HyLite School has dedicated a wall to the greatest trainers and study assistants in all of World ESLdom.

Workman are at the school posting poster of the trainers on the walls.  Here is my poster.

I took this photo with my mobile phone.  If it was in better focus, you would see how terrible I look.

After his extremely controversial Duvet Cover purchase, many observers wrote Gary off.  No one would elect him garbage collector they said.  But after making the Best Best Man Speech, Gary has elevated himself to the elite level of Wuxi Expatdom.  Gary, King of the Wuxi Expats, would go along well with the title he has just earned: Oratus Excellentemostius.

Pros:  Gary, who look likes Winston Churchill in the above photo, seems to be following a similar life path as Churchill.  Churchill was always known as a great orator but there were times when no one would have anything to do with him.  But then in the darkest hour, Churchill was the man to save the day.  In the upcoming dark days of August 2007, where our great King will leave us stranded without hope and light for an entire month to visit Canada, Patterson would seem to be the man of the moment.  Patterson with his great oratory abilities could surely rally a despondent Wuxi Expat Community looking for hope and guidance.

Cons:  Wuxi Expatdom may not be worthy of his greatness.  Also, Gary has a lot of questionable vices that are questionable even by the standards of Wuxi Expats.

I took this photo near Parksons with my mobile phone.

I asked my wife to translate what was on the sheet.  She told me it ran along these lines:

I am a teacher. My husband lost his job.  Looking for a job in Wuxi, my husband was killed by a hit and run driver.  I came here for the funeral.  I spend all my money on the funeral.  Now, I don't have enough money to go back home.

Fred from Oregon, USA is the most handsome of the WuxiLife triumvirate.  He is taller than the other two and he has long flowing hair.  He is the most photogenic candidate to be profiled to date.

Pros:  His dreamboat looks will certainly attract tourists to the Wuxi area.  Character wise, he possesses gravitas.

Cons: It would be a shame to see that gorgeous hair covered with a crown.  No one knows what gravitas is.  The actual King of Wuxi would probably want to dip his fries in it.

As you can see, I have, so far, nominated four people for the post of King of Wuxi for August 2007.  I have many more profiles to do, but my social circle in Wuxi is shrinking because I have a child coming in late August and so I don't meet as many people as I used.  So if you, rare reader, know of someone who would be an excellent candidate for King of Wuxi August 2007, please send me an email (akaulins@gmail.com) with the candidate's photo and a profile in the format I have so far used.  Thank you.  All reasonable and tasteful  submissions will be published.

Adam, the second member of the Wuxi Life Triumvirate and a long time Wuxi Expat makes an excellent candidate for August King of Wuxi as well.

Pros:  Adam possesses the administrative and logistical talents of a Napoleon.  He also has his own crown to wear.  His face has a 52% resemblance to LL Cool J.

Cons:  Adam is also short like Napoleon and so would have a difficult time climbing in the Throne.  His wife is also using his crown to hang laundry currently, and Adam will have a hard time convincing Amanda to let him wear it for the month.

Dennis is a trainer at HyLite.  The sound of Dennis, King of the Wuxi Expats has a nice ring to it.  Here is Dennis with me at my bachelor party

Pros:  Dennis is Irish which makes him a refreshing change from a Scotsman.  Dennis can drink you under the table, arm wrestle your arms off and shot you dead at Billiards.

Cons: Dennis's many talents make all the other Expats jealous of him.  Dennis is Irish so making him King of Wuxi will make him want to take everybody on in a Donnybrook.

Niels, from WuxiLife, is a natural candidate to fill the throne of the King of Wuxi.  He is a member of the Wuxi Life Triumvirate and so a respected member of the Wuxi Expat Community.  Below, He and the King of Wuxi engage in a strange ritual called the packaged food transfer.

Pros:  He has spent a long time in Wuxi.  He started Wuxi Life.  He is a moderator of the Wuxi Life website. He is from Denmark, a country that shares the Baltic sea with the great country of Latvia. Denmark is also home to Soreen Kierkergaard - a cool name for a philosopher.  He gives AKIC extra hits by linking it on WuxiLife.  Hamlet was Danish.  He is not married.

Cons:  He supports Danish subjugation of Hans Island, recently liberated personally by the reigning King of Wuxi.  Denmark is not Latvia.  He is the moderator on the Wuxi Life website.  He drinks too much or maybe he does not drink enough.  He either has questionable sexual practices or he does not.  He last year quashed an attempt at Star Trek Democracy.  He is not married.  He sometimes wears an Ottawa Senators shirt.

Why not Luis as the King of Wuxi for August?

Pros:  Luis is snappy dresser.  Luis is an accomplished video maker.  Luis is a blogger. Luis is almost responsible.  Luis is Canadian.  Luis has got the attitude.

