Chinese reaction to Libya, Wuxi Photos, et cetera

Thinking what to put in the blog today, I had the idea to take some photos.  Wuxi is rapidly changing because of all the construction.  So I should do my best to try to chronicle this, because otherwise, I will be doing nothing but doing Wuxi China Expatdom or Wuxi China Expatdom blogging.

• Here are photos taken in late March 2011 on Zhongshan Road and at Nanchang Temple Market.
• The student reaction to the intervention in Libya is interesting.  Last night, I asked if the students if they had heard about it, and they all seemed to indicate that they had.  Asking if the intervention was necessary, I got the general impression that the students were thinking "America is in another war for oil!"  I next asked the students if they thought Qaddafi was a good man, and I heard a wide range of reactions.  The first student said Qaddafi was a great man for his people, comparable to Chairman Mao.  I didn't know how to take it that -- was he serious or being sarcastic?  The next student then said Qaddafi was a bad man.  The other students talked about him being a good man for his people, mixed in with a few "so-so" opinions about him.
• My two cents worth, for what it's worth, about Libya is that foreign policy pronouncements can be tricky.  I have yet to see what I see as a consistent rationale for all America has done through its history, foreign-policy wise.  But then America has had different presidents who have had different takes on what their foreign policy should be.  I will say that America's foreign policy, more than any other nations who have had the power, has had a humanitarian aspect to it.  For instance, George W. Bush, despite many who would say otherwise, had a big humanitarian element to his foreign policy.  Obama, no doubt, has decided to employ U.S. forces in Libya for humanitarian concerns, though I have Chinese students telling me he is doing so for oil.  And it is easy to find previous Obama statements on foreign policy that are inconsistent with what he has decided to do in Libya.  The one rationale, I have heard from Obama supporters for what he has done in Libya, is that he is not Bush in how he is doing it, or more simply he is not Bush.  Obama is probably closer to Bush on foreign policy than many would care to admit.  (Ralph Nader, strangely enough, is now saying both Bush and Obama have committed war crimes.)
• What's happening in the world of TKIC?  Visit here or here to find out.

True Luck, Panglossian versus Utopian.

• I did a little DVD shopping yesterday. At Nanchang Temple, third floor of the book market, I bought DVDs with the movies Mr. Smith goes to Washington, and The Magnificent Ambersons. Then at a little shop on Xueqian Street, I found a copy of the original True Grit with John Wayne, which I thought was truly lucky. I watched the first 75 minutes and can't wait to watch the rest, if I get a chance.
• A Panglossian says "the world as it is, is the best of all worlds." The Utopian believes that the best possible world can be perfect. Most people fall in between these two extremes. Some believe that we can find better worlds improving on what we have got, taking into account the fact that it will never be perfect. Some want to improve the world at all costs. Some want to keep what is the best. Some bemoan the fact that the best is not perfect enough. And so on. I fall back on the fact that life is a paradox, and you just have to accept that one must always try to make things perfect, even if the goal is never reached.
• Most of the major figures of the Wuxi China Expatdom have gone to Manitoba, Canada.
• Where does the word "China" come from? Christian Missionaries, writing in Latin, mentioned an old dynasty called the Chin. They referred to it as Chin-a in their writing, and it became adopted as a name for the Middle Kingdom. I have sometimes mentioned the Latin origins of English words to students, without mentioning the Latin origins of their country's English name.
• A student tells me her family's home in Yunnan province doesn't have a fridge because they never needed one. True enough, I suppose.
• What's my son Tony up to? Find out here.

My wife Jenny Kaulins

Some English names I would give my Chinese students, if I could (and if I dared).

I always thought to make this list.  Sometimes, the students would like me to give them English names, but lately, I find myself telling them that I would get back to them about it -- the issue of naming is wrought with possibilities.  I would venture to say that it is overwrought. And so after making a mental note about making a list of names and putting it in my wallet, I never do...

 

However, one evening, a few weeks ago, I jotted these possible names into a notebook -- finally getting around to it, as it were.  I told myself to jot down ten.  The first one on the list was easy because I giggled so much when I thought of it that I became inspired to make a list of ten.  However, the longer I made the list, the less resolute and amused I became.  I shelved, as the expression goes, till now.

