Diary: July 15 to July 21, 2014

Highlights

• Andis & Tony go to the technology side of the Wuxi Museum
• Andis talks to a student about the drivers in Wuxi and in Xian.
• Andis has to go through some hoops to download a week of the Coffee and Markets podcasts.
• Andis finishes reading Cymbeline, a play by Shakespeare, and I am Pilgrim, a thriller novel.
• Andis talks to a girl from Xian about Xian and Wuxi drivers.
• Andis makes more observations about the Wuxi Metro.
• Andis has a Chinese lesson and doesn't feel he has made progress with the tones.
• The Kaulins family goes to Ikea and the nearby Lavit Mall on a Saturday Night.
• Andis spends Sunday at Casa Kaulins by himself.
• Jenny compares the Old Navy in Winnipeg with the Old Navy in Wuxi.
• Andis suffers through Wuxi's summer heat.

Tuesday [July 15]

[School Laptop]

• My shift today: 13:00 to 21:00. I see I have been given an extra class! Yahoo! Overtime!
• I am tired after my days off. In an recent online conversation I was asked how I was doing, I had to say that I found Wuxi Summers to be dull. Yesterday, I spent the day with Tony either outside suffering in the heat or inside chasing Tony around museums and shopping centers. It wasn't very inspiring really. But Tony was happy so I shouldn't complain.
• Some of the activities that I like to do, to keep myself busy, will be neglected for July and August. The heat wearies me.
• The most interesting thing on the tech side of the Wuxi Museum, that we went to yesterday, was this setup where balls were made to pass through tracks and pipes and other paths in a random fashion so that they were ringing bells, spinning, bouncing on drums or landing in bowls. It was hypnotizing.
• The lovemaking last night was wonderful.
• I will still try to answer the question about favorite television series. The first series I mentioned was Kenneth Clark's Civilisation. The second series I have liked is the Wire. Interesting characters, great dialogue, and wonderful music.

Wednesday [July 16]

[School Laptop]

• My shift today: 13:00 to 21:00.
• When I arrived home last night, Tony was watching television with the Apple TV machine. He made a point of telling me that he was able to set up it all by himself.
• Tony & Jenny will be going to Hangzhou on Sunday for another model shoot. Tony's making money for himself! [Daddy, narrow minded bigot that he is, won't piss away the money drinking. The money goes into Tony's account for his future.]
• I had my weekly Chinese lesson this morning. Just as I think I have the tones figured out, my teacher would say you pronounced the words wrong. I am going to have to practice and practice till they become second nature and I don't have to think about them.
• As it is thinking about tones makes learning Chinese very difficult. I would rather do anything but think about them.
• One of my Chinese problems is that I pronounce the first tone as a third tone. If I say a word with a string of three first tone syllables, I get lazy on the last one. I also had a devil of a time trying to say two third tone syllables in succession.
• We had our lessons at a Starbucks near Ba Bai Ban. A table of five women made quite din as they chatted away. It took a lot of concentration on tones to not be bothered by them.
• I did a salon class about America yesterday. As a warm-up exercise I asked the students to each tell me a famous American. Two students said they couldn't think of any. I can understand it when they can't think of any famous Canadians but you really have to be provincial and wearing blinders if you can't name one American. I ended up asking these two students, both teenage middle school girls, if they could name some famous Chinese people thinking that perhaps they didn't know what I meant by “famous.”
• For some reason, Itunes was not downloading the latest episodes of the Coffee and Markets podcast for me. When I didn't get episodes for two days, I thought that maybe the podcast hosts were taking time off. But when I was synching my Itunes on my computer with my Ipod, I noticed that there were six new episodes that hadn't been added, automatically as they normally would, to the Ipod. So this morning, I spent a lot of time jiggering the Itunes so that I could get the episodes downloaded. For whatever reason, Itunes is not letting my subscription to the show work. I have to search for each episode myself at the Itunes store. [As I type this, the sixth missing episode is being downloaded. I have had to download the episodes at work and at Starbucks]
• On my attendance list for my next class, I have the student Jack, and on the line below I have Ruby. So, I read Jack Ruby, the man who shot JFK's assassin. The assassin of the assassin.

