Diary: June 17 to June 23, 2014

Highlights

• Andis watches the WC.
• Andis gets Wifi in his office at school.
• Andis thinks up reasons to keep to himself.
• Andis has a thought about what is happening in Iraq.
• Andis watches the last episode of the latest season of Game of Thrones.
• Andis sees an e-biker run a red light.
• Andis has a student tell him that the high school teachers in Boston are lazy.
• Andis vows to not watch the WC anymore.
• Andis offers opinions on pragmatists.
• Andis watches the WC anyway despite his harsh thoughts about the manliness of soccer players
• Andis has a student tell him that the Chinese political system has to change.
• Andis reports a rumor that the opening of the Wuxi subway, which he hears will open on June 28, will be delayed.
• Jenny takes Tony to Hangzhou for a photo shoot.
• Andis goes to the Hui Shan Wanda Plaza on its first anniversary.
• Andis buys new glasses.
• Andis & Jenny eat at the Wuxi Blue Frog.

Tuesday [June 17]

[Home Laptop]

• Rain. And so I dread going to school for today's 13:00 to 21:00 shift.
• I read that a soccer fan in Suzhou died because of sleep deprivation brought on by watching World Cup football games.
• I haven't been able to see any WC games since the England Italy clash because of the time zone difference. All the games are being played between midnight and 8 AM Wuxi time.
• I am glad to see that the USA beat Ghana.
• These are the teams that I will cheer for in the WC: USA, Mexico, the Netherlands, and Croatia.

[School Laptop]

• I got Wifi at school! I got Wifi at school! Jenny gave me this USB device which installs in my laptop here at school and creates a Wifi signal that my Ipad and Ipod can pick up.
• The first thing I do with the Wifi is communicate with Jenny using the We Chat App.
• This week's shifts: Tuesday 13:00 to 21:00, Wednesday 13:00 to 21:00, Thursday 10:00 to 21:00, Friday 11:00 to 21:00, and Saturday 10:00 to 18:00.
• Tony & Jenny are going to Hangzhou this weekend for a photo shoot.
• Not much to say for myself. I am extremely distracted and I am finding it hard to stay focused. And my co-workers are talking shit.
• Almost forgot. What question to ask myself this week. Reasons to keep to myself as much as possible?
• Reasons to keep to myself as much as possible? I have witnessed what it is like when people get together...

Wednesday [June 18]

[School Laptop]

• Today's shift: 13:00 to 21:00.
• Chinese lesson this morning. I still have trouble with the second and fourth tones. So I now try to raise my eyebrows when saying the second tone and stamp my foot when saying the fourth.
• What is happening in Iraq shows the tyranny of good intentions. It should be a warning to those who pat themselves on the back for believing they have good intentions. Bush's intentions in invading Iraq were good. Obama, a god to those who think they have good and noble intentions that can't be questioned, abandoned Bush's good intentions. Let that be known. Now, Barabbas may have been right to do so; for foreign Policy is a tricky thing for America, especially because it has so much power. But good intentions can also cause lots of damage in domestic affairs as well. So those Leftists who mock Bush are mocking themselves.
• If I wrote an English text book for ESL students, what would I do? Hard to say. So many factors that I would consider and so I wouldn't be able to say anything about it in one sentence. All I can say is that it really depends on the students
• Reasons to keep to myself as much as possible? I am married, I have a child, and Western culture is a cesspool.

Thursday [June 19]

[School Laptop]

• Today's shift: 10:00 to 21:00.
• Watched most of the Holland – Australia match last night. Australia played pretty well and in the first half of the game, they seemed to control the majority of the flow of play. But Holland can score goals.
• When the Dutch scored to take a 3-2 lead in the second half, there was an half-hour to play in the match, but it was also about 1:30 AM. So, I decided to go to sleep and found out this morning that I hadn't missed any more goal-scoring.
• I watched the game on my Ipad using the C-Box app.
• I should have mentioned the following: 1) I watched the final episode of the fourth season of Game of Thrones on Tuesday. 2) On Tuesday, I also saw an e-biker run a red light while coming awfully close to me. I was crossing the intersection near Casa Kaulins on a green pedestrian signal when the e-bike, going at full speed, swerved to avoid me and raced through the intersection as cars, that had stopped for a red, were beginning to move on the green. It was a risky maneuver for the e-biker because the cars coming from opposite directions gave him an Indiana-Jones style shrinking opening to get through. I stared hard at e-biker, a man in his twenties, as he rode away from the intersection, and noticed that he seemed to look behind himself sheepishly, possibly on account of the close call he had just had. Maneuvers such as that performed by the e-biker on Tuesday are very common. If I was looking for it, I would see the maneuver every time I took the bus to school.
• Reasons to keep to myself as much as possible? I am becoming more and more of an misanthrope. Also (I say this now in case I forget to say this tomorrow.), I am nothing important, so there is no need to thrust myself on people.
• I enjoyed the fourth season of Game of Thrones. The final episode of the season was full of surprises. I am glad to see that Tyrion Lannister, the dwarf character wasn't executed. I found his murder of Tywin Lannister to not make sense. How could he get into Tywin's privy so easily? Yet, I am glad it happened, although in a way I will miss Tywin's authoritative sounding villainy.
• What do I hate about the series? The Zombies. If the writers wrote off the characters with a zombie apocalypse, it would make me happy. What appeals to most people who watch the show is its castles, knights, kings and queens aspects.
• With the Wifi at school, I couldn't get email on my devices until I realized that I could get my email using the Ipad Safari browser. Having found this out, I have just emailed some photos to my Ipad so that I can show them to students in a salon class tonight.

Friday [June 20]

[School Laptop]

• Today's shift: 11:00 to 21:00.
• I didn't watch any WC last night. Watching the Australia – Netherlands game the evening before ruined me for yesterday. I am afraid that I will be watching highlights for the rest of the tourney – live games are out of the question.
• That student who went to a Boston high school tells me that the teachers there were lazy. He told me that when he tried ask them a question at the end of the day, the teachers were already out the door. Ask me tomorrow!!! If teaching was a calling for those people, they would never be doing that. [I admit I do that all the time – go out the door to catch my bus home.]
• I finished watching Blazing Saddles, the Mel Brooks Western. It seemed dated to me.
• I finished reading the Shakespeare Play Coriolanus last evening. A man versus the mob play. I take the man's side.
• Next Shakespeare play that I will read: Cymbeline.
• The World Cup is just a bunch of homosexuals in shorts trying to put a ball in a net. Soccer is just a kid's game that my seven-year son would take a passing interest in for three minutes. Why do grown adults insist on turning it into an organized fetish?
• I am having an email exchange with a person who labels himself a pragmatist. A pragmatist is someone who doesn't bring a dish to a potluck. The potluck in this case being a potluck of ideas.