 

Here goes nothing:

 

1. Oklahoma:  Something about the Grunge scene -- you, know, Nirvana and the band that did the song about Jeremy speaking in class -- just turned me off.  Maybe, I was getting old.  Maybe, I didn't like the fact that these bands, seemed to have descended from the alternative bands I liked (the Smiths, New Order, Husker Du), and had sinned by becoming too popular.  Anyway, it was the Grunge scene that made me decide to go back, way back, in my musical exploration.  I decided that I would become a Sinatra fan.  From there, it was only a matter of time before I discovered the joys of Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire, Cole Porter, and Rodgers and Hammerstein.  One day, I was flipping through racks of DVDs in Wuxi, and I found a copy of Oklahoma! -- the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical.  Putting that in the DVD player was the cultural equivalent of bringing a Husker Du tape back to Brandon, Manitoba.  It was awesome full of real catchy tunes including the one about Oklahoma being okay.  I would name a student Oklahoma as an excuse to sing songs from that musical.  "You're Okay Oklahoma, Oklahoma you're doing okay!"
2. Mahovlich.  I saw Frank Mahovlich in Brandon, Manitoba -- I bring this up because it was a fond reminiscence.  The Big "M" and his brother Pete, the little "M" were awesome hockey players, that I watched on television in my impressionable years.  To see one of them live, even in an old-timers game, was a thrill.  The Big "M" had a way of skating, with a big strong wide gait, that was distinctive, and he still had it in his fifties.  Now, I would name a Chinese student Mahovlich because I love to pronounce that name.  One has to press one's lower lips against the teeth, and then push the word to the top of one's throat.  It would be my way of getting back at the Chinese for having such a tonal language.
3. Autumn.  I have had students named Summer, Spring, and Winter; but never Autumn or Fall.  I know, and  then, I could say, I don't know why this should be.  I would give the name Autumn to students who strike me as being mature.
4. Smoggy.  Same rationale as choice number three.  I have had students named Rainy and Sunny.  Why not Smoggy?  I would give the name Smoggy to students who were avid smokers.  (I actually had a student tell me smoking was his hobby -- God Bless 'em! I said.  True rebellion always wins my admiration.)
5. Cheryl.  I haven't had a Chinese student called Cheryl -- that is my rationale for this name.
6. Mulligan. Same rationale as name number five.
7. Anatole.  Same rationale as name number five and six, except one little proviso:  the way I see it, Anatole is not a name you can give to someone right away.  They have show you they have a personality of an Anatole.  The personality of an Anatole? you say.  They have to have a personality to match the scowl.
8. Esposito.  I named my son Tony after Tony Esposito (Actually I named my son Anthony so he could shorten his name to Tony, but you get the idea.).  Esposito was the coolest  hockey goalie of all-time -- even cooler than Ken Dryden, circa 1971 - 1973.  As well, Esposito like Mahovlich, is just a cool name to say.  And there are lots of students named Tony who don't want to be reminded that they have the same name as my son.  "Hey Esposito!  Make a sentence with "perchance."
9. Jefferson.  Many of the younger male students like to name themselves after NBA players - Kobe and Lebron.  One thing I wish the Chinese would do -- actually they are many but I won't talk about all that -- is follow NFL football.  There are many cool and graceful wide receivers named Jefferson that I can recall.
10. Bonita.  It is like the name of my sister, and there are no Bonita's that I know of in China.
11. Hector.  You got name a student after something Greek and Homerish.
12. Abraham.  The students say they admire Abraham Lincoln, and yet not one of them has named themselves after him.
13. Aina.  My mom's name.

And so I have a list bigger than ten.  It turns out, the list is long on names but short on long-winded rationales.

Monday Musings?

Lately, my best work can be found at my other blogs：

• Are any of these entries amusing?
• Monday is my day off, but not Tony's.
• Jenny tells me she has heard stories that the people of Japan won't be able to eat fish and vegtables for ten years because of the radiation.
• A marriage.
• A Wuxi Expat is missing a bag of salt.

Sunday, March 20, 2011.

I can't think of a good title for this blog entry.  Oh well.

• I have two new videos of Tony on www.youku.com. Or you can watch the same videos on youtube:  Aaaah! and WTU: March 19, 2011.
• Tony's train set configuration on March 19.
• Four photos of Tony taken on March 19.
• Three more photos of Tony taken on March 19.
• As is my habit, I bought breakfast at McDonald's.  I decided to do takeaway, and eat my sausage-egg sandwixh at school.  Before I went to school, I went to a small shop.  The shopkeepers saw my small bag, and in Chinese I could understand, they asked me how much the meal was.  I told them it was 20 rmb and they said it was so expensive.
• An expedition to scale the North Face of Hui Shan has been approved.  Other things are happening too in the Wuxi China Expatdom like royal marriages and good sales in the prefabricated building market.
• A story about Tony and the big moon.