Thursday [July 17]

[School Laptop]

• Today's shift: 10:00 to 21:00.
• Riding the train to work today, I noticed that I hadn't brought my umbrella with me. The last time I remember using it was last night. I remember pulling it out as it began to drizzle on my way home. So I hope it doesn't rain tonight.
• Last night, I had a class with a student who used to live in Xian. She was a young girl attending middle school who had lived in Wuxi for three years. She had moved to Wuxi because of her parents business. I asked her to compare and contrast Xian and Wuxi. She told me Xian had hotter summers, but more interestingly she told me that Xian drivers were much more likely to obey the rules of the road and weren't inconsiderate of pedestrians as Wuxi drivers were. Rare readers may know that one of my biggest sources of material for this blog is being cut off by what I considerate to be ignorant and inconsiderate and rude and generally all around asshat Wuxi drivers. And so it pleases me to know that what I have experienced is a local problem and not a problem of the whole Chinese mainland.
• Or could it be that Xian is the only place in the Chinese mainland where they drive civilized? Anyway, it is nice to see a Chinese person has a similar complaint about Wuxi drivers that I do.
• The girl also mentioned that Xian was building subway lines. The first of five lines there had been finished, she told me.
• Another television series that I like: The Simpsons. They say that the show has overstayed its welcome but I still love to quote moments from the show when it was in its prime.
• Chinese students don't seem to have much of a summer holiday compared to the summer holidays I had. Never in the summers of my school years did I do homework. I had great memories of walking in woods and exploring creeks when I was their age. The students I talk to complain of the homework constantly. When I ask the students what they are going to do for the day or the evening, they don't have much to tell me other than that they have homework to work on and if they have spare time, that they will watch a little bit of television.

Friday [July 18]

[School Laptop]

• Today's shift: 11:00 to 21:00.
• I have got the yawns. I suppose the summer heat is getting to me.
• Two Metro anecdotes to pass on to you, my very rare readers: 1) This morning, I was attempting to take video of the metro pulling into the Xibei Station. I was at the end where the front of the train would have stopped. As I directed my camera at the train, one of the platform attendants ran up to me and told me that I couldn't take a video. Why? She tried to explain but I didn't bother trying to hear her explanation. There is a similar policy in Shanghai. 2) The train drivers don't seem to be able to get their trains to come to a smooth stop. The trains always jolt the passengers before coming to a full stop. Wednesday night, the train come to a rest at a station but then had to lurch forward about a foot to align itself properly with the platform exit gates, thereby giving the passengers who had stood up to exit a bigger jolt than they may have become accustomed to.
• Tony got a new bicycle. It has training wheels. I hope that they will soon be shed.
  [Later]
• This afternoon, I went to a company located near the Wuxi airport and so we had a half-hour taxi ride in the sweltering hear. I fell asleep on the ride – something I never usually do. Either I am adopting local ways or I am get old.

Saturday [July 19]

[School Laptop]

• Today's shift: 10:00 to 18:00 but my last class finishes at 17:00 and so I can leave an hour early.
• Not much to say for myself today. I was glad to see that David Warren's blog site was accessible again. I have also finished two books in the past 36 hours: I am Pilgrim: a brain candy page-turner thriller that was praised by the blogger Duff, and Cymbeline: a play by Shakespeare. My capsule review: both good reads. Was struck me about Cymbeline was the amazingly gentlemanly behavior of the character Lucius – despite going to war with the British king Cymbeline, his and the king's disagreement and declaration of war was done civilly and with outstanding manners.
• One thing I find irksome about riding the subway is that the manner of seating on the train means I see more children and can look more directly at their parents and grandparents. It is not a pretty sight. You don't see too many urban hipsters on a Wuxi subway train, that is for sure.

Sunday [July 20]

[Home Laptop]

