38 strokes

Slowly

I asked some students what things they did slowly -- it was an exercise in using adverbs.  One student told me she wrote her name slowly because her parents had given her name that was complicated to write.  How many characters in your name?  I asked.  She told me thirty eight.

Writing my full name (Andis Kaulins) takes, by my calculations, 17 strokes.  I don't even think Tony's long name (Anthony Arnis Peng Kaulins) has that many strokes.

Fort Hood Massacre

What to make of the Fort Hood incident?  What I have heard about it so far begs a lot of questions, so there really isn't much I can say except I hope the victims R.I.P.  America's military is a force for good in the world and so they died for a good cause.

The incident was on the bus video this morning.

I found out about it when I was checking my email late Friday evening.  The Globe and Mail, a left wing Canadian newspaper, said a man of middle-eastern descent did it.

I saw the incident had made the front page of the newspapers here.

Early November Friday (Tuesday) Headlines or Tuesday (Friday) Afternoon Headlines

I need a new bike helmet

I busted my bike helmet this morning.  Not because of an accident with the bike.  I dropped it for about the twentieth time as I again didn't properly secure the strap I was using to carry it.

Not engineered to German standards, it was to be expected.

Ten near collisions

Riding to school this morning, I was thinking about what to put in the blog.  I then noticed myself swerving around someone.  The near collision, I thought, would have once been out of the ordinary.  But now that I have been riding to work for over a year, the number of near collisions has actually increased.  I have learned to go with the flow as it were, ride Chinese style and so find getting closer and closer to other riders.  I then did a mental count of the near collisions I experienced on the trip  to work this morning, and I got to ten before giving up.

Dessert Island

Desert Island activities make for good conversation classes.  But having done them so often, I am thinking of doing a dessert island class.  Would you live on a dessert island where you can have all-you-can-eat Ice Cream.

Hericane Ida

Hurricane Ida, I have read, has been waltzing through the Caribbean.  I immediately thought of an Ida we have working at our school.  As soon as she comes in, I will tease her unmercifully.

Doing a class about Humour with Chinese students.

Doing a conversation class with Chinese students about humour can be torturous.  What happens is you tell jokes that the students don't understand and the students, in turn, tell you jokes that you don't find funny.  As well, you will get no where asking students about the whole idea of humour i.e., why do humans laugh? (Do animals laugh? I ask as well.)  I tell them the observation from the alien character in Heinlin's "A stranger in a Strange land" that humour is based on things going wrong, but they don't get it.

 

But that doesn't mean you should give up all hope that the students don't learn or tell you anything.  Recently, for the first time ever in a humour conversation class, I had a student tell me a joke that got me laughing:  Eve asks Adam "Why do you love me?"  Adams replies "Do I have any choice?"   HaHaHaHaHaHaHa!  I asked this student if it was possible for the Chinese to make jokes about their leaders as Americans make jokes about their Presidents.  He said it was a big taboo.

 

In America (and in Canada), making jokes about political leaders is an accepted and often celebrated tradition.  It is all in keeping with America being a democracy.  And it contradicts the charge that America's presidency has become imperial (although I do agree that too much power and pomp is invested in the executive branch of the U.S. federal government).  In recognizing that our leaders are human and have foibles, we respect their position but not necessarily their person.  The fact that in China, Chinese can't make jokes about their leaders shows how illiberal their country currently is.  It may also show how different their culture is.

Joke-telling about political leaders in America has not been without its pratfalls.  Political Correctness means even the most biting of Comedians must be careful  Conservatives, for example, have contended that Obama has been lambasted less, than his predecessors, by the professional comedian class because they are afraid to violate taboos about race.  Vice President Joe Biden instead has often served as the comedic foil for many comedians because he has a habit of putting his foot in his mouth  and he is not a minority.  And even if acceptable, jokes can betray a political bias.  Jokes about George W. Bush became so predictable after a while that one sharper observer said that "jokes about Bush's supposed dimwittedness were the things that only stupid people could laugh at."  I would say that jokes about Sarah Palin and Dick Cheney fell into this class too.  These jokes were of the politically biased type that left half the room laughing and the other stewing.  So the trick with jokes about leaders, in a democracy, is to find those that everyone, regardless of political persuasion can laugh at.  

It is almost enough to want to ban the telling about jokes about leaders, but as I said almost.  Nothing is more confining than the straitening jacket of having to take something on this earth too seriously.  Chinese leaders are a goldmine for any aspiring comedian.  Chairman Hu, for example, looks like the fat kid from The Lord of the Flies is he had lived to grow up.