More real than reality.

My Wuxi China Expatdom Blog is a sideline blog that allows me to lampoon Expat life here.  I love doing it more than writing a normal dairy journal type blog.  Now, if anyone else enjoys that writing -- that is another question.  I certainly glad to know that one man in Australia likes it, and I very much appreciate the contributions that he has made to the blog -- I think they are better than mine.  

The WCE blog is loosely based on reality.  It is filled mostly with my whimsical imaginations.  I do hope that it does have things to say about human nature.  And because it purports to lampoon human nature, it does so from a conservative perspective.  As Lady Thatcher says, "the facts of life are conservative."  

This thoughts come to mind as I found two things on the Internet that show maybe my silliest scenarios in the WCE Blog are not so silly after all.  Exhibit one:  this column by George Jonas.  The column is about Qaddafi and the Earthquake, but toward the end it makes a defense of dynastic marriage -- the ancient practice of uniting kingdoms by marriage.  Says Jonas, "The medieval motto of one historic dynasty was similar to the 1960s hippie injunction of "Make Love, Not War."  Brilliant!  Now, it was only yesterday, that I published an entry in my WCE blog announcing that the King of the Wuxi Expatdom was marrying a princess from the Azanian Empire!  Exhibit two, was made reference to as I was listening to the latest Radio Derb podcast.  John Derbyshire said it was a year ago that a Korean man married his Japanese pillow.  I googled and found the story.  One of the first things I had happen in the Wuxi China Expatdom was a craze for marrying inanimate objects.  

I think I can rightly say that the WCE Blog is more real than reality.

Other links:

• My son, the translator.
• ESL Discussion questions about Toys.
• ESL Discussion questions about Tests.

On the road to Changzhou 1

A little over three years ago in 2008, I was on the road to Changzhou.

Three buses to choose from

Some days, it's just hard to keep this blog going.  Life is pretty routine.  I do have my son Tony to tell you about.  I do spend a lot of times making things up -- fun, but it doesn't feel like I am getting you an accurate feel of what life in China is like.  Sometimes, I have to resort to telling you about what my hash browns were like at McDonald's (fine this morning -- they came fresh out of the fry vat.), the accidents I have seen (none so far today), and my bus ride to work...

• This morning, I had the first-in-the-lifetime sensation of having three buses to choose from.  I took the #610 downtown.  I got off near European Street (Oh Feng Jay -- it is pronounced in Chinese, pardon the spelling) to catch a bus to get me close to work.  This morning, the three buses, I can take from the European stop, pulled into the stop at the same time: the #79, the #81, and the #85.  I choose the #81 because it was a double-decker (never get over the novelty) and because it got me closest to McDonald's and Breakfast.
• Orient Express has written a fine piece about a night with inspector Harry Callahan in the Wuxi China Expatdom.
• Gorzo the Mighty is getting married!
• My wife tells me that salt went up to 10 rmb a bag from its normal 1.5 rmb because of nuclear hysteria.

Tony locks his father out

Friday morning, Dad took out the trash.  He returned to the apartment to see Tony holding open the door and smiling.  As he approached the door, Tony slammed the door shut and locked it.

"What a little bugger!" thought Dad.

Bondage, 30 rmb beer, Tony gets a new car.

• The title of this blog entry is a tribute to a habit filmmakers have of giving shockingly, long, seemingly-unfinished, undisciplined, and what really are working titles to their movies like "Four Weddings and a Funeral", "The Cook, the Thief, the Wife, and her lover", and "Summer, Spring, Fall, Winter, and Spring." 
• SMS mesages are being sent around Wuxi telling people to not go out in the rain because of fears of nuclear fallout from the Japanese Nuclear Plants.

• Hao ba! 好吧！

• Beer is 30 rmb in Wuxi, China pubs!  What an outrage!!  If only there was a Gambay's in Wuxi.  Alas, there isn't.
• The portrait photos of Tony I mentioned?  They will be another ten days or so.  What Jenny did yesterday was merely choose the photos she wanted printed.
• Did I mention bondage?  Yet another bondage shop opens in the Wuxi China Expatdom.
• When I got home from work last night, Tony proudly showed me that he got a new car -- a '69 Volvo.  Here is a photo and story.