• No shifts today.
• No wife and child as well. Jenny & Tony were up early this morning to catch a bus to go to Hangzhou so Tony can appear in a photo shoot.
• I will stay at home. It is going to be a unbearably hot today and I have some things to do and things I would like to do that I can do at home. I want to do some blogging, some research, and publish one article to the Wuxi China Expatdom blog among other things. I also have to keep the house clean and I do some have some tasks to perform for Jenny. One thing I have to do for her is put together this shelf that we bought last night at Ikea.
• Never go to Ikea on a Saturday night. If it was up to me, I would have followed this maxim that I formulated the last time Jenny had us go to Ikea on a Saturday. But it wasn't up to me. I phoned Jenny during a break from talking at school and she told me that she and Tony were on the way to Ikea. I joined her after my last gab session.
• Why shouldn't I go to Ikea on Saturday? Too many people. The lineup in the food places takes the joy out of eating the food. Also, the Ikea bus which comes by every forty minutes can be a frustrating bitch to wait for.
• I was at least fortunate last night to not have to take the bus to Ikea. It just so happened that a fellow at work, who had a car, was able to give me a ride there. It just so happened that he lived near Ikea 离家.
• The traffic, I observed, as I was taken to Ikea made me glad to ride the train to work. I don't have to worry so much about stopping.
• Tony and Jenny actually were eating at a Burger King as I was making my way to Ikea. This created a quandary for me. Should I eat there or go for the hot dogs at Ikea?
• I decided to do the latter. However, dumb me, I didn't know how to get to the checkout area, where the hot dogs were, and wasted ten minutes walking through the store to get to satisfy my craving. The actual hot dog experience was ruined by the fact that I was carrying a bag of bread with me. Trying to eat three hot dogs and drink a soft drink, with one hand, while standing, because there were no free tables is hard. I did it but I don't want to have the challenge again.
• Wuxi has another mega mall for shoppers to go to. [Just what it needs] Near the Ikea, there is the Lavit Mall which is at least four floors tall (I didn't get a chance to explore the whole place) and has a Subway, a Burger King, an Old Navy, a Toys R Us and a Gap store. It has the cavernous feeling of the Hen Long Plaza, the Suning Plaza, the Wuxi Wanda Plaza, the Moi Ye Plaza and the Chongan Walk Street.
• Like the Moi Ye Plaza, there were many empty store spaces. So many in fact that even the very bright and colorful boards that covered them could not hide the fact of under-occupancy.
• The Toys R Us didn't sell any Plarail products. Its selection disappointed Jenny & me.
• I was eager to check out the Old Navy store, thinking I could buy a China 2014 Old Navy shirt to add to my collection of Old Navy shirts that include a USA 2003 shirt, a Canada 2004 shirt, and a Canada 2012 shirt, but there was none to be had which disappointed and surprised me. I mentioned to this Jenny and she told me about the vulgarity of Canada memorabilia that she saw at the Old Navy in Winnipeg and other stores in Canada. There were Canada towels and balls and hats and so on, said Jenny. Chinese, she said, just don't go for that. [Although the Old Navy selling USA 2014 shirts (which I wouldn't buy because that would imply support of its having elected Obama) seemed strange to me.]
• To cap off a fun [not] evening of shopping, we took the Ikea bus to downtown to where we would catch the subway. The bus was packed and so I had to stand for the entire ride, Jenny and Tony eventually getting a seat. Thinking of the character in the film I like so much, the Lunchbox, standing every day on the train that he has to take to work, I didn't feel so aggrieved, and I even did not mind standing then on the subway ride as well.
• From the subway station, Tony and I took a petty-cab home because I was carrying the shelf that I will assemble sometime today. The first petty-cab driver wanted six rmb to get to the California Villa. Jenny insisted on five rmb and eventually found a driver who would take us there for that price.
• The driver knew enough English to ask what country I was from.
• Television series I like: 1) Firing Line with William F Buckley. I loved the fact that he was very welcoming to persons his views he didn't agree with like Alan Ginsburg and JK Galbraith and George McGovern. 2) Cosmos with Carl Sagan. William F Buckley was very critical of Sagan but no one would say that Sagan's television series wasn't compelling. The new Cosmos, however, has a host who is so full of liberal democrat Barack Obama sanctimony, that I find it unwatchable. I don't recall Sagan being that way, but I was a naïve one when I watched the series all those years ago. 3) Hockey Night in Canada. I feel I have to include a Canadian show and this would have to be it. The Americans who watch this show praise it for its ability to show a game that really isn't television friendly.

