Another Traffic Video.

I took this video on the corner of Mianhua Xiang and Wu Ai Roads near where I live in Wuxi, China.  Notice what the drivers do to make left turns and the fearlessness of the pedestrians.

 

Wuxi Stinky Water Saga part I. The water stinks and so do the streets.

The Wuxi Water Crisis continues.  On the local Wuxi Expat forum, the news keeps pouring in.  Of course, someone has said you can weather the crisis by drinking beer and even bathing in beer.

My neighbor Nordlund started to notice his water smelling Wednesday afternoon.

I have heard that the water at the Blue Bar started smelling last night.

On the streets, I have seen many people carrying bottles of water.  Just now, I saw a man with a van full of bottled water selling to a crowd of 20 people.

I have also caught a whiff of the stinky water smell as I walked the streets.

Restaurants in Wuxi use the tap water so I am wary of going into any of the hole-in-the-walls.

My pregnant wife is worried.  She is thinking of going out of town (to Nanjing, not Beixing) for the duration of the crisis.

The water smells bad again.

It is all over Wuxi now:  the tap water smells awful.  The water in Wuxi comes from shallow and polluted Lake Taihu, and they say there is no inexpensive way to clean the Lake.

Justin, at school, who I had originally complained to about the water, came to me yesterday to complain about the tap water at the school.   "The water smells like shit!!" he said.

This morning, the wife asked me to buy some bottled water from the nearby supermarket.  Doing my duty, I went but I saw all the bottled water in the supermarket and in the nearby convenience stores had been sold out.

The wife told me that the bad smelling water had been reported on CCTV9, the English TV channel here.  CCTV9 said the smell was caused by seaweed in the lake.

Children's Day June 1.

 

I wrote this a year ago in AKIC1 , but it is still true today:

June 1 is Children's Day.  Designated as so by the U.N.  It is a date that the students all know of.  I never heard of it till I moved here.  Funny, in a country where the government discourages people from having them.  But you know that if the U.N. looks after something, it usually makes things worse.  Bureaucrats in suits look like they care; the actual results of what they do are ignored.

To see what else I wrote a year ago, click here.

What the students are talking about.

Many of the students at school, this afternoon, were excited by the rise in stock market prices.

Said one cynical observer, "that is all they like to talk about: money."

Lenin and I have something in common.

Vladimir Ilich Lenin (I can't be bothered to spell that name properly unless I happened to by accident) and I have something in common:  our words are used to inspire Chinese primary school students.

On the outer walls of a primary school in Wuxi, in big lettering, the following words, I can take credit for saying, can be seen:

AWAKEN CURIOUSITY

BESTOW WISDOM

INSPIRE CREATIVITY

Any time, I go to the school I look at the words with pride.

But in the hallways of the school, there is also a picture of Lenin with words below which I assume to be his and which I assume are meant to inspire.

Pregnancy Videos. That's the ticket!

I have 138 videos on my Youtube channel.  Most of these videos never get watched.   However, my Jenny pregnancy videos are more popular than most. 

In fact ,the video, which I display below is currently my second most watched video.  At the rate it is being viewed, it will be my most watched video within a month.

The second video is already #33 out 138.  It should crack the top twenty within a month.

 

Man runs after woman, kicks her.

I was walking home, minding my own business of course, when I saw a woman cause a little boy, probably two years old, to cry.  The little boy had a shocked open-mouth look on his face for two seconds and then let loose with a loud wail.  Nothing unusual in that at all.  But the boy did look in my direction.  And from behind me, a man ran at the woman, who was then holding the baby's hand.  The man gave the woman two swift kicks to the back of her legs, not quite kicking her ass, and then screamed at the woman.  The woman, seeming not to be disconcerted by the kicks, screamed back.

I went on my way, as I was minding my own business, and did not see what conflict resolution measures, if any, were used.  A Wuxi Resolution usually involves a long tedious stand-off that attracts lots of people who have nothing better to do with their lives.

It reminds me of the another set-to I saw on CNY eve where a man ran from a distance to administer two swift kicks to a person.  That occasion, a man ran up to another man who was engaged in an altercation with a woman.  The man who was running first pushed the man to the ground and proceeded to kick him in the groin twice. 

Is there something in the Chinese culture that causes people to sprint at and swiftly kick  those who displease them? 

Babyface Club closes.

Now I am married and all respectable like, so I am not at all up on the bar scene in Wuxi.  The last time I thought about it, Babyface was the place to go in Wuxi.  But now I have learned the place has been closed down for five years!!!! No, no no.  It has been closed down for two months.  Pubs are definitely a fad, as in, each pub is a fad unto itself in Wuxi.   The new hot clubs in Wuxi are the Music Next and BBS.  Apparently.  But I just got this information from my wife who has been holed up pregnant in the apartment so her information is probably not all the current either.

Waiting in line at the Bank.

The Wife and I went to the Bank of China near the intersection of Zhongshan and Renmin Road.  We took a number and waited.  The wife pulled number 69.  The current number being served was 52.  For five minutes, the line was going smoothly, the display screen telling us every 30 seconds or so that a new customer could be served.  Then it was number 66's turn to be next.  The number 66 waited for nearly fifteen minutes.  I could not understand what the Chinese customers in the bank were saying, completely.  I could detect from their posture and restlessness that like me they were wondering what the hell was going on.  A Chinese customer and I exchanged knowing looks of frustration.  The bank eventually brought out two more bank clerks to serve us or we would have waited for another 30 minutes.

Canary at School.

What sound does a Canary make?  Does it go heeewakkkk or squaaaaawkkk or Heeewoook Heeewookahhh or Look at me I am a caring compassionate tolerant non-judgmental person??

Not only is my wife a mother, a sister, a lover, a part-time cook, my foe in matter of common sense, the legislature who controls the purse of my earnings, and my English student; she is also my fashion designer  despot.  Today, she has me wearing a yellow shirt, white pants and orange undershorts.  She believes that it makes me look younger.  My shirt is so bright and loud I am blinding people.

So tell me, your majesty, what does you consort make you wear and what color is your regal gitch?

Wuxi Super Mouse Video

On Saturday, May 27, Luis corralled a mouse into one of our classrooms.  I was able to take a video of the efforts to catch it and its efforts to escape.