Wuxi Andis and Wuxi Tony play with a train set: March 12, 2011

It's a back-to-work Wednesday in Mid-March 2011

• Back to work!  Let the madness begin!
• March madness brings on April sadness -- April being the cruelest month, what with it breeding lilacs out of something or other.
• I just received a chain text message on my phone, in English, from an unknown number.  I will tempt fate and not re-send it.
• Yesterday, I saw a flat-bed truck, no canopy, transporting a group of about 25 workers, all male and all in their forties -- the workers were squatting and huddled together in the back.  It is a sight, I sometimes see and wish I could take a photo of.  But I can never anticipate when such trucks will come, and when they do, I can't take my camera out fast enough.
• This "press release" from the Wuxi government is unintentionally funny.  The Wu Culture Festival will be opened on April 10.  The deputy director of the festival is also the director of the Department of Propaganda.  (And you thought WCE was just a spoof!)
• If you can visit this WCE blog and check out the comments made by Orient Express.
• My son Tony likes to take a toy with to school.  This is against school policy but we let Tony do it anyway.  This morning, he wanted his Red Double-Decker bus toy, which he got in Canada in June last year.  I made him put the toy in his schoolbag -- put the curse off it, as the saying goes.  But as soon as we got to the stop, where his school van picks up him, Tony had to pull the toy out of his bag.
• March 14, "pi" day, was a good day for blog.  An entry I made on March 14, 2009 about "pi" day was viewed a lot yesterday.  But not too many visitors stayed to explore the blog, alas!
• I did things different today.  I took the #602 bus downtown.  Instead of getting off at the train station, I de-boarded at an earlier stop, walked a block, and took the #85, the rest of the way, to school.
• Wednesday evening, my wife will go pickup the photos that were taken on Tony's recent photo shoot.  Expect to see the photos over the next few days at TKIC.

--
Posted By Andis Kaulins to Wuxi, China Expatdom at 3/15/2011 09:10:00 PM

--
See my blog, photos, and videos at:

wuxiandis.wordpress.com
http://www.andiskaulinsinchina.blogspot.com
http://tonykaulins.blogspot.com
http://www.youtube.com/user/wuxiandis
http://www.twitpic.com/user/wuxiandis
http://www.twitter.com/wuxiandis
http://u.youku.com/user_show/id_UMTI1OTk4NjIw.html

My favorite presence on the ‘Net?

With so much on the Internet, you would think it would be hard for me to choose the one site I like so much, that I would  cast everything else aside to get to it when it has a new posting.  But for me it is easy.  The site I go to immediately is David Warren Online.  He watches the world from a perspective that is Catholic and so, is timeless -- he really seems to be able to step outside the age in which we live.

 

His latest two columns are brilliant.

 

He writes of the info debris that the Internet now has produced.  He makes a great observation about twittering:  when everyone is talking, you can't hear a thing.

 

Being Catholic, Warren writes a Lent Column in whixh he says the poorest people, he says, live in North America.  Read the column to find out why he says this.

 

 

Tuesday Links

The wife and I will do some shopping today.   We will leave Casa K early.  So...

• I will provide you with some links.
• My son Tony at bed time.
• This is what happened in Wuxi on "Pie Day".
• Canada is big sky country.
• Tony does an Andis imitation.
• Wuxi has a No Fly Zone.
• Tony hard at play.

AKIC watches Hereafter and the Dawn Treader on Pie, Pi, 3.14, or "π" Day!

This March 14, 2009 AKIC blogspot entry is apparently my most read post ever.  On that "π" day, I ate two McDonald's pies.

 

On 2011's "π" Day, I have watched two DVDs.  Tony's going to school afforded me the opportunity.

 

The first movie I watched was Hereafter, directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Matt Damon.  I bought the DVD for the movie yesterday after I had read that the film's opening sequence featured an accurate depiction of what its is like to be swept up by a Tsunami.  The Tsunami causes the lead female character to have a near-death experience.  The rest of the film was  touching at times, but basically unremarkable.  The film's ending, which required having three distant characters' lives intertwine, was disappointing because it was abrupt and unbelievable.  The remarkable thing about the film was Damon's characters love of Charles Dickens which reminded me my cousin's husband who said the English author was the be all and end all of writers.  I also experienced the coincidence of watching the movie on March 14 -- the part of the story where the three distant characters meet in the film happens on March 14 -- a reference on part of the film's makers to "π" Day?