Monday [July 21]

[Home Laptop]

• No shifts today.
• Yesterday, I put together the Ikea shelf no problem. I spent an hour or so trying to transcribe this speech made by a silly liberal evangelical type – I should get paid for it.
• Yesterday, I went for a brief walk outside and perspired heavily. I had to shower as soon as I got back to Casa Kaulins.
• I spent an hour on my AKIC diary entry – the very one that you are reading now!
• I then watched King's Row, a movie which starred Ronald Reagan and Claude Rains among others. Reagan's acting was awkward at times but his overall screen presence was likable. His type of character would go out of fashion, only to be replaced by the dark broodiness of Marlon Brandon, among others. The movie itself was melodramatic but full of enough plot twists and emotional moments to be worth a viewing by those who aren't Quentin Tarantino jaded fucks.
• Meanwhile, Jenny & Tony went to the countryside of Hangzhou for the photo shoot. To get there and back, they had to take buses and trains. There was no direct route.
• I meet them at the train station in the evening. We went downtown for a simple lunch at a noodle house called Baishilo which is two doors down from our school. We then went to the Babaiban department store so Tony could purchase a toy – his wages for his modeling.
• Tony unfortunately behaved badly the whole day and I wonder if he will get another modeling job.
• Today it is hot. I may take Tony for a long subway ride, but other than that we will stay home in the A/C.
• Another television series I like? Seinfeld. It had many moments of comic genius.
• I just got a phone call from Jenny that went like this: no more KFC, McDonald's, and Burger King for Tony & us. Jenny saw some report about the food at these restaurants being sold after its best-to-sell date.
• A few other television series that have earned my admiration: The Beverly Hillbillies, Get Smart, Pee Wee's Playhouse and Sledgehammer.

The Andis Kaulins in China Weekly: July 22 to July 28, 2013

Gratitude:  Thank God, I feel shame.

Acknowledgment: I have to admit that if I am scared to change. I really don't want to get out of my comfort zone.

Requests: Please visit Views of China from Casa Kaulins! Lots of interesting things to be seen if you spend a little time exploring it.

The AKIC Week in Brief: It has been a week of controversy and sweating here at AKIC. I wrote a blasphemous blog entry about Wuxi drivers, and clandestinely took photos of an incident at the government building that can be seen from the bedroom of my apartment that I call Casa Kaulins. I also made preparations for Tony's sixth birthday which will be on August 23^rd. The average temperature for the week must have been 37 degrees Celsius.

About AKIC: If you want to learn what Andis & AKIC are all about, you can visit here.

An AKIC Glossary

If there are things you don't know about, like places and people I mention, you can go here to find out what they are all about.

AKIC Weekly Features:

I in in China!  每天，我练习看中文词。每天，我读 Don Colacho。他是很好的思想家。

我孩子Tony很喜欢消防车。

Politically I am Conservative/Reactionary! To be a proper Canadian, you have to support the monarchy. If it wasn't for the monarchy, there would be no Canada.

I am Canadian! I am reading a book about General Wolfe, the man who captured Quebec for England. Why? Because I am Canadian.

I am Latvian (sort of)! I say you can't trust the Russians, but they aren't all bad.

I teach English!  I hate getting one word answers from the students. Make sentences! I tell them.

I am not a freak! I am merely living in the wrong age at the wrong place and time.

I like to Read! Here is what I had been working my way through the past week:

Don Colacho's Aphorisms.  There are 2,988 of them in this book that I compiled for myself.  I read ten aphorisms at a time.  I cut and paste the better ones -- they are all profound actually -- and I put them in my weekly blog entry. (See below)

Ulysses by James Joyce.  I am following along with Frank Delaney as he slowly guides podcast listeners through Joyce's hard-to-read novel.  Delaney figures he will have the whole novel covered in about 22 years.  Delaney completed episode #163 this week and is working his way through the chapter that introduces Leopold Bloom. I am getting ahead Delaney as far as reading the book.  I will be finished my reading of it, I figure, in a year. I read the novel despite its many blasphemies. It is best to be aware of this stuff because the world is full of it, and the world will always find a way of slapping you in the face with it

The Holy Bible King James Version.   I am reading a chapter a day of the greatest book of all-time. I have finished the Second Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, and have just started to read the Epistle of Paul to the Galatians.

Columns by Father Schall. I have been able to take all his archived writings and place them on the Dotdotdot app.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church. Like Father Schall's writings, I have been able to place them on the Dotdotdot app.

Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens. Finished. As with all Dickens, it was a great read.

A Tale of Red Pekin by Constance Serjeant. A story of missionaries in China at the time of the Boxer Rebellion – couldn't be written today.

