Andis and Jenny Kaulins have their hair done!

Actually, they just had their hair done.

Photos taken as they rode on the Number 81 Double Decker Bus.

I saw a camel on the way to work Saturday

Saturday morning, I had to send Tony off to school and so my usual Saturday morning routine was scuttled.

Previous Saturdays, I was able to wait at the bus stop till a bus came along with available seats, but not this Saturday.  I took the first one that came and I had to stand.

Standing on the bus, I got shoved and pushed and jostled and elbowed and kneed and had my feet stepped on and the backpack, that I carried on my back, tugged hither and thither.  It was not at all a pleasant experience!

But I did have the sensation of seeing a camel -- an animal not native to the Jiangsu province of China.  As I stood on the bus, I first saw these two trucks parked along the side of a road near a bus stop.  I could see from the crude photo-shopped imagery on their side that the trucks were being used by of some travelling circus troupe.  I remembered seeing such a troupe in my wife Jenny's hometown in the countryside.  It was when the bus pulled away from the stop that I saw the camel standing, leashed to a spike that had been hammered into the ground.

Never, I had I seen a camel before on the side of a road.  I had previously seen them in a Zoo.  But I had something to make a blog entry about!

They know not what they wear: My Boyfriend is a Hell's Angel! Riot!

• I saw a woman wearing a shirt with those words on it.  She was taking her child to kindergarten.  Reminds me of the time I saw a shirt in Wuxi that said:  "Fuck Off!  My boyfriend is with the band!"
• One of our teachers went to teach a company class on site.  When he arrived, the workers were striking and breaking things.
• We have booked our flight to Canada!  We depart Shanghai on May 22 and arrive in Winnipeg (via Vancouver) the same date.  We will return to China on June 11.
• This old pair of shoes I had fell apart on me as I walking in the downtown Friday morning.  I had to hobble to my school to get another pair.  That is why it is so urgent that I go to Canada.

Scenes from my life in Wuxi, China #8

Future Wuxi, China Subway Stop

This future Wuxi Subway is near the White House on Hui Shan Da Dao Road in the Hui Shan New District.

Hui Shan Muslim Noodle Restaurant

An employee is pulling and cutting dough.

I took this photo on my Monday lunch.

Apple. Cramped living conditions in Shanghai. Links.

• I have just heard about the retraction This American Life had to do about a recent show they did about Apple in China.  I remembered listening to the episode, which they now say they shouldn't have broadcast, and recalling that some things that Marc Daisey said weren't quite accurate and that they were the observations of somewhat who had paid a quick visit to China.  This American Life, on that episode, then did have someone look into allegations made by Daisey and put them into proper perspective. 
• Now, I have just listened to the retraction episode of This American Life this morning and the controversy seems like a storm in teapot.  There was nothing in the episode to make me think "Ha ha ha!  Leftist NPR types making up stories!"  The basic message of the original episode and the retraction episode about Apple both say that Chinese workers making Apple products in China work in ways that people in the West would find unacceptable.  
• Some Chinese workers will put in long hours to make money.  I have seen many Chinese happily put up with living or working conditions that would make me squeamish. 
• Speaking of conditions.  Jenny stayed with a cousin from her hometown while in Shanghai on Monday to pick up Tony's passport.  She told me that three people were living in an apartment that was the size of our bedroom in Casa K.  They shared a kitchen with four other families.  This kitchen was the size of the Casa K kitchen but it had four stoves in it for the four families to use.
• So many workers in China doing menial tasks and I so often take them for granted.  I looked at worker at a restaurant I was in last night with my wife and her boss.  How was it that this women in her forties or fifties, with withered arms, came to be working in this Korean place.  She was performing tasks I stop doing in my twenties.
• Bus Stops of Wuxi China #18, #19 & #20.
• Wuxi, China traffic photos.
• Photos of Tony taken on the evening of March 24.
• More photos of Tony taken on the evening of March 24.

Wuxi, China Traffic Photos

Photos taken from a car I happened to be in.

Bus Stops of Wuxi China #17

• You can see the seventeenth bus stop of my stirring photo series here.
• I ask the students to tell me a famous person they admire.  They often say either Chairman Mao or Deng Xiao Peng.
• I ask the students what they don't like about Chinese culture.  One student mentioned spitting.  Another said The ******ist ***ty.  I let the second thing said pass without comment.
• The best pizza in Wuxi is to be found at Trattoria Ferrara Italian Restaurant near our school.  TF's address is #2 118 Zhongshan Road.  TF actually faces a side street that is off Zhongshan Road near the Ming Du Da Xia apartments.  Go there or be square!!!
• We have got Tony's passport.  We have got Jenny's Visa.  We'll be going back to Canada from Late May to Early June.  I will be playing a lot of Yahtzee with my father in Brandon, Manitoba.
• Obama has a plan B.