The Great 2018 Wuxi, China Fog

Riding The Wuxi Metro #2

Riding The Wuxi Metro #1

Parent Teacher Meeting at Tony's Primary School

Every parent teacher meeting at any of my son Tony's schools has been attended solely by my wife Jenny till this November 2018.  I have usually been working when they have these things and would try to find a way of weaseling out of these things if I was somehow available. 

This time, I was able to attend a meeting because of a confluence of circumstances.  One, Jenny was sick.  Two, I didn't have any classes to teach at my school.  Three, we decided it would save Jenny the hassle of having to drive to school because I could go to school via the subway, attend the meeting and then take Tony with me.

The meeting wasn't quite what I imagined a Parent Teacher meeting to be.  I had expected to have individual meetings with the teachers about Tony.  Instead, I had to sit in a classroom for three hours watching a class demonstration and then enduring two hours of speeches from the teachers.

The class demo featured the teacher giving the students some fairly complicated arithmetic problems to solve like 1.25 X 4.8 and then soliciting answers.  I amused myself by trying to do the problems in my head and listening to see if I could understand the answers which were in Chinese.  As this was happening Tony sat near me.

When the math demo ended, the pupils left and their parents had to stay.  A teacher talked for a hour.  I could only make out little snatches here and there of what she was saying.  I instead tried to read what few Chinese characters I could recognize on what was on the accompanying PPT.  From that and using some Chinese apps on my Iphone, I read of good study methods and I guessed that the teacher was telling the parents how to get their children to study better.

Jenny told me that this meeting was to end at 15:00.  When the teacher finished at ten minutes past, I thought the thing was done with.  Instead, another teacher entered the class to speak.  Annoyed, I messaged Jenny and she told me to "stop bitching" because she had to sit through many of these things.

There was then another speaker and the meeting ended at 16:00.  As the third speaker spoke, I abandoned all pretense of paying attention and I looked at some books I had loaded on my Iphone including a volume of the poems of Francis Thompson.  

To make the experience more annoying was my being stared at by all these kids because I was a laowai/foreigner.  Walking into the classroom I tried to focus on Tony and ignore them.  Later about 15:40 because I was sitting by a window, I had to try to ignore all these kids standing right up against the window so they could stare at me.  Finally, it dawned on me to close the curtains.

What was  interesting to me about the experience was the passivity of all the other parents attending this meeting.  They were all silent.  No one said a word to question what the teacher was saying or to ask for clarifications.  One teacher spoke at a low volume and no one told her to raise her voice.  Some of the parents had the look in their eyes of boredom.  Some parents were tapping on their phones engaged in WeChat conversations.  There was no muttering from anyone of what complete b.s. this meeting was.  The parents endured like they were sheep.

[Later, asking my students at my school about this, I was told that the parents were told that they could ask questions afterwards.  And that the good students and the bad students in the class were mentioned during the speeches.]

View from Wuxi, China Lian Yuanjie Primary School

What Wuxi, China Locals Will Do to Not Pay for Parking

Federal Republic of Germany or the German Democratic Republic?

I pose this question after having had a class with a student who told me about a business trip he recently made to Germany.

His most interesting anecdote concerned what he witnessed when he attended a speech made by a German executive.  The executive brought out a little Donald Trump doll and proceeded to denounce the US president.  He then asked the Chinese in the audience to work with the Germans in order to combat Trump.

I knew of the German hatred for Trump, but this desire to coddle up with companies from the People's Republic in order to battle the USA nauseated me.  

Didn't America win the cold war?  Didn't West Germany absorb East Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall?  It was my recollection of that time that the answers to these questions was yes.  Perhaps it was all a dream....

A Whole Slew of Accidents

In mid-October there was a stretch of days when I would see traffic accident after traffic accident.

Saturday afternoon, I saw the aftermath of a fast car having hit a pedestrian.  I was at work and a student, who had seen the scene earlier, told me that an ambulance had taken the pedestrian away.

Saturday evening, I saw there was a crowd of people standing on a road and I then drove past a woman e-biker clutching in agony after having been hit by a car.

Sunday afternoon, Tony & I walk past an accident scene.  Car had hit an e-biker.  The e-biker's bike was down but the e-biker was sitting up and in place, possibly to block the car from driving off.

Monday evening, Tony & I were standing at a street corner waiting for a green pedestrian signal when two e-bikes collided in front of us.  One e-biker said something to the other e-biker and drove away.  The other e-biker was knocked to the ground.   I then alternated between watching, in front of me, the latter struggle to pick up his stuff and get his e-bike upright; and looking over my shoulder to see the former scoot off in the distance.

I can't remember the collision that I saw the aftermath of on Tuesday.

Wednesday morning, I was driving back home after having dropped off Tony at school, when I saw the aftermath of a collision between a pedestrian and a white sedan.  The pedestrian was clutching at his forehead, white paper in his hand, while the driver was squatting near him, talking on his mobile.

Wednesday evening, I was walking on Zhongshan Road and I saw that a BMW SUV had hit an e-bike.  The funny thing about the accident scene was that the e-bike was leaning against the BMW.  I couldn't tell who had been on the e-bike.

And then for four days, nothing.  I then saw an e-bike had been hit by a car and the all the e-biker's eggs were smashed on the pavement.

Stupid Me. Un-PC Tony

One morning, I went to find the shoes that I had worn the night before on my way home.  I was startled to see that there was one blue Kalenji brand sneaker (right foot) and one black Kalenji brand sneaker (left foot) by the apartment door.  My hopes of finding the other blue and black shoes of the pairs were quickly dashed.

What were my hopes?  Why was I hoping?  I had hoped that I hadn't worn this mis-matched pair of shoes on my way home from work.  I had been hoping that this Laowei hadn't been a ridiculous looking sight as I sat on the crowded subway.  

How is it that I was wearing mis-matched shoes?  At work, I wear dress shoes when I teach my classes.  At the end of my shift, I take the dress shoes off and change into my sneakers.  I leave the dress shoes at work because I don't want to expose them to the wear and tear of my long commute home which includes a twenty minute walk.  I also have a pair of blue sneakers that i keep at work and wear during my children's classes.  So the night before, I had hurriedly changed shoes and not paid attention to their colours.  And I didn't notice the mismatch on the entire forty minute commute back home. *

A funny thing really.

The next morning, reading the Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa I came upon a passage where he wrote about great mathematicians making mistakes doing small sums.  Good to now that smart people can do stupid things too, I thought.  Nice to come upon this passage after my evening of humiliation, I further pondered.

*I didn't feel the sneakers were different because they were the same model of shoe but different colour.  There is only one model of shoe that I can get in Wuxi in my size (47).

* * * *

I downloaded the film Expendables 2 for Tony to watch on my computer.  He had read that Chuck Norris was in the film and so he wanted to see it.

He didn't know that the film had many other action film stars in it like Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

When he saw Schwarzenegger, Tony asked me who it was.

"That's Arnold Schwarzenegger." I said.

"Arnold Schwarzen*gger?" he responded. (the "*" replaces and "i")

"Jesus no, Tony! Schwarzenegger!  SCHWARZENEGGER!!"

Tony then put on a mishcievious smile and said "Schwarzen*gger!"

Oh well.  Kids will be kids.

Tony learned the n* word from watching Blazing Saddles.