The House of the Wolfings by William Morris. I read that this book was an inspiration for Lord of the Rings. It is written from the perspective of a Northern European people awaiting an invasion of the Romans. A much better thing to read than Game of Thrones.

Lumen Fidei by Pope Francis. I have read that it this encyclical is really Pope Benedict's doing.

The Winning of Canada: a Chronicle of Wolf. An interesting and short biography. They knew how to lead interesting lives back in the day.

I like to take photos

I publish them in the following blogs:  AKIC wordpress , TKIC blogspot, TKIC wordpress, Views of China from Casa Kaulins Blogspot and Views of China from Casa Kaulins Wordpress.

I like to make videos

Here is my Youtube Channel and my Youku Channel.

I like to cut and paste quotations:

The righteous promise little and perform much; the wicked promise much and perform not even a little.

--- Talmud

From Don Colacho:

2730 The vice which afflicts the right is cynicism, and that which afflicts the left is deceit.

2735 The realism of photography is false: it omits in its representation of the object its past, its transcendence, its future.

2740 The spectacle of failure is perhaps less melancholy than the spectacle of triumph.

2742 When he repudiates rites, man reduces himself to an animal that copulates and eats.

2744 The reactionary's objection is not discussed; it is disdained.

2752 The day is made up of its moments of silence. The rest is lost time.[Beautiful!]

2754 The modern desire to be original makes the mediocre artist believe that simply being different is the secret to being original.

2755 Not all defeated men are decent, but all decent man end up being defeated.

2775 The politician never says what he believes to be true, but rather what he considers to be effective.

2788 Doubts do not fade one by one; they disappear in a flash of light.

2790 The only pellucid dialogue is one between two recluses. [Pellucid means translucently clear, lucid in style or meaning. Where is the other recluse that I can have a pellucid dialogue with? Email me at andiskaulins@qq.com if you are the one.]

2791 Formulating the problems of today in a traditional vocabulary strips away their false pretenses.

2794 My convictions are the same as those of an old woman praying in the corner of a church.

2798 The most persuasive reason to renounce daring progressive opinions is the inevitability with which sooner or later the fool finally adopts them.

2805 A healthy constituted state is one where innumerable obstacles restrict and impede the freedom of the legislator.

2809 The embourgeoisement of Communist societies is, ironically, modern man's last hope. [This is so rich for someone who is living in China and seen its embourgeoisement. Many capitalists are coming here to save their companies. But is modern man worth saving?]

2811 Envy differs from the other vices by the ease with which it disguises itself as a virtue. [What an accurate observation of human nature.]

2812 Political activity ceases to tempt the intelligent writer, when he finally understands that there is no intelligent text that will succeed in ousting even a small-town mayor.

2813 In the intelligent man faith is the only remedy to anguish. The fool is cured by “reason,” “progress,” alcohol, work. [There are no such intelligent people in my life at the moment.]

David Warren:

...to my mind, the fall of Vietnam into the hands of the Communists was among the great horrors of the 20th century. Those from the West whose vanity, wilful ignorance, moral indifference, & deceit served the Communist conquest, I have yet to forgive. So many went on to dominant positions in the world’s second-oldest profession.

David Warren, again:

“Normal human beings,” I outrageously argued, “regardless of race, creed, color, or class, love pageantry, and babies. Let’s have more of both.”

I like to keep a journal of my daily activities and of any worthy thoughts that occur to me.

Monday [July 22]

[Home Laptop]

Not working today.

I looked out the window after waking up to see a group of people had unfurled a sign in front of the government building that is across the street from the Casa Kaulins apartment. Was it a protest? It seemed to be. The people were arguing with security and people who came out of the government building to talk to them. The group was taken inside the building, but twenty minutes or so later, they were back out front again displaying their sign. More security officials and black uniformed police types came upon the scene. An argument between the leader of the protest group and the head security guy took place. The sign was taken by the security officials. The protestors eventually got into their car and drove away. I took a lot of photos of the incident using the tele-focus feature on my old Ikon digital camera. I dare not be seen taking photos.

[iPod Touch]
I showed Jenny the photos I took of the incident in front if the government building.  She was able to read the sign which said that someone in the building had done a hit and run.  The group with the sign wanted compensation.

Tony and I just finished watching the 1976 film Gumball Rally.  Dated in a way that only 70s movies can,  I still enjoyed re-watching it.  I was satisfied to see that Tony enjoyed the movie like I thought he would. 