Saturday [June 21]

[School Laptop]

• I am in slow motion this week as can be witnessed from my paucity of blogging so far.
• Today's shift: 10:00 to 18:00.
• Classes seem to drag and so, during each one, I look at my watch at least fifteen times expecting time to go faster.
• Tony & Jenny are to spend some time in Hangzhou today. Tony is posing for some advertising. I will meet them at 7:30 tonight at the train station.
• Costa Rica beat Italy 1-0. It seemed a surprising result.
• Reasons to keep to myself as much as possible? I will have to think of two reasons today since I forgot to answer this question yesterday. 1)The world is full of pragmatists who are cool with everything no matter how messy it is and who go on happily fucking up the world. 2) People have a habit of boring each other. I bore others most certainly as they bore me.
• It is also raining today.
• I finished reading President Me by Adam Carolla. He comes across as a self-righteous libertarian. Not that there is anything completely wrong with this, for a lot of his criticisms are correct. His book is also very funny at points. Sure. Elect him president. If only he was more religious and less pornographic.

Sunday [June 22]

[Home Laptop]

• I am blogging at home which means no shift at school today.
• Yesterday at school, an adult student, who is an engineer and who frequently makes trips to Japan, told me that China needs to change its political system and its educational system. He expressed these opinions to me without fear. though we silently mentioned 6/4.
• Also yesterday at school, six students booked but only one showed up for an afternoon salon class.
• After school yesterday, I took the bus to the Baoli Starbucks where I had coffee, finished a book I was reading about Ancient Greece, worked on some exercises in an English grammar book, and just passed the time till I was to meet Jenny & Tony as they got off the train from Hangzhou.
• In Hangzhou yesterday, Tony participated in a photo shoot with three other mixed-blood children, two of whom were living in Shanghai and one who was living in Hangzhou.
• Jenny also told me the following little details about the shoot:
• One of the mixed blood children was a girl was from Denmark.
• There was a boy from England.
• Tony and these children were all wearing expensive clothes for next season.
• Tony did well posing but became bored at the end when he was forced to stay longer than the other kids who got done early and could leave.
• Tony enjoyed the four hours of train riding to and from Hangzhou and Wuxi. Jenny said he spent his time staring out the window.
• I walked from Baoli to the High Speed Train exit area. Usually I ride past the area in a bus. Yesterday's walk did nothing to disprove the adage that China doesn't look so good close up. I walked through grime, bad smells, and dilapidation. Uggh.
• Reunited at 7:30 PM, the K family took a taxi from the train station to the Wanda Plaza.
• The Plaza was very crowded for its first anniversary. For the day, the plaza offered many items at fifty percent off, had the stores open all night and held many other promotions. Funny how on the Monday, when Tony & I went to see a movie, the plaza was deserted. Yesterday, I had to hold onto Tony's hand for fear of getting separated from him.
• We were able to get seats easily enough, however, at the Mr. PIZZA. It being past the normal dinner time.
• I watched the Argentina – Iran game which was played after midnight, Wuxi time. In the scoreless first half, Argentina had the run of play and had ball possession over 70 percent of the time but couldn't get any substantial scoring chances. Iran either defended well or Argentina was lacking finish. In the second half, Iran had the majority of quality scoring chances because Argentina started to press, allowing Iran opportunities for some counter-attacks. On one of these counter-attacks, Iran could have been awarded a penalty. On another, a header sailed not too far above the bar. It looked like the game was going to end a scoreless tie because Argentina was frustratingly, to its fans, being easily thwarted by the Iranian defense. But then Messi had a brilliant kick curving the ball around the Iranian defense and away from the outstretched arms of the goalkeeper. Till then, I had been wandering what was so wonderful about this Messi. Except for some missed opportunities off set-pieces, he was invisible in the game.
• I had heard that the Subway was to begin operation on June 28th. With less than a week away from that date, I was becoming excited. But I have just heard that the opening may be delayed because of a sinking problem discovered at the end of the line near the City Hall in the south (My stop is north at the the other end of the line.). Some engineer told this to a taxi driver who in turn told it to an acquaintance of mine in Hui Shan.
• I have heard that the land in Wuxi was soft, what with its elevation, which is not too many meters above sea level, and all the canals that run through it. A few years ago in this blog, I published a rumor that the Moresky360 building had a dangerous tilting problem because of the softness of the land around its base. So the news is not quite shocking to me. It does make me wonder about the powers that be. When I first heard about the plans for a subway in Wuxi, I wondered how tunneling could take place in such a moist underground.
• Reasons to keep to myself as much as possible? I distrust mobs, crowds, and groups.

Monday [June 23]

[Home Laptop]

• In two months, it will be Tony's seventh birthday.
• In three days, Tony's summer vacation begins.
• No summer vacation for AKIC.
• No shifts today.
• Yesterday afternoon, the K family went downtown. We first went to an eyeglass seller at Houxixi. The place we went was the place where I bought my first ever pair of eyeglasses. From what I remembered, the place was a veritable eyeglass emporium. There were lots of merchants selling lots of glasses. Yesterday, the place seemed to have gone downhill. Half the stalls had been shut down and the whole building was dirty and showing signs of neglect.
• It just goes to show how development works in Wuxi. Something new shopping center is built and the old places just go to shit. The retail business is shuffled without being increased.
• The glasses I bought yesterday are great for reading. However if I am not looking at my Ipad or some book with small Chinese characters, I have to take the glasses off because everything more than a foot away becomes a blur...
• I suppose I should be wearing bifocals. My father did, I recall.
• From the glass shop, we went to the Xinhua book store so Tony could buy an Ultraman book. I was almost regretting my eyeglass purchase because I realized when perusing the shelves that my new glasses were only good for looking at things closeup. The books, the shelves and the signs were a completer blur if I wasn't reading a book.
• We then went to the Hen Long Plaza which is across the street from the Xinhua Bookstore. We had coffee at the Starbucks there. After finishing my coffee, I took Tony to the toy area where we hung out till Jenny joined up with us. Note to myself: Tony wants to buy the number two monster from the Bai Dan Ultraman toy collection. After Jenny joined her two boys, the K family wandered around the Hen Long Plaza. We saw the perfect bicycle for Tony at the Hummer shop. Unfortunately, it was 2500 rmb and very out of our budget. Tony would have to do two photo shoots before he could get that bike.
• At the end of our wanderings, we found the Blue Frog Restaurant (it is at the Hen Long plaza but not in the mall area) and had supper. Jenny really liked the place and the food, and she wants to go back. I thought she would have written the place off as too expensive.
• There was one other foreigner in the Blue Frog who kept looking our way.
• I like the food at Blue Frog. I had Grilled Salmon Sliders and two large glasses of Heineken draft. Jenny had a lamb platter. Tony had chicken fingers and chips.
• It was my second time at a Blue Frog. In 2013, Tony and I were taken to one in Shanghai by the eventual 2013 Shanghai Expat of the Year Paul Rudkin.
• We walked past some downtown metro stop entrances. Looking down the stairs, I saw dust and garbage from construction. It would seem that the Subway won't start operation on June 28.
• We took the 635 bus home.
• I phoned my mom last night. I learned that my nephew Kyle is now working in Australia for a month and that Mom may have to get cataract surgery.
• I couldn't be prouder of my nephew. The kid not even twenty yet and he is able to get a work visa in Australia. It's proof that he isn't a BC druggie.
• This morning, I saw a Wuxi Metro train running. Maybe, there is a chance that the subway will start operation on June 28. We will just have to wait and see.
• Reasons to keep to myself as much as possible? Pleasant as places like the Blue Frog can be, I have to avoid going to them. I have to think of Tony's future. Unless going out can advance Tony's cause, I shouldn't be going to pubs. They are too expensive.
• Guns and Cars, both of which kill, are apples and oranges says the Left. Well by that logic, rape and murder are apples and oranges too. Sure they are both crimes....
• I finished watching Lawrence of Arabia for the umpteenth time, and yet there are parts of it that I seemed not to have paid close attention to in the previous viewings. Usually I have watched the first half or so of the movie. The scene with the Turkish general depresses me.
• This evening, I took Tony to the Wanda Plaza. Having a late dinner at the McDonalds there is becoming a father & son tradition.
• Tony took a spill while riding his push-bike on pavement. He wailed so loud that Jenny could hear him a hundred meters away.
• I saw an ass-hat Wuxi driver take a corner,, where pedestrian traffic is heavy, near the Wanda Plaza at 60 kmh.