Would in be the interest of the current Chinese ruling class to permit professional comedians and the population to make these kind of jokes?  Sadly, the answer is no because as stated earlier, making jokes about the ruling class is democratic, and the Chicoms don't seem interested in loosening the reins of power.  The political disruptions of the late late 1980s in China ended in a killing of political humour for the foreseeable future and till the current dynasty collapses.  

I wonder, at this point, if maybe not joking about leaders is also something, culturally, the Chinese are permitted to do.  Of course, all one should do is see what happens in Taiwan.  Taiwan is famous for having brawls in its legislature  -- a thing I wish would happen in Canada and America.  There is a goldmine of humour in that.  Talking to an Canadian in Taiwan, he told me that while Taiwan is liberal, jokes about leaders are rarely made.  So there may well be a cultural aspect to not telling jokes about leaders in China as well.

Be that as it may, it would be a joy to see the Chinese lightened up about Grandpa Wen and Porky Hu.  For as it stands right now, Chinese development has a malignancy at its core.  For how can you create a paradise without Mirth?

Friday hence Tuesday

It's Tuesday!

It is Tuesday!  I don't care what you say!  This is my second day back from my weekend, so it is Tuesday.  Ignore your calendars.  Live at the pace of AKIC.

 

Ask a Blogger

Have a question that you can't find an answer to?  Ask a blogger.  I had a question about Taiwan that my googling could not yield an answer, so I went to an Expat Blog service and located a Canadian blogger in Taiwan to answer it for me.

 

The fruits of that labour will appear anon because....

 

Long Term Projects

The problem with blogging is that sometimes you do entries hastily, without consideration and research.  So I have a file, now ,of Works in Progress that I go to when I have some spare time.  So when I tell you what I had for breakfast and what I found in my pockets, you will also get paradigm-shifting food for thought.

 

I just made Tony some formula

More on the socio-political and metaphysical impact of this act in an soon-to-appear essay.

 

Bohemianism

I choose that as a topic for my English Corner Friday afternoon.  What was I thinking?  That will certainly go over like a lead balloon.

 

What do I think of Bohemians?  Really, they run around packs.  They are just another group of people.

Wu Ai Road traffic

I took this photo of Wu Ai Road from inside a KFC. Hence, the glare.

Wuxi Tony Update #454: Walking on Renmin Road

Tony wanders as Jenny goes shopping.

AKIC Weekend Headlines

Dental Trip

My wife accompanied me to the dentist on Wednesday.  The Dentist told her a version of what had happened the week before that didn't jive with what I had recalled.  The dentist told her that I had requested that the work he was doing the week before be stopped  because I told him I was tired.  After she told me this, I felt rather miffed.  I had been told the week before that the "operation" on my tooth was to take three trips so coming back wasn't a surprise, and I definitely didn't tell him to delay the work.  

Anyway, he gave me a filling on Wednesday.  I have heard stories of them falling out after a month so I will just have to hope for the best.  

Trying to piece together the reason for the misunderstanding, the nearest I could figure out was that the dentist asked me if I was tired, and I responded yes because I had gotten up early that morning.  Somehow, the Dentist thought that meant I was tired of the operation and wanted it done later.

Car in the Bike Lane

I suppose that the maze created by traffic designers and lack of parking makes some car drivers feel they have no choice but to drive in a bicycle lane.  But this morning I saw a woman drive her car on a narrow downtown bike lane in the rush hour.  I saw her way was blocked by a whole lot of bicycles and that she was engaged with in a loud quarrel with one of the cyclists whose way in turn she had blocked.

Tony can say some words!

Tony, slowly but surely, is picking up a vocabulary, Chinese and English.  If he wants something to drink, he can say the Chinese "he".  He can say "Mommy", "Daddy", "Water", and "Bye Bye" in English.  After watching Pee Wee's Playhouse continually on DVD, he can say "Pee Wee".

Reading

With others in the apartment, I am back to reading.  Right now, I am in the midst of a collection of Louis L'Amour short stories.  I also borrowed a SAT math test preparation book to play around with the math problems -- to exercise my brain, as it were.  I am pleased to say that I can still do Math.  However, the book was surely writen in the vernacular of a teenage preparing to past an exam.

Wuxi Tony Update #453: Tony meets the Water Delivery Man

Benita Kaulins in San Francisco

That is my sister, Benita, who lives in Chilliwack, British Columbia. Above, she stands by the Golden Gate Bridge.