I am also watching Blade Runner.  Its style makes it a classic, even though I find the story lacking in drama.

Here is a theory about Chinese history I had never heard before. I was told of Chairman Mao's son dying in the war against American aggression in Korea. It is said that if Mao's son hadn't died, China could well have become a family dynasty like North Korea did become. This son would have been Mao's legitimate heir in '76. Mao did have other sons who were alive in '76, but one was simple-minded and I don't know what was wrong with the other one. Thank the powers that be that Mao's son did die in the Korean War. Thank you America!

Tuesday [July 23]

[Home Laptop]

I will work today.

It is another hot Wuxi summer morning. I wake up at 7:30 and can again feel the sweat beading in my pores.

I published this entry filled with expletives last night. Should I have? Well, Wuxi drivers are bad drivers. Of this there can be no doubt. And the Wuxi driver's lack of consideration for pedestrians is a damning indictment of the society that now exists in the city. I always worry about Jenny & Tony when they are in traffic situations. My biggest fear in life is losing them.

I am watching John Wayne's Hondo on the Ipad.

Tony had his haircut repaired. My wife took him to another salon yesterday to repair Sunday's bad one.

[School Laptop]

I work 13:00 to 21:00. I arrive at work at 10:30. [LECTOR: Why do you say that? ANDIS: What? LECTOR: The I-arrive-so-early shit. ANDIS: Filler material, I suppose. It is not meant to be a proof of my virtue. If anything it is proof that I can be anal.]

Apropos the incident with the driver of the car that nearly drove down Tony, I remember having a premonition of them having trouble when they left the apartment. The last thing I told them was to be careful.

One-on-one classes with a student who will be studying in Sardis, British Columbia – a place I am familiar with, and where Tony & Jenny have been.

I almost forgot, as the many times I did when he was alive, that it is my father's birthday today. He would have been 81.

Can-Am Tourney #14 Chicago beats Atlanta 6-5 in the final.

Wednesday [July 25]

[School Laptop]

I work 13:00 to 21:00 today. I arrive at school at 10:30.

Three incidents to report. First, a student told me that when she was young, she was walking with her grandmother when a truck ran over the grandmother, killing her. The student had no recollections of the incident taking place. Second, the husband of a cousin of Jenny, a man who I had seen a few times, a man who attended my wedding and Tony's 100 day party, is in jail for having run over and killed a child. The man, who had gang connections, had been driving chasing someone when the accident happened. Tony had played with the couple's daughter. Third, I took the 25 bus to work today and a collision resulted which resulted a mirror and frame being torn off the bus.

I phoned my Mom this morning. She will be placing flowers at father's grave to mark his birthday. The weather in Brandon, where she lives, is cool: 21 degrees Celsius. The city has sprayed for mosquitoes. She told me that there was extensive television coverage of the birth of the royal baby. She had watched an interesting documentary about the Gimli Glider: an Air Canada passenger plane that was forced to land on an old air strip because it had run out of fuel due to a confusion between metric and imperial fuel capacity numbers.

Here is a description of a foreigner that I will use in my beginner level introductions salon class:

Micheal Jones is a 52 year old engineer living in Wuxi. Currently, he isn't married. He has been married two times. With his first wife, he had a boy and a girl. With his second wife, he had a son. He now has a Russian girlfriend who is a dancer at many Wuxi hotels.

Micheal Jones is Canadian. His hometown is Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. In his free time, Micheal likes to going to pubs, playing golf, swimming, playing X-box games, and dancing. He likes Chinese Food – his favorite kind of Chinese food is Sichuan. He says he can't go back to Canada because his ex-wives will try to get money from him.

I was listening to a podcast about Detroit and its bankruptcy. One thing I had been wondering about was how the city's hockey team, the Detroit Red Wings, were doing. Apparently, the Wings are doing quite fine because the city is putting in half the funds for a six hundred million dollar hockey arena. Talk about a mislaid set of priorities!!

Thursday [July 25]

[School Laptop]

I work 10:00 to 21:00 today. I get to work at 9:00ish. I will have three classes early today; from two to seven pm.: nothing; and then two classes to end the day. What a life!

I take the 602支bus and then the 85 bus to work.

