoshan station. After getting off, I saw a McDonald's and took Tony there for breakfast – he very much enjoyed his hash brown. We then had to find the Tianmu Road where the Museum was. Amazingly, Tony wanted to tell me what direction to go even though he didn't know where we were going (Tony did a lot of this during the day). Despite Tony's protestations that I was going the wrong way, we got to the museum. [Passersby were able to direct us in the right direction.]
• The museum was tiny. My first reaction was that it was not as good as the train museum in Winnipeg, Canada. The Winnipeg Museum, which I took Tony to two years ago, had a pretty decent collection of old engines and cars; the Shanghai museum had but two life-size engines and three cars outside. But this is not to say that the Shanghai museum was without interesting things. It had a few things of note.
• The museum did have its political dimension which I found most interesting. When I walked into the museum building's main lobby, I saw a giant photo of Hu Jiantao with railway workers. There was a video showing the damage the Japanese did to the Shanghai Railway station in the 1930s. There was a section of museum showing that Chairman Mao, Deng Xiao Peng, Zhou En Lai, Zhong Shan (Sun Yat Sen), and Jiang Zemin had something to do with railways. There was even a sign posted saying “Construction of Harmonious Railway.”
• The museum also had a few old artifacts and many interesting pictures, but it left you with a feeling of disappointment. It was, as I said, tiny.
• After letting Tony run around the grounds of the museum so he could climb over the trains and cars, and so that I could take lots of photos and videos of him, the rest of the day in Shanghai was a bit of a squib. I had no real plan other than to go to Nanjing Road. I had a vague plan to take Tony around the Bund. We instead passed the time by wandering around toy stores and riding a double-decker tourist bus on which Tony napped anyway. At 3:00 PM, Tony was saying he was bored and he wanted to go home. Unfortunately, our train wasn't leaving until 6:00 so we still had time to burn. At that point, I wanted to sit in a Starbucks, relax, sip a coffee, and let Tony play on the Ipad, but Starbucks and every other coffee shop was filled to capacity and there no seats to be had. We instead went to a KFC and a Subway sandwich shop to eat. And then we went to another toy store.
• I of course saw a lot of foreigners in Shanghai. Many of the males I saw had female Chinese companions. A few of the couples were married, I could tell. I saw one foreigner in a store who had the look of boredom that I had when I went shopping with my wife.
• Some of the foreigners, who I assumed to be hipsters, look in-congruent to me because they were just so obvious newbies.
• The tourist bus was a waste, and I think would have been for a newbie.
• The bus took us past the Bund. The three tall buildings on the other side were obscured by smog and haze. It was just as well that I didn't take Tony there. There was nothing to see.
• The selection of Plarail products in Shanghai toy departments was better than in Wuxi.
• I got away, I thought, with only spending 90 rmb on toys for Tony. We got a Tomica bus and a diorama piece for our Plarail collection. There was another piece of track that I would have liked to have bought for Tony but he wasn't interested.
• I came upon a real ice rink as I was wandering the stores. It was on the seventh floor of a department store.
• The automated turnstiles at train and subway stations were annoying. I must have found myself stuck in them at least five times yesterday. At the end of day, I learned that I could just go through the gate where the person manually checks your ticket and thus things went smoother. Earlier, there was an instance where a woman who was standing behind Tony had to confuse the issue by trying to put her card into the turnstile slot while Tony and I were stuck at the turnstile. We ended up having to jump it.
• One time, I took the subway train going in the wrong direction. After two stops, I got off and crossed the platform to the other side to get on the train going where we wanted to go.
• At a Shanghai Department store we went to, Tony insisted that we take one of those mall elevators – the kind that has a window where you can see the surroundings as you make your ascent or descent. In Chinese shopping malls, to take an elevator means having to wait and to be scrunched when you can get on. The elevator we took yesterday was notable because of its overload warning. When the overload alarm sounded, someone had to get off the elevator or it wouldn't move. Descending from the 8^th floor at the department store, the elevator's overload warning went off at about five different floors. And just as the alarm sounded, four more people would try to board the elevator making the situation. Someone would quickly chide the latecomer. Two instances, there were standoffs where someone hoped that someone else would get off. By the time we got to the third floor, I wanted to get off the crazy elevator ride.
• Tony's status as a foreign baby sparked much interest from the locals on the train and in Shanghai.
• The moral of my Saturday in Shanghai. Don't go to Shanghai on a Saturday if you can help it.
• Back in Wuxi last evening, Tony got annoyed at my insisting he take a bath. He said “f***!” I think he picked that up from his mother because he couldn't have picked it up from me.
• Let's talk about today.
• I finished the book I was reading by Theodore Dalrymple when I was at Starbucks this afternoon with Tony. Dalrymple wrote so many wise things in Our Culture, What's Left of it: The Mandarins and the Masses. I loved his essay about how Italy functions so much better than England because it accepts the fact that its government is corrupt while in England the fact that the bureaucracy is honest only makes the damage that government can do with well-intentioned polices all the worse.
• The moral of Dalrymple's book. You can't judge a policy by the goodness of its intentions. You have to judge it by its results: most of which are usually unintended, the opposite of what was intended, or unforeseen in the new forms of evil they spawn.