Wuxi China: Sunday Morning 745 a.m.

I took this video as I walked to work Sunday morning. The canal and bridges are in my apartment complex.

Note, you can hear workman hard at it at 745 in the morning on a Sunday!!

August 30 Links

• Photos of our Takara TOMY train set: TKIC #1, TKIC #2, AKIC #1, and AKIC #2
• Wuxi Expat can't decide which format of Dune to marry.
• Iggy Pop was an intellectual?  Who da thunk it? I called him Iggy Poop.  And I am not talking about the punk rocker Iggy Pop.  I am talking about Michael Ignatieff, the Harvard Professor who became leader of the Liberal Party of Canada.  The guy seemed like a total putz.  And yet the article I link to bemoans the fact that this "intellectual, would-be philosopher king" wasn't elected prime minister by Canadians.
• What is it about Humphrey Bogart's face? And the faces of many other movie stars from Bogart's time? They look like adults.  And why is it that most of the stars these days don't?

Kidnapping license plates

I don't know if "kidnapping" is the right word to use to describe this phenomenon I have been told happens in Wuxi.  Thieves will steal license plates off cars, and then demand money (ransom) from the car's owner to return the plates.

 

My first question, of course, was how could the thieves get away with this?  Couldn't the car owners contact the police so they could track down the thieves?  It turns out that the thieves don't demand that much money for the license plates -- just 100 or 200 rmb.  These "ransom" amounts don't make it worthwhile for the police to get involved, and are less expensive, in time and money for the car owner, than going through the process of getting another license plate. 

 

I then asked how the payment of ransom was done.  The thief tells the car owner to put money in his bank account.

Links

• Tony's Takara TOMY train set configuration:  August 29, 2011.
• Another train set photo.
• Wuxi Expat Andis Kaulins would rather fight than switch.
• A photo Tony took with the iPad.
• A cool photo of Tony and Andis.
• Wuxi Expat has diarrhea.

Podcasts, swearing, getting seats on the bus, and training wheels.

• I heard some talk about China on the Mark Levin show.  It came from a caller, to Levin's call-in-show, who had spent four years in China getting a degree and learning Mandarin.  She reported she was sad to see what America was like on her return -- Obama's fault she said.  She also reported that she didn't at all like what the Chinese were doing.  
• I report this China talk just because it was interesting that someone who had been in China was also a Marc Levin listener.  I have to admit I listen to all his podcasts.  He is a guilty pleasure for me, but only a little.  That is on the guilty part of the pleasure.  He may well be rude to Liberal callers, but they deserve it.   He may call his opponents names but so what?  The Left engages in the tactics a hell of a lot more than Conservatives ever do. 
• Are there any other Levin Podcast listeners in China?
• Taking Tony for a bike ride, and running into some toughs.  Really, it was the story of me losing my temper.  And the toughs were rather meek.  
• Saturday night, I accompanied Tony as he rode his bike with training wheels around the neighborhood of Casa K.  
• A foreigner walking through the neighborhood of Casa K will raise eyebrows.  In fact, on my Saturday walk I first saw this old man raise his eyebrows at us as we passed.  I decided to look straight ahead, pretend to ignore him, and take Tony on his way. 
•  I have at times been able to hear passengers in passing cars and vans say "laio wai" or "Wai guo ren" in my neighbourhood.  Most of the time, it is like water off a duck's back for me.  But sometimes I am just not in the mood or I feel like I am being gawked at like I am some sort of monkey.
• Tony and I, will, on our excursions, sometimes argue about which way to go.  Saturday night, at a point where I had determined I walked enough, I wanted to make a left turn so we could go back home.  Tony however wanted to continue straight on.  He cried when I insisted that we go left.  As he stood in place, I walked away in the direction I wanted to go, and he then started to cry louder and yell "Momma!"  I was compelled to turn around.  I walked back to him, gave him a hug, and then had to pull him in my direction of choice.
• He calmed down, but then insisted that I carry him on my shoulders.  Normally, I have no problem with this.  But carrying him on shoulders and also pulling his bike is too much.
• So  after ten minutes of carrying him on his shoulders and pulling his bike, I took him down off my shoulders and told him to ride his bike.  He said "No! One Two Three!"  (One Two Three is what he says when he wants to be put on my shoulders.)  I told him that the bike would be garbage, and he cried again.  I had to console him again.
• It was at this point that I looked up to see that these two young men on an electric bicycle had stopped to watch Tony and I struggle.  Flush with annoyance already at Tony, I told them to "fuck off!" and gave them the finger.  I was not sure then if they understood.  For they then rode off, and I heard them say "we love you!"  I screamed "faggots!" at them, and thought maybe they did understand.
• I was able to get Tony to ride his bike for a hundred meters or so, before I put him on my shoulders. As he rode, I was thinking about my reaction to the two young men, and wondered if they would come back.  I saw one of them pointed a phone camera at me and may have taken a photo of me and my middle finger.  I also thought about how Tony and I will be seen all over Wuxi next month on the bus videos, and I imagined the reaction of the few locals in Wuxi who may remember having been sworn at or offered a finger by me.  My reaction, I was loathe to admit, wasn't very Christian.  The swearing may also been a symptom of weariness of living in China.
• Just after I put Tony on my shoulders, I saw the two young men on bike accompanied by another bike with another two young men drive past.   Seeing Tony and me, they turned around to get closer to us.   Seeing them, I decided that I was going to watch them and observe them in a disinterested manner as possible.  Passing close to us, they uttered a barbaric "hello!" and one of the riders raised his hand at me. I am not sure what the gesture meant.  I couldn't decide if it was meant to be rude or a how-ya-doing.  I maintained my stoic posture as they rode away.
• Tony and I then arrived at home.  The riders didn't follow us.  They were on my mind through the rest of the evening and during the next morning as I made my way to work.  I imagined a photo of my giving a middle being circulated on the Internet -- either that or a video of me swearing.  Should I take Tony down that route again? I wondered.  Was it time for me to get out of China?  I wondered as well.
• Sunday, the next day, someone gave me their seat on the bus, and I felt sheepish -- the Chinese are not so bad after all, I thought, and in some ways they were much, much better than me.    I later yielded my seat to a woman and a child, and the woman seemed tickled pink to have a foreigner give her a seat.
• Perils of being so far from home.  My father's health is declining, and my mother is at her wit's end trying to take care of him.  I pray for my father and feel ashamed of my powerlessness -- it is the accumulation of a life of ill-made decisions.
• A few more student names to pass on:  Easy, Elfie, and Silence.
• Sunday evening, these men yielded a seat on the bus to me, just because I was a foreigner.  Ai ya!!  I really feel more of a heel for yelling at those young men on the electric bike!
• I then listened to the Radio Derb podcast.
• I am not always listening to conservative podcasts.  The twenty percent of the time I am not listening to a conservative podcast, I try to listen to what the left has to say.  For instance, I listen to the Slate political gabfest podcast, but it is just sad stuff.  For whatever reason, they choose to talk about Steve Jobs resignation from Apple.  Their talk was pointless, boring, and uninformative. 