Diary: May 20 to May 26, 2014

Highlights

• This week's question: Can you tell us some items that you would put on an anti-bucket list?
• Andis sees an impatiently done driving maneuver get punished.
• Andis rants about the current uniform styles of Major League Baseball.
• Andis reflects on his father.
• The weather gets hot in Wuxi.
• Andis listens to some podcasts.
• Andis reflects after reading an article on loneliness.
• Andis says Coriolanus is his favorite Shakespeare play.
• Andis has theory about Wuxi's bad drivers.
• Andis watches a 1953 Alec Guinness movie.
• Andis talks to a student about the JFK assassination and Lin Biao.
• Andis takes Tony downtown on Sunday.
• Andis is called Mr. Wuxi.
• Andis actually meets a rare reader of his blog and is put on the spot for something he wrote.
• Andis & Tony see a monkey.
• Andis visits the newly opened Mr. PIZZA in the Hui Shan Wanda Plaza.
• Andis like Chairman Mao is seventy percent right.

Tuesday [May 20]

[Home Laptop]

• I have downloaded and watched half of the latest episode (s437) of Game of Thrones.
• I have just published last week's entry. Editing the entry, I saw that I had nothing to say and that I wasn't saying it very well.
• Sometime on the weekend, I was watching some highlights from MLB and I became disgusted by the uniforms being worn. The Angels wore these caps that look to have been designed by a graffiti vandal. And the bottom of the uniform pants for most of the teams are being being allowed to flare out, which seems ugly as sin to me.
• Tony can take showers by himself.
• This morning, Tony came up to me and gave me a hug and said “I love you Daddy!” I wondered why. What was his ulterior motive?
• Watching the Rangers and Canadiens live on my Ipad.

[School Laptop]

• This week's shifts: Tuesday, 13:00-21:00; Wednesday, 13:00-21:00; Thursday, 10:00-21:00; Friday, 11:00 to 21:00; and Saturday 10:00 to 18:00.
• Construction is annoying on the stretch of Zhongshan Road near our school. Sidewalk and road is being torn up everywhere making for piles of rubble and sand.
• I will determine this week's question, now. Can you tell us some items that you would put on an anti-bucket list? I want to go through life without ever having considered gotten a tattoo. I don't want attend a rap or hip-hop concert.

Wednesday [May 21]

[Home Laptop]

• What can I say for myself?
• I don't have much to say for myself about being China. I spend most of my time, consuming media on my PC and Ipad and Ipod.
• Yesterday, I finished watching the latest episode of Game of Thrones (s4e7) and the 11^th episode of Sir Kenneth Clark's Civilisation. GoT is keeping my interest though the last scene of s4e7 was predictable. You just knew minutes before that that lady would be pushed. The Worship of Nature episode put me off by Clark's stating at the beginning of the episode that in 1725 the Christian religion suddenly declined in England and was replaced by the worship of nature. Well, if that was the truth, what of it? That it should be so is a sad thing but not a disapproval of the Christian Religion.
• I spend the morning causing trouble with my WCE blog.
• HM's birthday tomorrow.
• The anniversary of my Father's death is a week away. I was just doing a Google search to see what images came up when I typed his name and the word death. One photo that popped up was a old photo of Dad giving a medal to the captain of a championship team in a minor hockey league that he volunteered to run in the 1970s. My Dad had many flaws, but his volunteering spirit showed him at his best. I remember with bitterness how when things didn't work out, the people who didn't volunteer would criticize him. I observe now with bitterness that Wuxi people are far more likely to cut pedestrians with their cars (while talking on their mobile phones) or cheat in business deals than volunteer to help the community or others.

[School Laptop]

• Attempting to cross the intersection on my way to the Casa Kaulins bus stop, a dickhead Wuxi driver didn't fail to surprise me by cutting me off. He was attempting to make a left turn and couldn't wait for me to cross the street. I told him to fuck off with hope that he heard me. I then gave him the middle finger gesture with hope that he saw me. What the fuck is wrong with Wuxi drivers? Has Chicomism made them selfish dicks? Or are they at a lower stage of civilization?
• Can you tell us some items that you would put on an anti-bucket list? I don't want to drive a car in China. [What I would like to do is drive a tank and run cars, preferably with Wuxi drivers therein, over.]
• There are efforts afoot to form an American football team in Wuxi. From what I have seen their efforts at designing a name and logo have been pathetic. First off, they are wearing these shirts with the number 88 on them. 88 is Neo-Nazi code for Heil Hitler! They are also going to give their team a nickname having to do with devils. I can think of four or five nicknames that reflect the fact that they are in Wuxi. 1)The Wuxi Peach Kings 2) The Wuxi Bad Drivers 3) The Wuxi White Elephants 4)The Wuxi Sweet 5)The Wuxi Tin Kings.

Thursday [May 22]

[School Laptop]

• Today's shift: 10:00 to 21:00.
• It is hard for me to have talks with Tony. For four days a week, I can only talk to him in the morning when he is mostly inattentive on account of having just got up very early to go to school. I can't even get a yes-no answer out of him when I am taking him to be picked up and taken to school.
• While waiting for the car that was to pick up Tony this morning, I saw a car get stuck when trying to back up. This car, the backing up car I will call it, came to a stop in the lane by a parking space (which was perpendicular to the lane). The backing up car had hesitated and so all the other cars behind it drove around it. That was about eight cars in total. And there was another car, the impatiently driven car I will call it, that also had to wait for the eight cars to pass as well, before it could proceed. What the driver of the impatiently driven car had done was impatiently try to drive around a car, on the passenger side, that had stopped because of the backing up car. This quick maneuver resulted in the impatiently driven car being blocked by the backing up car. Both these cars had to wait for the other eight cars to pass before they could go on their way. It was nice to see ass-hat Wuxi driver impatience get punished.
• I am listening to the Tyranny of Cliches audio book, written and read by Jonah Goldberg. It is a sequel to Liberal Fascism. So far, I find I am preferring the sequel. This could be because Goldberg is more fun to listen to for long stretches than read. I read Liberal Fascism. For me, Tyranny of Cliches is essentially an Amen book chronicling the stupidity of Liberalism.
• The construction on Zhongshan Road is creating these islands of torn up pavement that cars and buses have to swerve to avoid. I very much hate it in the evening because after school, when I am trying to get to my preferred 635 bus stop, the first bus I have to take will get stuck in a traffic jam and screw up the timing so necessary for me to ensure that I get a seat on my long bus ride back home.
• I could be watching the third period the second game of the Black Hawks – Kings series but I will be teaching a class.
• Dean!!! I just had a student named Dean in a class. He hadn't heard of Dean Martin and the Rat Pack. But why would I have expected him to? He told me that he had gone to Singapore to meet some girl he was having an Internet romance with but it didn't work out. The girl lost interest in him. Heartbreaking I can imagine but what can you do?
• Can you tell us some items that you would put on an anti-bucket list? I don't want to be divorced. I don't want to be an adulterer. I don't want to drive any expensive sports cars. I don't want to go under water diving. I don't want to go to Hawaii. I don't want to go surfing.

