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November 25 Boy Tony at Xihui Park: The first batch of photo and video.November 25, 2009 is a day that will forever be historically significant. Why? 'Cause Tony went to Xihui Park. That's why. Video of Tony approaching Xihui Park
Tony walks to the Nine Dragons (not Seven)
Thank you Lizzie!!
Lizzie deserves 1 billion dollars I will have to give Lizzie 1,000,000,000 AKIC Dollars. For she is a frequent AKIC blog reader. I wanted to tell her about Tony pushing the shopping cart but she told me that she had already seen the video. Atta Girl!!!! Let that be an example for the rest of you rare AKIC readers. She also informed me of the mistake I made about the number of Dragons. Tony goes to Wuxi's Xihui ParkSeven WTUs (Boy Tony videos) taken
Since I took a lot of video, I will talk about the things that happened today that aren't on video.
Monkeys make Tony laugh
To see things through the eyes of a child is to see things anew. I am paraphrasing someone, probably Chesterton, when I say this. The Wuxi Zoo is nothing special. But Tony appreciated it nonetheless because he was seeing things for the first time. He loved the baby elephant, the Zebras, and the leopard that growled at him, and feeding the monkeys. But he was particularly impressed by the monkeys playing in the cage -- watching them engage in hi-jinxs, Tony laughed and laughed and laughed.
I, taking Tony's view, was impressed by the strength and grace of the Tiger.
Look at the Laowai
Someone actually took a photo of a Laowai and child.
Fog or Smog?
The view from the top of Hui Shan (mountain) was disappointing. I don't know if it was because of fog or smog.
Gratitude, Acknowledgement, Request
I have been trying to do this for a minute every hour the past few days. I haven't been consistent.
Thanksgiving in America
What I liked about American Thanksgiving, being a Canadian, were the Thursday Thanksgiving NFL games.
Uploading
I have got some uploading to do: WTU 471 to 477.
Wuxi Ikea to open in 2013
Video taken after the reunion with Jenny and TonyBoy Tony sits in a Shopping Cart
Tony Boy pushes a Shopping Cart
Tony Boy UpdateI have the following things to tell you about Tony:
Photo and Video taken before my reunion with Jenny and TonyI didn't team up with J and T till three thirty in the afternoon Tuesday. So, I had time to wander and take photos and videos. Vlog Ten
Vlog Eleven
The Grand Canal
Near Xihui Park
View from a Pedestrian Overpass on Renmin Road
November 24 They are back!My wife and son are back. Lots of video has been taken.
I haven't disappeared or done a runner.
Tony and I may go to Xihui Park on Wednesday.
Finished watching GWTWIt has taken me nearly 45 years to finally watch Gone With The Wind. Some things are just so famous you fool yourself into thinking they have seen them. Anyway, GWTW is a fine film. Clark Gable gave a dynamite performance, as did the woman who played Mammy. Still, the movie is a chick flick.
Now, I will go read up about the movie on wikipedia.
November 23 Wuxi Andis Vlog NineThis short Vlog was recorded in a back alleyway near my school. I have always thought the view there was cool.
Go up the alleyway, pictured above, and you will pass Kevin’s Curry House and then hit Zhonghsan Road about where the 85 degree bakery is. Abandoning Text Blogging? Of course not.Don't stop Expecting Brilliant Observations from AKIC The Marxist-Leninist who runs this site is trying to insinuate that I have decided to make more vlogs and so do less blogging. Nothing can be further from the truth. I am merely enhancing your AKIC Spaces experience with more video.
Monday for me, but not for youOne more day to go
One more day and I can tell you it is Saturday because I don't work Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and I am writing this blog entry on what you would conventionally call Monday morning. Kapeche?
J and T back on the 24th
The 24th which is tomorrow, as I type this, and which is Tuesday by your way of thinking and Saturday by my wonderful, effervescent, truthful, paradigm-shifting, currently unconventional way of thinking, will see my wife Jenny and son Tony return to Wuxi. They will arrive tomorrow afternoon at the secondary bus station, which is close to Baoli but doesn't share the same plaza with the train station as the other bus station that you may know.
Gone with the Wind
AKIC spaces live readers may know that I was watching GWTW last night. That is, if they watched Vlog Seven. As I type this, I am two thirds of the way through the thing. It looks like history written by the losers. Only in America.
More VloggingHere is Wuxi Andis Vlog Seven:
November 22 Thursday, Sunday, Thursday, or Sunday?Tomorrow is Friday or Monday? In AKIC, the last sane world in the world, it will be Friday on November 23. Which means that I don't work on November 24 and 25. Jenny and Tony will return on one of those two days.
Not so Cold Waking up this morning, I could feel immediately that the temperature had risen. I was sweating under my 2 quilts; and I didn't need to wear long johns.
It Happened One Night This was the title of a classic movie I watched on DVD last night. It Happened One Night, starring Clark Gable and Claudette Corbet, was made in the 1930s. It was a light comedy which I thoroughly enjoyed because it took me to a different time and place, and offered sensations not provided by current films.