On the 85 bus, I saw an old male passenger and the back-of-the-bus worker (the 85 is a long bus) have a disagreement about the bus pass the man was using.

I got a ride home last night from a student who lives near the Wanda Plaza. I got home about 30 minutes earlier.

I finished watching the movie Hondo, starring John Wayne, last night. The movie was strangely sympathetic to the Apaches. John Wayne ended the film by saying that the Apache way of life was quite a life. Yet, they had a code by they were savages nonetheless.

I have been publishing model style photos of Tony here, here, and here. There are fifteen in all for you to look at. You are welcome to save them and add them to your collection of fab Tony photos.

I took a photo of a three-wheeled car! You at see it at Views of China from Casa Kaulins blog.

They say that today the high with be 41 degrees Celsius!

Despite the high temperatures, I went on a toy-hunting tour of the downtown which was disappointing not due to the heat but to the selection of toys. There were two places that I knew of in downtown Wuxi where one could buy Tomica toys, but after today's trip, I know there is but one. The place I was hoping to find some Tomica fire trucks not longer sold them. So, I went back to the store near my school with Tomica toys, and I found the selection to be quite disappointing. Now, I don't know what the heck I am going to buy Tony for his birthday.

Just as I had finished my toy-hunting trip, my wife phoned to complain that I had eaten all the bread at home, and so I had to go buy some bread at the 85 degree bakery. This would normally not be a problem but the 85 Bakery near our school is under renovation, and to get to the next nearest one would mean walking in the heat or taking a bus. I choose to walk to the 85 bakery at the Nanchang Temple, and was pleasantly surprised to see that there wasn't a lineup like there would normally have been at the 85 bakery near our school.

Hearing about Japan's population shrinking, I should tell the Chinese it would be a good time to invade their rival. But instead of using men of military age, I would suggest to the Chinese that they use girls of middle-school age in the invasion. It would be interesting I think to see how the girls would match up with the old Japanese people who would be forced to defend the island. [LECTOR: Unless the Japanese use the robots...]

Jiangsu may be the source of China's debt nightmare! It wouldn't surprise me in the least. It seems that there is too much building going on here. I can't go anywhere without seeing a new apartment block or office building under construction.

Friday Morning [July 26]

[School Laptop]

I work 11:00 to 21:00 today. I arrived at school at 9:30.

On the way to work, I listened to two enjoyable podcasts. One was an interview with Tom Wolfe, the famous American novelist; and the other was a Q&A session with Rex Murphy, the famous Canadian pundit. Both were well-read, humorous, and joyful.

From Wolfe, I am lead to consider the future of the U.S.A. There can be no doubt that the 20^th century was an American century. If you don't believe this, you have to look at 21^st century China. But what about America's future? Wolfe believes that there will be many American centuries to come. Why? America has no opposition. The current strong members of the opposition: China and the European Union have too many problems. China despite its economic power has no cultural power. Hollywood movies are watched by many Chinese – Chinese films, in foreign markets, are an acquired taste. But what about America's fiscal mess and the Obama presidency? I believe Americans can recover from these difficulties. They have before, and despite all their many problems, particularly moral, they have a loud, strong, and brash presence – to dominate is in their genes, as is their tremendous generosity. When there is trouble in the world, the world looks to what America. They don't look to China, the U.N., and the E.U.

From Murphy, I got three things for my mind to munch over. First, a love for Canada. Hearing people from Surrey, Ottawa, and Newfoundland talking was sweet. Second, a need to be skeptical. He was asked what advice he had for aspiring journalists. He said that journalists have to resist the urge to look at the world through their belief structure. Third, he talked about Obama's oratory ability. He said Obama was a good orator but had terrible speech writers who made bad allusions and had terrible grammar. I never listen to Obama but I do try to read his speeches. I find he has nothing particularly original or memorable to say.

My watchband broke this morning, and so out of habit, I have been looking at a white band of skin when I need to know the time. I will have to rely on my Ipod Touch to get the time, for the time being.

Tony got another bruise around his eye last night. Rare regular readers may remember that one Saturday night in the pre-Wanda Plaza era, Tony blackened his eye when he stumbled and fell on a chair when performing Ultraman fighting actions. The incident happened at a restaurant and so we had to take Tony to the hospital. Last night, Tony was jumping on the bed while covering his head with a blanket. I don't know where he got the idea to do this, but he had been doing this for a month despite my repeatedly warning him not to. I hope he learned to stop doing this as as last night he banged his head against a shelf that is bolted to the wall above the bed and so bruised his eye enough that he looked like a boxer.