Friday [May 23]

[School Laptop]

• Today's shift: 11:00 to 21:00.
• I was listening to the Radio Free Delingpole podcast this morning, and a line came up which I must repeat to my rare readers because it is all so true. The demand of the Left for White Racists far outstrips supply.
• The weather today is warm. Yesterday, two students talked about the warm spring weather making them sleepy.
• Last salon I conducted a salon class about Global Warming. It isn't my favorite topic but this class actually had some students say some interesting things. One student said that much of the pollution in China is a result of foreign companies coming here to pollute. Whether this is true or not, I cannot rightly say. The first reaction to the statement made by the student that I can think of is that it takes two to tango. China wants the foreign companies here. The second reaction that comes to mind is that it is hard to believe that Chinese companies really care about doing something about pollution.
• The next podcast I listened to this morning made mention of the Cultural Revolution. Said Mona Charen: it was a very horrible and depraved thing. I had a few students, when I first came here, tell me that it was a time of madness. My wife tells me how it splits people still in her village. There are people she won't associate with from her hometown because of it.
• I have the feed of the third game of Rangers—Canadiens series on my computer. I have to decide if I should study Chinese or watch the game. Not feeling comfortable with choosing either, I will try to do both.
• I wonder if the cultural revolution can explain why Wuxi people are such bad drivers.
• Can you tell us some items that you would put on an anti-bucket list? I have to be careful when I answer this question. I want to say things that could possibly be on other people's bucket lists. So! I don't want to visit Jim Morrison's grave. I don't want to drive an expensive sports car. I don't want to own a Rolex.

Saturday [May 24]

[School Laptop]

• Today's shift: 10:00 to 18:00.
• I was annoyed at Tony last night. It has crossed my mind but last night it became very apparent that Tony doesn't talk much to me, and that we don't have real conversations. He will talk to his mother in Chinese and will often ask her what I had been trying to say to him.
• There was an interesting article, that was became aware of thanks to a email update, in the American Spectator on loneliness. The modern mores have made Americans by and large a group of lonely individuals. Being Canadian, I am affected by the same winds of culture that Americans are; and living a life that has been plagued by loneliness, it would seem nice for me to blame my loneliness and isolation on the culture, and it would seem nice for me to say to if only the culture or the people I do run into were somehow better, I wouldn't be so lonely. But I do have a misanthropic streak in me that I think I would have had any age I would have lived. (though I could say that in a more enlightened age I would have more readily become aware of monasteries). Anyway, articles on loneliness draw my attention in spite of a somewhat spiteful desire on my part to embrace solitariness. [Should I have used spite in two ways in that sentence?] And there was a factoid in the article that really hit home with me. It said that the longer one's commute to work, the more one felt lonely or socially isolated. That is so true in my situation where I ride the bus for two hours a day to get to work and back.
• No dinner yesterday. I decided about lunchtime that I would fast till I got home.
• I also decided to make a point of sitting down at my seat for as long as possible, only getting up to go to classes. I remember reading Florence King extolling the discipline necessary to be able to sit for long times in one place without fidgeting or giving into an urge to get up and chat.
• Coriolanus. That has to be my favorite Shakespeare play. I don't fashion myself to be a Coriolanus. Though he hated the mob and was no middle-of-the-roader trying to appeal to them, he earned his contempt for them through getting scars and exhibiting tremendous physical courage. I am fearful of confrontation and wouldn't definitely shirk from any physical threat to my person. I have to admire Coriolanus and envy his being able to adopt the attitude that he did toward them. The mob is full of meatheads and he was right to despise it. Are politicians who talk of the mob as if it was full of simple well-meaning folk who don't get high all the time or don't brag of debaucheries, speaking truthfully or cowardly kow-towing? I suspect the latter. Coriolanus is a play that tells us what is so wrong with the modern world.
• I can see some Obamacolytes saying that Obama is like Coriolanus. Obama is the man of virtue having to deal with a mob of bigots and conservatives and homophobes and so on. I of course wouldn't agree with this depiction. I would say Obama does have an element of Coriolanus's despising of the mob, but what he really despises is the country he thinks he is serving so honorably. He despises America. As well a comparison between Coriolanus and Obama also breaks down on the fact that Coriolanus before confronting the mob, had performed acts of extraordinary physical. That couldn't be said about Obama who was elected on false hopes of what he could be. Furthermore, Coriolanus told the mob to stuff it and joined his sworn enemies. Is there any chance that Obama will quit the presidency of the country he despises and move to France or somewhere else in the European Union, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba,or North Korea? If he did, I would gladly said he was like Coriolanus for giving up a cushy life, is as much as that would be an act of courage that we can expect in this modern world.
• Can you tell us some items that you would put on an anti-bucket list? I don't want to see the Xian Warriors. I feel that place is probably a vulgar tourist spot. I don't want to go skiing in the Swiss Alps. I don't want to go golfing in Augusta.
• I am almost finished watching this 1953 Alec Guinness move the Captain's Paradise. Great performance of Guinness who I am thinking I will honor by making him the King of the Wuxi China Expatdom. The perfect life says the Captain character played by Guinness in the movie? Two women of complimentary temperaments and the intellectual company of men. Says the Captain: The women who can bring home the groceries, can't bring home the milk. I am not exactly sure what is meant by that line but it seems funny and clever nonetheless. My life would be a one in three to the captain. But in the end it seems that the life that the Captain created that had those elements of perfection has broken down.
• I will spend the day here, when not in a class, working on my blog thingies. I feel I have fulfilled my Chinese study requirement for the week and day.
• I just spent an hour talking about the JFK assassination and Lin Biao with a student. The student mentioned some interesting factors in the mystery of Biao's plane crash. Biao had a wife who was ambitious and impatient, said the student, who forced Biao to reluctantly make a plan to bomb Mao's train. And Chou En Lai had the power over the use of air planes. The student said that Chou approved Biao using the plane but told Mao that Biao was escaping so that Mao would make the decision to shot the plane down.
• I have had that humid feeling in class today. Summer is here.