Several thing struck me about the movie which I will list for you in no particular order:
Crowded Bus The bus in China is not as civilized as it was in the movie. With the bus is crowded in China, it is everyone for themselves. This morning on the crowded bus, I was grabbed and shoved, and I had a shoulder and elbow hard pressed against my back for the longest time. Anywhere else in the world, it would have upset me. Here, it was material for my blog. I have even thought of joining the locals and using my size-advantage in the shoving competition to get on the bus first.
Wuxi Andis Vlog SixSince I can’t WTU, I will Vlog.
November 21 Questions I have
Friday Night TonyThis video is rare. It was made on a Friday night.
Hectic MorningGet us to the bus station on time! It feels warmer today (Saturday). I felt it to be so when I took Tony outside this morning. Carrying him and then getting on a very crowded bus had me feeling sweaty.
Jenny and Tony went to Beixing for four days which was why I was carrying Tony. This morning, he wasn't very enthused about having to get up four hours earlier then had been his habit, which because of the cold weather had been to get up very late. I wasn't very enthused because Jenny didn't get up when she said she was going to -- she told me to wake her up at 730, but because she lingered in bed till 800, she had me thinking she was going to catch an afternoon bus instead of the 930 am bus to Beixing. Getting up as late as she did caused us to have to rush and run to get to the bus station on time.
The bus going downtown and the bus station was also packed to the gills. Saturday morning is the worst time of the week to take the #25 bus.
What a morning it was! What will I do now?
With the wife and son away, I will have to choose between DVDs, MP3, writing, or reading a book. I will probably try and do all at once, and so not get anything out of the experience.
November 20 Cold Tuesday or Friday, depending on the way you look at itAnd it is wet too
It is cold and wet in the Wux this morning. My morning shower ritual now involves me putting on heaters and heat lamps for a while before I disrobe.
Round Rooms
No one is with me on this one. I asked the students if they ever wanted their rooms round instead of square and rectangular.
They didn't seem interested.
Family News
It really hits you when you hear news that your parents are getting older. My mother is having trouble walking she tells me.
Giving Tony Orders
Generally, Tony is defiant of his parents' wishes when he understands what we want and this something is something he doesn't want. He has even learned to make his point, to argue, in a short, sharp, exasperated tone of voice. Still, it was nice yesterday when I was able to get him to pick up some things he had thrown on the floor. His manner of putting the things back, a careless non-chalant throw, will earn him admonitions in the future, but for now he did listen which is progress.
He can also understand sit in Chinese and English.
D-V-D!
For now, it is cute but Tony can say DVD when he wants to watch one. Yesterday, I was in the kitchen when he came up to me with a DVD disc in his hand. Saying DVD, he lead me to the player and then handed me the remote so I could set up the Disc for him.
November 19 Approaching the End of November 2009 Links and QuotesThomas Sowell
"One of the common failings among honorable people is
a failure to appreciate how thoroughly dishonorable some other people can be, and how dangerous it is to trust them."
It has always been a pet peeve of mine that when people think of Frank Sinatra, they think of the song My Way as being his signature tune. In the podcast listed above, a rabbi does the same thing. However, he does give some very good reasons why "My Way" is a terrible song with some of the dumbest lyrics ever put to paper.
Yiddish Proverb
"The wise man, even when he holds his tongue, says more than the fool when he speaks." Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe "One who desire the attention of others has not yet found himself."
I found this gem of a story in the comments to the article about Karen Armstrong: I think a story about Mother Teresa is applicable here. One day, Mother Teresa attended a theological conference. She was later asked, “What did you think of the conference?” Academics love creating committees, coming up with high minding sounding statements which they trumpet as being significant. History is littered with such ideologist statements. They have no backbone. They have no passion. They have followup. They’re just words which disappear into the wind. True compassion happens outside the ivory walls. The idiot twins of American idealism Here is another thought-provoking essay from Spengler: this time on American Foreign Policy: Former president George W Bush thought that the United States could turn Kabul into Peoria, the archetypal American city in the state of Illinois. President Barack Obama thinks that Kabul is just as good as Peoria. America has shed idealist delusion - that imposing the outward form of democracy in Iraq or Afghanistan would implant its content - in favor of an even stranger delusion, which refuses "to elevate one nation or group of people over another", as Obama told the United Nations on September 23.
It was mad to believe that America could remake the world in its own image. Given that more than half the world's languages will go extinct for lack of interest during the present century, it is even madder to turn foreign policy into an affirmative action program for disadvantaged cultures. But those are the idiot twins of American idealism: either one size fits all, or size doesn't matter. I do not propose to draw a moral equivalence between presidents Bush and Obama: Bush wanted to elevate American Power and Obama wants to diminish it. Bush had better motives, but he was no less destructive of American influence. America, says Spengler, has been lacking in Foreign Policy Realism.
Confucius
见贤思齐焉；见不贤而内自省也。
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