 

I then watched the Dawn Treader -- a Chronicles of Narnia movie.  The movie was fine, but unfortunately it seemed to be treading on cinematic ground that the Lord of the Ring and Harry Potter movies have already covered.  Still, I will seek out previous movies in the Narnia series.  C.S. Lewis was an alright chap.

Should I shave on my day off?

• It rained last night.  Which is quite fitting since my day of work, yesterday, was sunny, and today, it is my day off.
• I vowed to spend the entirety of Sunday Evening with my son Tony, and that I wouldn't be distracted from him by checking the Internet or reading.  In my mind's eye, it was going to be so wonderful.  I would give Tony my full and undivided attention.  I would play cars with him.  I would play train with him.  I would talk to him and teach him some vocabulary.  That was the plan. 
• I do have to admit that sometimes I ignore Tony so I can do some blogging, or listening to podcast.  So the plan was necessary.
• How did it pan out?  Well, I did quickly look at my emails a few times.  I did listen to a podcast.  I did publish two blog entries:  here and here.  But overall, I spent 95 percent of my time with him, and the blog entries I published had been written earlier in the day.  I set up the train set for Tony.  And even though I listened to a podcast,  I sat beside him as I was doing so.
• I love bread and pineapple beer.  So does Tony.
• Here is some poetry.
• I facilitated a conversation class, sometimes over the weekend, about Family Values.  I asked the students if they thought the importance of family to the Chinese had increased or diminished in its' recent history.  They all said it had increased because of either "the one-child policy making family members rarer" or "the increased wealth that Chinese family members now had."
• Should I shave on my day off?  That is a complicated question.  Perhaps, I should do a photo essay about this.

 

 

 

Sad but true.

I always begin my classes with five minutes of chit-chat.  I ask the students how they are doing and what is on their minds.

Sunday afternoon, I had a student tell me his grandfather was ecstatic.

I asked the student why this was so.

He told me his grandfather was happy that a powerful earthquake had struck Japan.  A few other students then expressed this satisfaction as well.

I told them of the Australian English teachers who I had heard had gone missing.

Double Double, and triple on the links.

• One of our students has just arrived in Canada (Toronto to be exact), and has taken my advice.  章凌杰 went to Tim Horton's and ordered a double-double coffee.  I hope he heeds my other advice which is to tell the locals there that the Leafs suck!
• Do you like that song by AC DC:  She shook me all night long?
• Students, I asked, all said they would rather be in the Air Force or Army than in the Navy. 
• Wuxi Tony Update:  March 12, 2011.
• Do you like that song by Paul McCartney:  Silly Love Songs?
• I have been watching some Japanese Tsunami video.  Horrifying.  I have heard that locals, who happened to have been on high floors in Wuxi felt the earthquake.  As well, the Internet has sometimes shut off.
• Here are recent photos of the Kaulins bunch:  Jenny, Tony and Jenny, Tony and Andis, Tony lies down and makes a face, and Tony: a side view.
• The latest Tony video on youku.com
• Wuxi China Expatdom now has a poet laureate.
• The Wuxi China Expatdom opens a wild-life safari park.
• Do you like that Cole Porter song I got you under my skin?
• What would you do if you had a hammer?

Earthquake

• I learned about the Japanese earthquake when I did an English Corner last night.  The students told me, which was nice because they usually tell you nothing.  I found it strange that I didn't come across the news when I was surfing the Internet, which shows I don't surf news sites much.  Already, images of water engulfing Japanese areas could be seen on the bus's video players as I was riding home last night
• Someone told me that people on high floors of Wuxi Buildings could have felt the Japanese quake.  Jenny and Tony were on the 21st floor when the Sichuan Earthquake happened and they really felt it.  The quake being an 8.8, it was a real shaker.
• Friday's English Corner was about Materialism.  Today's will be about Soldiers.
• A young female student comes around the trainers office giving us grapes.  Nice of her!
• By the time you read this, or by the time I publish this, Tony will have come downtown.
• Lots happening in the Wuxi China Expatdom. Protests over Viagra subsidies, and Chocolate subsidies as well.
• A photo of the latest toy I have bought for Tony.