Sunday [May 25]

[Home Laptop]

• No shifts today.
• It is humid. I went for a walk and now I am all in a sweat.
• Last night and this morning, I watched Magnum Force, a classic Dirty Harry movie. The film had a great look and feel and sound. Clint Eastwood was the epitome of cool. The film ended rather improbably however even if it did allow a great shot of Clint saying that a man had to know his limitations.
• I watched the highlights of the Champions League Final. Having watched a lot of Stanley Cup playoff highlights, I can say that football or soccer does allow a spectator time to see the buildup to a goal as well it being scored. Too often in hockey, the goal is scored and you have to watch the replay to see what happened.
• Can you tell us some items that you would put on an anti-bucket list? I don't want to attend the NFL draft. I don't want to meet the President of the United States. I don't want to attend a major tennis event. I don't want to attend an Olympic event. I don't want to say I have cooked a gourmet meal. I don't want to go to the Red Light District in Amsterdam. I don't want to see the lady boys in Thailand. I don't want to smoke Cuban cigars.
• [Later] In the afternoon, I took Tony downtown so I could buy myself something from Burger King and buy Tony a toy. We took the 25 bus and it got stuck in traffic downtown. It gave me time to think about an email I got from Arielle. Once Tony & I were off the bus, we walked through the Nanchang Temple Market area, browsing at toy shops along the way, to get to the Nanchang Jie Burger King or Han Bao Wang as the locals would call it. I ordered an Italian Triple Stacker with fries and two drinks. I ate the sandwich, Tony refusing my offers to try it, and shared the fries with Tony.
• Leaving Burger King I ran into a couple of Americans who are teaching English at a program or school that is on the campus of Jiangnan University. One of the teachers insisted that I was mister Wuxi. I denied it and now wish I could have said something about my 49 year old body being a long way from some Adonis like muscularity it may have had in my early twenties. And I said that if I was famous, I would rather have money; the fame having not earned me any benefits. The other teacher said he was a regular reader of my blog, and had seen videos of Tony on the bridge deck during a session of trainspotting. He mentioned my having written something about not liking to talk to foreigners. I scoffed in response and talked about how I hated to see other foreigners in my territory of Wuxi. Of course, the truth of the matter is that I write things in a spiteful mood and don't have the good sense to not publish these spiteful things. The only thing I can truly say in my defense is that my reactionary posture and misanthropy is a mental pose or delusion that is almost always instantly disarmed by friendliness on the part of others. [If you are reading this, Andy, please make a comment or send me an email.]
• The two gentlemen taught writing and what they told me about it was just as I imagined from the few times I have students ask me to edit some piece of writing for them.
• While I was talking to the gentleman, a man dragging a monkey came by asking for money. I gave him two rmb.
• To be continued, tomorrow.....

Monday [May 26]

[Home Laptop]

• I will continue on with what I did yesterday.
• After talking to the two gentleman and seeing the monkey yesterday afternoon, Tony & I walked from Ba Bai Ban to buy a toy. Tony of choose a Ultraman toy that cost 99 rmb and earned the wrath of Jenny when she found out how much I had spent on it.
• When she asked me how much the toy cost, I told her 60 or 70 rmb. Later when she found the receipt and saw that I had in fact spent 99, she was annoyed. I defended myself using the formulation used by the Chinese Communist party in their assessment of Chairman Mao. I was 70 percent right, not a liar, I said.
• From Ba Bai Ban, Tony & I took the bus back to Hui Shan where we meet Jenny at the recently opened Mr. PIZZA in the Wanda Plaza. As far as I can tell, Mr. PIZZA is a pizza restaurant chain started by Chinese. All the people featured in their ads are Chinese. I believe that Mr. PIZZA is in fact Chinese. The food was not bad though I did come in with very low expectations. The pizza was like Domino's. The fried chicken salad was big and could be a meal itself for just 20 rmb. The only thing that I found off-putting about the restaurant was the showing of video of Mr PIZZA personnel participating in some pizza dough spinning competition. Not a real useful skill and I don't see how it makes the pizza taste any better.
• The K clan then went to Tesco to see if we could find a bike for Tony to ride this summer. The one bike we would like to have wasn't in very good condition – its brakes didn't work and the training wheels were wobbly.
• When I got home, I phoned my brother in Canada. We switched from phone to Facetime on our Ipads for the rest of our conversation. Our reception of Ron was great. We could hear him and the video never got stuck buffering. Ron, however, kept telling us that video of me on his Ipad was periodic.
• Today, it is scorching outside. Waiting at a bus stop, I was suffering. I found Wuxi summers to be unbearable.
• Can you tell us some items that you would put on an anti-bucket list? Today. I can't think of anything to put on the list.

The Andis Kaulins in China Weekly: August 6 to August 11, 2013

Gratitude:  I am thankful to be alive.

Acknowledgment: This issue of the AKIC weekly will only have six days of journalizing, though I will write the story of my Jiangyin Sunday (August 4^th). [This could serve as a confession, but it doesn't seem all that damning. But if you do read the Jiangyin Sunday story, you will read some damning stuff.]

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: I spent the week, or rather six days, recovering from a two day trip to Jiangyin and hoping for Wuxi's Summer temperatures to lower. So the week was uneventful with the interesting things happening in my mind and in my reading.

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!  我很喜欢新疆菜. 我不喜欢豆腐和猪脚。这个星期，无锡太热了！

I am Canadian! I am a loyal subject of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second.

I am Latvian (sort of)! My parents fled Latvia to 1945 to get away from the Soviet Russian Communists.

Politically I am Conservative/Reactionary! My family fled from the Communists only to end up in a land, Canada, that has sought to shed its virtues at a slower pace.

I teach English! I will be entering my tenth year of it in September.

I am not a freak! I am part of a small minority of people who are reactionaries and aren't freaky.

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 #164 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 Epistle of Paul to the Ephesians and the Epistle of Paul to the Philippians; and am now reading the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Colossians.

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.

Wanderings in South America by Charles Waterton. Finished. An excellent little book that is more a collection of observations that a strict narrative. Be that as it may, this collection of naturalist vignettes is a real page-turner. I shudder to think how the book would have read if it was written by a modern scientist.

Four Men by Hilaire Belloc. Grizzlebeard, the Sailor, the Poet, and Myself are the four men. They travel and talk. It gives me an idea for a book and a blog.

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:

Below is my weekly haul of Don Colacho. I agree with every one of these aphorisms wholeheartedly.

2893: Man's full depravity does not become clear except in great urban agglomerations.

2900: Monarchs, in almost every dynasty, have been so mediocre that they look like presidents.

2901: Only the years teach us to deal with our ignorance tactfully.

2902: Perfect prose is prose which the ingenuous reader does not notice is well written.

2904: Modern man lost his soul and is no long anything but the sum total of his behaviors.

2907: In addition to civilized societies and semi-civilized societies, there are pseudo-civilized societies.

2909: Nothing is more irritating than the certainty with which a man who has success in one thing gives his opinion on everything.

2915: The fragments of the past that survive embarrass the modern landscape in which they stand out.

2916: Faith is part intuition and part wager.

2917: The golden rule of politics is to make only minimal changes and to make them as slowly as possible.

2918: The people is sometimes right when it is frightened; but always wrong when it becomes enthusiastic. [Obama mania]

2919: Why deceive ourselves? Science has not answered a single important question. [Why are we here? Evolution is not a satisfactory answer.]

2920: Unjustly inequality is not remedied by equality, but by just inequality.

2921: In a healthy society, the state is the organ of the ruling class; in a hunchbacked society, the state is the instrument of a bureaucratic class.

2922: The fool, seeing that customs change, says that morality varies.

2924: The majority of properly modern customs would be crimes in an authentically civilized society.

2928: Envy is the key to more stories than sex.