Somewhere on the Internet last night, I read an article scoffing at the notion that foreign languages can be learned conversationally. That is, it was very dismissive of the idea of using conversation as the main tool in a second-language class room.

Why believe? Two reasons. One: because it is true. Two: because it is the most authentic pose one can have if it isn't. If it isn't true, our existence is so small and insignificant that we need the idea of it to make our existence meaningful.

In a word without meaning, poses are the only things that matter because they occupy the now which is all there is. A pose that shows others that one is so beyond the immediate now, but higher, is cool. A pose of faith is thus, paradoxically, the only pose one can take if one wants to be really so beyond everything that exists.

Saturday [July 27]

[School Laptop]

I work 10:00 to 18:00 today.

Nothing to blog about this morning that I feel I should blog about. I am a pissy mood and I will probably type something that I will regret, though to be honest that hasn't stopped me before.

I listened to a podcast that said truckers may soon be out of jobs as that profession will become automated.

What are they going to do? What am I going to do?

Last night, a student told me an interesting anecdote. His father had a boat, one of those long barge large boats that go up and down the waterways of China, and he had a dog. One day, the dog jumped onto a passing boat. Three months later, the two boats passed and the dog was returned to its original boat. The master of the boat, that had been passing, told the student's father that the dog hadn't liked what it had been fed for the past three months. (That was all the details that I could ring out of the student.)

Also one of the students in that class had a cat or dog named Ding Dong.

I am tired. The heat is getting to me. Thank God I will soon have days off.

[Home Laptop]

After work, I went to the Wanda Plaza where I met the rest of the China Family Kaulins at a Korean BBQ restaurant. I didn't think I ate that much but when I stood up to take Tony to the WC, I felt stuffed.

Having ruined a polo shirt on Monday by dropping greasy food on the front of it, I had my wife purchase me two polo shirts at the local Uni-Glo where one can also buy Sex Pistols t-shirts. It leads me to ask the following: Who would have thunk it: that I would be living in China and able to purchase a Sex Pistols shirt?

I twisted my left ankle this evening. After having parked our e-bike in what used to be the office of the California Villa sales office, I walked through an exit and thought to take a look at a piece of pavement that had just recently been set. I had in fact driven over this newly set pavement, and I wanted to see if I had left any tracks. The new pavement was off to the right of my path, and it was also dark, so I made a misstep when stepping off a building sidewalk onto a lower pathway. The step was probably no more than six inches high and I have probably taken it hundreds of time in the five years I have lived at the California Villa. Tonight however, I, instead of stepping straight forwards with my left foot, stepped downwards at an angle of 45 degrees off kilter so that my left ankle buckled as I put my full weight on it, and I ended up stumbling onto the ground, dropping the bag I was carrying and the eyeglasses I had placed in my t-shirt. I swore as I was falling and I worried that the worst had happened. Thankfully it didn't and I lived to make my way back to Casa Kaulins. I don't felt much pain at the moment but I worry that the ankle may start to swell. As it is, I can't bend my left foot fully...

Sunday [July 28]

[Home Laptop]

It is 37 degrees outside, that be in Celsius.

It my day off from going to school.

How is my left ankle today? Sore if I put pressure on it, but I am not in agony.

What to do today? That is the question. I think I will go back to bed. I don't even know what I want do.

Two things: I need razors – I buy these Schick disposables; and I need a new wristband for my Swiss Army Watch – I wear it because it was the watch my father was wearing when he passed away.

I am spending the day at home taking photos for the Views of China from Casa Kaulins blog, watching the fifth season of The Wire (I have just watched the fifth episode), drinking hot tea (at 37 degrees Celsius), reading The House of the Wolfings, reading The Winning of Canada: a Chronicle of Wolf, and eating ice cream.

It Communism versus Catholicism in Shanghai.

I should end this week's blog entry with this thought. I don't have the link but somewhere I read something that should guide my parenting of Tony. Most people these days, said the writer, want their children to be the richest, smartest, the most worldly successful, and best-looking when they really should only care if their child is a good person.

That is all I am going to want from Tony.