August 23 iPad entry

August 23, 2011

Tony's birthday

So far, Tony and I have wrestled at home.  We then went to the Taiwanese restaurant -- the latest regular stop -- for lunch.  We then took the bus downtown.  Downtown, we got on the number 81 bus -- a double-decker which Tony likes to ride.  The second level front row seats were occupied so Tony cried -- an old woman gave up her seat for Tony who didn't thank her.  Tony has an entitled sensibility that should be nipped in the bud.

Now, we are at the playground.  Tony has forcibly taken a mini-car from a little girl.  He has also been wrestling with another little boy -- he has been holding his own.  I will put the video of the scrap on the Internet.

Jenny wants to buy Tony a bowling set for his birthday; I want to buy him more track for his train set.

I have read a chapter of Ulysses and of 1984 as I sit here.  On this iPad, I have an awesome selection of books.  Already, I can say "too many e-books, not enough time."


发自我的 iPad

Names the students have given themselves: Summer 2011

Amelia

Alien

Android

April

Arrow

Aurora

Axel

Blue  (*A sad girl was Blue.*)

Bonnie

Caesar

Celeste

Cheney

Chirly

Coral

Crystal

Dancey

Gosick (* The student, if I recall correctly, told me that Gosick was a cartoon character*)

Gundam

Gustav

Jade

Journey

July (*We could have had a class with April, May, June, and July.*)

June

Killer (*Killer was a girl.*)

King

Kitty (*Hello Kitty! I say, and I get a laugh from the students.*)

Levine (*She preferred the pronunciation "Leaven"; not "le vin"*)

Lion

Loner (*How did you get such a name?  I asked.  The student misunderstood and said he had lots of friends.*)

Luffy

Lydia (*I ask her if she has heard of Lydia the tatooed lady.*)

Maple

McGread

Nena

Rock

Rocky (*He told me he had never heard of Bullwinkle.  However, he had heard of Sylvester Stallone.*)

Sand  (*It's the Sandman!*)

Spinach

Stark

Steel

Stella (*Hadn't heard of a Streecar Named Desire.*)

Stone

Vanilla

Visa (*Do you have a friend named Mastercard? I asked.*)

Wade

YiLine

Yoh

Zoe

Zorro (*The student asked if Zorro was a cowboy.  Not exactly I said.*)

Very short and random thoughts -- filler really.

• Rained again yesterday.  I got my shoes soaked.  Water was a foot deep in places. 
• What a wet summer it has been.  And they tell me it hasn't been wetter than normal. (Alas, some people do agree with me!)
• China is more fake than it has been five years ago.  How can one determine that for sure?
• In a Wuxi pub, two westerners sit.  They talk, all the Chinese patrons are killing fruit on their electronic gadgets.
• Wuxi people only care about money and nothing else.  And so they are dull as dishwater.  Some westerners say this.  I just make note of it.  
• Sometimes the jostling of getting on the bus grates at me -- I want to elbow someone in the head.
• So many free books I can download to the Ipad -- e.g. Edward Gibbon's book about the Roman Empire, Ulysses by James Joyce, 1984 by Orwell.  And I don't have the time to read books that I would buy if I could.
• Famous overseas Chinese brands?  I can't think of many.

Tony Kaulins Fourth Birthday Video #5: Train Set!