2929: “To have faith in man” does not reach the level of blasphemy; it is just one more bit of stupidity. [To be intelligent, is to place your faith in God I feel. I have lost my faith in man in China, and I don't know where else to turn.]

2937: An individual is defined less by his contradictions than by the way he comes to terms with them.

2939: Everything in the world rests on its own final “just because.”

2940: No thesis is expounded with clarity except when it manages to be expounded by an intelligent man who does not share it.

2941: Except in a few countries trying to “promote culture” while recommending the reading of “national authors” is a contradictory endeavor. [Canada had its Can Lit which makes it hard for me to respect many Canadian authors except the reactionary Mordecai Richler and Stephen Leacock.]

David Warren: In the humanities, I have found, almost invariably, that the presence of academic & theoretical jargon is an indication of a dishonest writer; or to put it more plainly, a “bullshit artist.” All the former humanities faculties appear now to be dominated by these people, trying to fool outsiders but also fooling each other, & themselves. They are like monkeys who imitate superficial gestures, with little or no understanding of the subjects to which they refer. But they are not nice monkeys.

Crisis Magazine: Progressive modernity aims to abolish the transcendent and create a perfectly rational and self-contained system, a project that is the essence of totalitarianism. As it proceeds and destroys alternative authorities it comes to pervade the whole of thought and becomes harder and harder to criticize by any standard outside itself—that is, on any grounds other than insufficient purity.

Charles Waterton on how to behave in foreign lands: Thus to be kind and affable to those we meet, to mix in their amusements, to pay a compliment or two to their manners and customs, to respect their elders, to give a little to their distressed and needy, and to feel, as it were, at home amongst them, is the sure way to enable you to pass merrily on, and to find other comforts as sweet and palatable as those which you were accustomed to partake of amongst your friends and acquaintance in your own native land.

American Fez offers some philosophical advice on how to deal with the heat:

It seems no great philosopher offers profound counsel about beating the heat: the Stoics, for example, are absolutely worthless; Rene Descartes remains silent on the subject; the only advice Wittgenstein can give is abstract at the best of times; and Albert Camus, unhelpfully, can only suggest shooting someone.

So in desperation I turn to doctors of physic and the wisdom of the leechers: stay in the shade, refrain from rigorous activity and drink lots of water. It's not the sort of controversial thinking you can annotate or discuss in city coffee shops, but I suppose it'll have to do for now.

Special Feature: My Jiangyin Sunday Story:

Sunday, August 4^th, a.k.a. Jiangyin Sunday, started out well. I woke up in the apartment of Jenny's friend and looked out the window to see Yangtze River Boat traffic. From the 16^th floor, I was also afforded a panoramic view which spanned from a long suspension bridge on my extreme left to a ship loading dock on my much closer right. Below me and my temporary perch, was a metal yard and some empty fields, the latter of which were being cultivated till developers were to take them over and make them into a park.

We went out in the afternoon. First, to a Xinjiang Restaurant which was located in a shopping mall not far from the aforementioned suspension bridge. After a good meal, consisting of meat gravy and other delicious food from East Turkmenistan, we then made out way to a cultural center which was located across from the mall where we had eaten. From the cultural center we then went to the very scenic Ebizhi park which is by the Yangtze River. From the park we went to another restaurant for another feast. Now, from this bare outline, you would think we had a perfect day; but there was trouble in the afternoon which I will relate as I go into the details of the day that was and will be forever known as Jiangyin Sunday.

The cultural center, we went to after lunch, had a library, a museum, and an art gallery among other things. We, that be Jenny, Tony, I, Jenny's friend, and Jenny's friend's daughter wandered the grounds of the center before looking at what the center had to offer. The library was big – four floors, and was filled with all sorts of the latest biblio-technology like touch screen terminals. This however bored Tony after half an hour or so, and so we to the museum and art gallery. As we walked over to it, Jenny told me that there was a exhibition of Russian painting. It was something to see, I thought, so I went into the gallery and museum somewhat interested. Unfortunately, Tony wasn't. Some workers were using power tools, preparing for another exhibition presumably, and the noise they made was loud enough to scare Tony who has a phobia about loud noises. Tony plugged his hears, started crying, and screamed that he wanted to leave the museum immediately. This was the beginning of two hours of annoyance that would turn into despair and anger. But for the moment, Jenny told me to continue looking at the exhibits while she took Tony outside. The exhibition of Russian paintings was small and not so impressive. It looked like one artist, trying to be like Van Gogh, had painted all the pictures and the only ones I found interesting were two with Communist imagery. One of them depicted a smiling cosmonaut and the other depicted a fishing boat in which Vladimir Lenin, wearing a shirt and tie, sat with a man, also wearing a tie, who I initially thought was Stalin. I took photos of these two paintings and left having stared at all the paintings for all of ten minutes. It turned out there wasn't much else to look at in the building and so I exited. I saw Jenny standing by the entrance with her friends but with Tony nowhere in sight. Asking where Tony was, I was told gravely by Jenny that he was hiding behind a column that was fifty feet from the entrance. I walked over to him and saw that he was not in a good mood. His lips quivered and his hands were made into fists as they hung on his sides. He and Jenny had obviously had a disagreement and he had been disciplined and so he ran away in a fit of pique. I had to pick up and take him to the car of Jenny's friend.

At the car, Tony insisted that he be allowed in sit in the front passenger seat, but Jenny would have none of this, since she was annoyed at him for his not wanting to look at the museum and art gallery. Tony was insistent on sitting in the front, and I had to pull him out. There was then an agonizing ten minute stand-off where Tony ran about 15 meters from the car and stood crying, while we pretended to drive the car away in hopes that he would chase after us and sit himself in the back seat. I wanted so much to just let him have his way, but I knew that we had to take a stand, and so there was nothing I could do and I was as well told by Jenny to not bother trying to plead with him. For ten minutes, he stood his ground, and when we pretended to drive away, we lost sight of him which was something we really didn't want to do. It was finally Jenny getting out of the car and scolding him that finally got him into the car's back seat.

As we then drove to Ebizhi Park, Tony and Jenny continued their dispute. Tony, not at all a happy camper, said he hated Jenny and that he wanted to go home. Tony used all the energy he had a six year old to chant that he wanted to go home.

Ebizhi Park is my favorite park in Wuxi, and one of the best ones I have been to in China. I can return to it many a time, and not lose the novel feeling of being near the Yangtze River. There is a paved path right by the river which affords one a great view of the big Jiangyin Suspension Bridge and the all the boat traffic. There are spots along the river where you can dip your feet in the Yangtze as well as throw rocks into it. The park also features a 200 meter long tunnel, a military museum, and a revolving tower that gives one a great view of the whole Jiangyin area. What could be better? Actually.... A well-behaved Tony who does what you want him to do!

We had a time of it trying to park the car outside the park. Spaces were at a premium and the one we did come across required some driving skill, which Jenny's friend didn't have, to park in. While Jenny's friend struggled to park the car, Tony kept moaning over and over and over again that he wanted to go home. We did finally park the car but Tony was still shrilly insisting that he didn't want to go to the park.

We bought our tickets and entered the park. Near the entrance is artificial pool and waterfall. Having been to the park many times, I knew to take the path under the waterfall and enter the tunnel which would take us to the walkway beside the Yangtze River.

