Happy Fourth of July America!

If the critics of America were even half as good as the country they love to verbally assault, there might be some credence in what is otherwise nothing but vile-hatefulness akin to anti-semitism, another disease of the mind.

 

Americans are great people because of their optimism, their independent spirit, their willingness to face problems, and work.

 

America!  Don't lost your mojo!  More than ever, it is needed!

 

Wuxi Tony Update #360: Dominion Day #3

Happy America Day! I should say firstly.

This video was taken in the countryside near our apartment on Dominion Day.

Hu Jintao in Italy: More on “China’s Catholic Moment”

President Hu is visiting Italy, and Spengler has an interesting blog posting at First Things about it.  Spengler, using his mystical intuition, is hoping the visit portends a breakthrough in relations between China and the Vatican.  Why would this be significant?  China's decision-making process is developing fast and learning from the West, and China is looking around for inspiration.  The Vatican is part of this western tradition of the balancing of powers in the decision-making process.

 

Commenting on the often strong opposition to this idea, Spengler says this:

 

My own view is that such outbursts betray a sort of cultural illiteracy that is sadly typical of Americans, who assume that if the rest of the world simply acted as they do, all would be well. They forget that America called out from among the nations a tiny percentage of individuals who wished to make a new start at the price of abandoning their own ethnicity.

Many of my conservative friends seem to think that if we jump up and down on the table and scream about China's lack of democracy, we would improve the situation. I can't decide if ignorance or petulance dominates in this attitude. China always has been a empire, never a nation state. It holds together a welter of difference ethnicities speaking different languages through a common system of ideograms and a common culture, and always has opposed a centralizing power to centifugal tendencies. It is an inherently unstable system. Communism erased China's traditional culture, the Confucian system that linked the "little emperor" at the head of an extended family to the "big emperor" in Beijing through a set of analogous filial obligations.

In the midst of the greatest social upheaval in modern history, the largest popular migration in all of history, Chinese leaders are painfully aware that a great empire cannot survive merely on the impetus of consumerism. That is why China's leaders are looking to the West for more than methods of business administration. It is impossible to predict, of course, how this will proceed, but potentially it could be one of the most momentous developments of our time.

Those in the United States who want China to fail should be careful what they wish for. Iraq, Iran, or Belarus could sink into the ground without a trace and the world would carry on regardless; an unstable China would make the world security situation unmanageable, not to mention the world economy.

 As the history of Chinese Central administrators goes, the current bunch are doing alright.  That is in a Chinese historical context.  By the context of where I have grown up, in a Canada heavily influenced by America, the current bunch would be voted out.  I hope another great reformer, a Deng Xiaopeng of consensual government, will appear, making China the near heaven on earth that, I know because I have seen, it has the potential to be.

 

 

 

 

English names of Chinese People can throw you for a loop.

Apropos this article, here is a list of some English names I have seen students give themselves:   Eleven, Angel, Polo, Range (as in Range Rover), Windy, Apple, Hannah, Queenie, Gemma, Kwin, Walker, Alien, Carry, and Ruin.

What I had for breakfast.

I went to McDonalds for breakfast.  I had the 11 rmb Egg Sausage Sandwich with coffee. 

Wuxi Tony Update #359: Dominion Day #2

I should have called these videos the Dominion Day videos.

AKIC randoms.

• I went to Ronnie's on Wednesday night with another Canadian I know to celebrate Canada Day.  I was surprised and yet not surprised to see the same bunch of expats that I had come to expect to see at the Ronnie's old location.  Amazing how some things never change, even in currently ever-changing Wuxi.  I played pool for the first time in ages, and an happy to report I lost respectfully as the game went to the final ball.  To appreciate how long I have been away from the bar, I heard talk of the economic crisis for the first time from other expats.  It has affected everyone, I heard. 
• The other Canadian and I were the only Canadians in the bar.  It was interesting to observe that knowledge of the day's significance was minimal among Expats from other parts of the world.  The only Canadian that one person knew of was Neil Young.  My cousin's brother who knew Young when he was attending high school in Winnipeg always complained about Young not paying back a small loan.  The one American who was aware of the day said I should be ashamed of being Canadian because of my staunch Republicanism.  I am a member of the loyal opposition, I replied.  Being of the Conservative persuasion, I will celebrate genuine real achievements, not phony made-off imaginary world ones that far too many Canadians tried to propagate.
• Construction of the subway and mag-lift train stations has forced me to modify the route of my electric bike ride to work.  I have to now take Xicheng Road all the way to European Street before turning left on Zhongshan road.  The Dammdest thing happens as I get to the Xicheng Road tunnel going under the rail tracks:  a traffic jam develops for bicycles and scooters because a bottleneck created by construction taking up half the tunnel's width.  Annoying.  It is especially  annoying to see how no one seems able to stay in line.  The jam is made all the more annoying by the fact that everyone has to jockey for position instead of keeping their place in line.  If one doesn't jockey for position, you would never get through the bottleneck.
• Tony can turn on the television, DVD player, and Cable box when he wants to watch television.  He can also put garbage in a can when ordered.  Yesterday, I had him help me load cans of pineapple beer into my shopping cart.  He is starting to have his uses, the boy.  He is not just something to wax sentimental over.
• More and more students are at school for the summer.  Excellent!!
• http://wuxiguide.net  had a record day yesterday.  Three registered users logged on at the same time.
• If you watch WTU 360, you will learn that our Canada Day Bike ride took us to Jiangyin district.  Who would have thunk it?  I ask.  Who?
• Someone I know says that the reason the Chinese government is trying to put all the filtering software on all computers in China is because some crony has a contract with the government to do so.
• There are rice paddies in the countryside near our school.  Wow!

Wuxi Tony Update #358: Canada Day #1

I took five WTUs on July 1. This is the first of them.

Disappointing Numbers for June.

Blogspot being blocked in China has cost me half my readers.  If you care to look at the sitemeter stats (can be found somewhere on this page), you will see that I am down fifty percent from my record month both in numbers of page views and visitors. 

 

I thank all my readers outside of China for visiting.