Because the tunnel has an echo, I screamed at Tony who immediately protested that the echo was scaring him. It was Tony's second trip time in the tunnel, and I was taunting him on account of his having been scared to go in the tunnel one or two years before.

Two years before, I had to carry Tony through the tunnel. This time, he did actually walk himself through the tunnel, but as soon as we got to the end of the tunnel, and had a grand first view of the Yangtze River, Tony did the inexplicable and insisted on returning to the tunnel and back to the car and presumably back to home or where ever it was that he wanted to go. Jenny told me to just keep on walking and let Tony stand by the tunnel entrance. But it was at this point that I lost my patience with Tony, as Jenny had done, and spanked him which did cause him to walk with us.

We walked to a spot where there was a beach with stones that was four feet below the riverside walk. Having given Tony a liking for throwing stones into water, I thought to pull Tony down from the pathway to the beach and hand him some stones, but he threw them into the water perfunctionally and climbed by himself back up to the pathway and asked to go home. I spanked him on the bum while he did so. He was utterly ruining the visit to the park.

Since he didn't want to continue down the pathway, I carried him in my arms. At another beach with stones, Tony again showed little interest in throwing stones in the water and more interest in whining which resulted in my spanking him again.

Tony's whining and my anger, my foreigner anger, was a sight for others along the riverside path. I went completely off my head when someone say laowei. I made a rude series of gestures at this Chinese man, as well as yelled a series of expletives at him, in the manner of “What are you looking at Jerk” before Jenny shooed me away.

Further along the path, we came to a stop, and the particular Chinese gentleman who was the object of my annoyance came upon us. I pointed at him, and screamed more expletives. It turned out that he could speak a broken English and he unintentionally said something which in retrospect was hilarious: “You can fuck me? Well I can fuck you too!” I knew what he said wasn't meant as a joke, so I told him how rude and racist it was to say laowai so that a foreigner could hear him, especially when the foreigner was a bad mood. Things were really beginning to escalate and my wife joined in the argument.

Suddenly, the word pride came into my mind. You are acting this way because your pride had been bruised, said a voice that was my conscience. I choose then and there to snap out of my anger. I walked up to the man and apologized to him, and his wife. I told him it was my fault. Thinking he may not have understood, I shook his hand and made pleading gestures to his wife. I also apologized to Jenny's friends.

Unfortunately, Jenny continued on with the argument, and was annoyed at me for my sudden about face. The squawking between her and the man continued for a few minutes after I apologized, and when it did, she had a go at me. She first asked me how it was that after living in China for nine years, I could still get annoyed at overhearing Chinese say laowai. She then told me how she annoyed she was that I backed down while she was taking my side in the dispute that had been going on.

My defense, mixed with a strong mea culpa, was as follows: Foreigners don't like be stared at by strangers when they are having troubles. In Canada, if I stared at a couple having an argument, one or both of them would give me a “mind your business” look mixed with oral expletives. Now in China, a foreigner must accept the fact that he is a sight and a source of conversation when he is in public, but the being stared at when he is having problems is an annoyance that is more difficult to bear. Not that this is a defense for my actions just described, but a foreigner would wish that Chinese realized that staring at a person in trouble is considered a rude action and a very grave offense if done in a Western country. I will never forget the time when attending a funeral in China that a fight almost resulted during the funeral because of Chinese staring. The deceased was a foreigner who had been killed in a car accident, and his brother, who hadn't spent much time in China before and of course was in a grave emotional estate, became absolutely livid at a Chinese person's staring at him. The deceased's brother gave the staring Chinese a “what are you looking at?” reaction and threatened to punch him out right in the middle of the funeral ceremony. The Chinese person was stunned by the foreigner's reaction and probably didn't realize that he had done something very offensive in the eyes of a foreigner – the local had to taken away from the funeral – he might have been an employee of the funeral home. Besides Jiangyin Sunday, I have experienced on a few other instances in China, an emotion as strong as of the deceased's brother, and nearly so gotten into a few altercations with a staring Chinese person at some public hospitals and at shopping centers. Still Jenny had a point and so the only defense I can say for my behavior on Jiangyin Sunday is that given my obnoxious behavior, given that I had fucked up and couldn't correct what I had done, and given that I couldn't go back in time; I did the right thing by having a quick change of heart, swallowing my pride, and doing my best to make amends.

But this clashed with the Chinese need to save face, and so Jenny had me feeling like an absolute toad for the rest of the time we spent in the park. I also noticed that I was being monitored by a blue-shirted security guard after the incident.

Tony did mollify his whiny behavior after the incident. He began to enjoy throwing stones into the Yangtze, and as we stood near the entrance of the park waiting for the husband of Jenny's friend to arrive, Tony happily ran through the tunnel, that he had earlier feared to tread in, from one end to the other and back. Tony's trip through the tunnel after all the trouble he had given us only an hour earlier caused me to want to use the word “ironic” although really I could have used the word “teachable.”

From the park we went to a hotel and had a feast with relatives of Jenny's friends. Despite feeling sheepish, I drank some wine.

Jenny's friend did take my side of the dispute with Jenny on one point. They said my apologizing was the right thing to do.

It would have been better if I had never put myself in the position of having to apologize and cause my wife to lose face in the first place.

A true Pepys person, I keep a journal of my daily activities and of any worthy thoughts that occur to me.

Tuesday (August 6)

I work 13:00 to 21:00 today. I get to school at 11:00 a.m.

Auntie Dzidra R.I.P.

I learned via a facebook email that my Aunt Dzidra, the oldest of my mother's four siblings, passed away on Sunday in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. I knew the sad news was coming, but now that she is no longer with us, the memories I have of her are all coming into my mind.

Dzidra was born in the same year as the Queen of Canada. She lived in the same house for all the years I can remember. I will remember most of that voice of hers. She spoke her English with a Latvian accent. Her generation having come over from Latvia could never sound Canadian like the next generations have. I took those accents for granted but now as the first generation of my relatives that moved to Canada passes away, that accent will go with them. It is the accent of family and a time in my youth, where the world was like a fairy tale and the laws of supply and demand didn't exist.

I can't remember Dzidra ever having gotten angry, and she made a decent Caesar salad.

I am glad that she was able to see my wife and child before she left us.

I am certain she has gone to a better place.

Wednesday [August 7]

[School Laptop]

It is hot yet again today as it was yesterday.

I work 13:00 to 21:00. I get to the school at 11:00.

I had to put money on my bus card today and so I went to an office downtown to do so. Thankfully there was no lineup going out the door into the blazing sun as there had been on a previous occasion. There were only three people lined up at each window which was the first time I had ever seen lineups so short at this bus card refilling office which is near Nanchang Market. Maybe the thought of having to stand in a lineup in the hot sun stopped many people from going which was fine by me.

Last night, Tony phoned me to tell me he had seen an ambulance.

Thursday [August 8]

[School Laptop]

The heat wave continues. Temperatures up to forty degrees Celsius. I sit under an air-conditioner at work all day so there is no need to feel sympathy for me, though don't feel you need to suppress any urges to send me money. My email address is andiskaulins@qq.com.

I work 10:00 to 21:00. I get to school at 8:40, which for me is late.

Which of the three things should I do? 1)listen to a podcast, 2)listen to a podcast and read, or 3)read? That is the BIG question in my life as I spend two hours a day on the bus. With so many good podcasts to listen to, I have to make hard choices when choosing one to listen to on the bus. But I also want to study Chinese on the bus, having made the commitment; and also I want to read E-books since reading good old books from the project Gutenberg is a virtue, or so I feel it is. Now I can't read a narrative and listen to a podcast at the same time. I try to study Chinese and listen to a podcast a lot in the morning, but that doesn't do anything to improve my Chinese as podcasts make it so easy to not focus on anything else. I find that when I do read an book sans something on my Ipod, I really enjoy reading... I just don't have enough time!

I should talk about what happens at school but there isn't much really to discuss. It is the same old, same old, and I stay in my office and do not associate with the other foreigners in order to keep my spirits up. I wish sometimes I can break out of my stilted way of speaking to students, but to break out and just say what I feel in my oh so idiomatic way would result in looks of incomprehension from the students, who would then reply in an even more stilted manner.

I do have one thing to mention. There is a girl named Stella who is utterly mystified by my yelling her name at her like I was Marlon Brando.

I am no leader. My preference is to not have to work with anyone. If I was ever put in a position of responsibility, I would want to be like a Communist leader – liquidating all in hopes that a somehow better batch of workers would come from somewhere.

I take solace in the fact that the world is going to hell, and many will get their comeuppance. Hopefully, I reform myself in time or I will be one of the many as well.

Friday [August 9^th]

[School Laptop]

I work 11:00 to 21:00 today. I arrive at school to 9:20.

I just had Breakfast at McDonald’s where they are giving away Hand Sanitizer again.

Was the siege of Troy nine years long? Looking on the Internet, I see that it was. Now I will have been in Wuxi for nine years when September comes around so I want to somehow make a connection between the Iliad and my time in Wuxi. After nine years of siege in Troy, things got interesting and this poet Homer composed the Iliad about what then happened. Now, what can I do to make my tenth year of my siege of Wuxi so interesting that someone will write a long poem about it? What character in the Iliad can I find parallels with? Answering the second question, I would say Achilles, but of course that is a conceit on my part. Sure, I have retired to my “tent,” but there isn't anything heroic about. So, I am going to have to find some bold ways to make my tenth year in Wuxi dramatic, maybe turn it into an Odyssey.

Two weeks till Tony's birthday. The little guy was up late last night. The heat has made him nocturnal.

My wife took a photo of a stretch limousine that was just outside our apartment.

The heat just permeates the school building. If you are not in a room with the air-con on, you feel sweat slowly seeping out of the pores. I don't mind so much this feeling when teaching however because I am always feel I am at a higher energy level than the students who become passive because of the heat. I love my students to be passive!

I have a new mobile phone. It is a hand-me-down but it cost me nothing and is better than the five year old hand-me-down of my wife's that I had been using.

Saturday [September 10]

[School Laptop]

Bad news when I got home last night. Tony's modeling gig fell through. Via QQ, the company, that had offered Tony the gig, informed Jenny that the photo shot had already taken place in Hangzhou. My wife told them to screw themselves. I suppose there must be lots of parents wanting their children to be models so the companies can act accordingly with people.

I also learned that I had mistakenly deleted all the photos from the hand-me-down mobile phone that I had been given. I had misunderstood my wife when she told me to take them off. I figured when I deleted the photos that the previous owner of the phone didn't want me to look at them which, now that I think of it, was pretty stupid assuming on my part. The previous owner wanted me to take the photos out of the phone and give them to her. This gaffe garnered me sullen silence from Jenny.

I work 10:00 to 18:00 today. It is my Friday.

It is another hot day out there.

I have changed my approach to how I spend my time on the bus. No more will I listen to a podcast and try to study a Chinese textbook. I will instead spend half of my time reading a textbook and other books; and the other half listening to a podcast and looking out the window. Doing this this morning, it seemed I read better and got more out of the podcast I did listen to.

Another AKIC Motto? Check this out:

In this did Cato with the gods divide,

They chose the conquering, he the conquer'd side.

It could work for me, but truth be told, I don't have what it takes to be a conqueror. It would be silly to compare myself with Cato.

Sunday [August 11]

[Home Laptop]

After work yesterday, I meet Jenny and Tony at the Hui Shan Wanda Plaza. We tried another restaurant there which was in some boring Chinese style I thought. We took Tony to a curio shop where we bought him a camouflaged dump truck and me a spinning top that was just a little larger than a coke plastic bottle cap. I will take the top to work to spin on my desk. Like the godfather having a cat to caress, I will have a top to spin. Tony then insisted that I take him to the nearby beach so he could play with his plastic shovel. I did and I borrowed the shovel to write expletives in the sand. Back at home, I worked on this blog entry and loaded some movies onto my Ipad.

I feel hung over this morning but I only had two beers last night.

Oh yes! I should mention! I don't work today.

I don't think we will be getting out of the apartment today. It is too hot. We had actually talked of taking a trip to neighboring Zhejiang province but the hot weather squelched that idea.

It is afternoon. We sit at home. I am editing this blog entry while Tony plays on my Ipad which he hadn't asked me for permission to use. I have found an essay that I was working on a month ago, and had shelved on the question of judging and not judging. I have put the final touches on it, I think, but I will set it down for a few days and read it one more time before I do publish it.

I have created a new blog: The Andis Kaulins Anti-Blog. It will be a simple collections of any thoughts and observations that strike me. It will contain no links and will not allow comments. Those who want to contact me can via email. I am fashioning it after David Warren's blog and a few of the anti-blogs that he admires.

Tony & I went out about at 16:00. Via the K family e-bike, we headed to the Wuxi-Jiangyin Bridge to do some trainspotting and as well, to look at the livestock inhabiting area beneath and in the vicinity of the bridge. We saw about ten trains pass including a pair passing by each other. It was just my luck to have had a premonition of seeing two trains pass each other, and then not being in a position to take a photo of them when they in fact passed each other. I can recall only one other time when I have been able to see trains passing on the section of track running over the bridge. It would have been a money shot if I could have taken it. Tony & I were more interested in the animals anyway. We saw a slew of chickens, geese, and goats. Tony seemed very interested in the livestock and I imagined myself to be Charles Waterton.

I watched A Bad Day at Black Rock on my Ipad Mini. I had downloaded the 1955 movie staring Spencer Tracy, Robert Ryan, Ernest Borgnine, and Lee Marvin via torrent. Filmed in cinema-scope, the movie opened with a credit sequence which featured footage, which I had to show to Tony, of a train running in a desert. The train stops at a small town called Black Rock and out comes Spencer Tracy who is to spend 24 hours in the town full of suspicious locals. The film was watchable but the story seemed slightly implausible. At one point in the film, there is a meeting of the locals who are annoyed at a girl for having rented a jeep to the Tracy character who is to drive it to the site of a burnt down homestead. One of the locals at the meeting somehow manages to get to the site before Tracy who was already heading to the site when the meeting was taking place.

One last thing before I close this entry off. I returned to the scene of my crime. That is, from our trainspotting site, Tony & I rode to the beach where I had written the expletives in the sand. One of them which said that someone I know liked male sexual organs had not been erased.