Cons: Luis does not drink enough.  Luis makes a better Prince.  Luis is from Eastern Canada.  Luis thinks the time is right for a woman to be King of Wuxi.  Luis likes Hip Hop. 

The King of Wuxi will be paying a month long visit to Canada in August.  For all Wuxi Expats, its raises the question of who will be their temporary on-the-ground soverign in his majesty's stead.  AKIC spaces lives will feature a series of profiles over the next few days of potential pretenders to the crown in hopes of helping Wuxi Expats with this serious conundrum.

We have two Students this Summer named Stella:

Kowalski: Hey, Stella!

Eunice: You quit that howling down there and go to bed.

Kowalski: Eunice, I want my girl down here.

Eunice: You shut-up. You're going to get the law on you.

Kowalski: Hey, Stella!!

Eunice: You can’t beat on a woman an then call her back 'cause she ain't gonna come. And her going to have a baby!

Kowalski: Listen, Eunice.

Eunice: I hope they haul you in and turn a fire hose on you --

Kowalski: Eunice, I want my girl down here.

Eunice: -- like they done the last time. You stink!

Kowalski: Hey, Stellllaaaa!!! Hey, Stellaaaa!!

Change your hair style; change your life style; change your attitude?  With Tony on the way, I should give it a try.

This is the before photo.  My hair is so long, I should have been called Mrs. Kaulins.

This is the after photo.

Now, I don't look like a girl.  The wife also says the bald spots don't stand out as much.   It also scares kids away.

Ponquenet has uploaded another video of the legendary Patterson Best Man Speech to Youtube.

Here is my latest Youtube Video.

Monday, Monday for me.

Taiwan Jimmy and HyLite Miriam will be leaving Wuxi.  So, Thursday night at the Blue Bar is when we can all say good bye to them.

They will both be missed.

Here are some building photos I took when we went to get our medicals done yesterday.

I am forever amazed at the quantity and the size of all the government buildings and complexes in Wuxi.

Here are four photos taken with my Nokia 6085 mobile phone in order of interestingness:

My wife hates the above photo.  I think it is awesome.

Why buy a car?  One of these cart thingies is cheaper and it can also make you some money.

Pregnancy does things to men too:

In the last photo, I did not do very well when the wife decided to do a 400 AM change baby's diapers practice drill.

Is this:  an eclipse of the sun or where my money went in the days I bothered to pay taxes?

This photo  was not taken at my medical this morning.

Professor Terry Pickett and I were talking about bus routes last night.  We learned that we both rode the #81 bus route which takes one to Xihui Park and the old Carrefour.  The Professor said that when he first rode that route it was designated the #801.  Interesting.

But I bet if you talk to old-time Wuxi Expats like the King of Wuxi and Lord Black, they will tell you stories of how when they started riding the buses, they were riding the #80001 before it became the #81,  the #96 before it became the #69,  the #666 before it became the #66, and the #26, #34, and #132 before they became the #13, #17 and #66 respectively.  As well, they will tell you that in their day, the buses were not air-conditioned and there was no way you could get sliced bacon or decent bread anywhere in Wuxi.  They will also tell you stories about how it used to be cool to whip the help.

This is from JD's June diary.  The whole diary can be read here.

I had an email from a reader, to the following effect:

Mr. Derbyshire—I will be spending two weeks in Beijing.  I am very allergic to nuts. For several decades, I have been able to scrutinize my food or have been able to ask English‑speaking waiters about the contents of the food prepared.  It did not dawn on me until now that I will not be able to ask this all important question.  Can you help?  I need to know how to ask, ‘are there nuts in this food?’  It may sound silly, but if I can't get an answer, I will be going on a two week diet.  Any advice is greatly appreciated.”

A number of problems occurred to me right away, of a semantic, phonetic, and social nature.

Semantic.   The word “nut” does not map well into Chinese.  Peanuts, for example, are not nuts in that language.  The dictionary translation of “nut” is jian-rer, which literally means “hard kernels,” but which includes things like peach and plum pits.  Furthermore, those latter fruit pits (and some others, I am sure) are used in Chinese food preparation.  Any animal or vegetable matter is liable to be used in Chinese food preparation.

Phonetic.  The phonetics of spoken Chinese differ radically from English phonetics, in ways the phonetics of European languages don’t.  Without special training in making Chinese sounds, you simply won’t be understood in Chinese.  (This is not to mention the dialect issue—which, since my reader is only going to Beijing, doesn’t figure here.)

This is why early European visitors to China could not hold Chinese words in their heads.  Even when some utterly unfamiliar feature of Chinese life needed a word to identify it in the traveler’s language, more often than not he didn’t use a Chinese word.  “Mandarin” is a Hindi word, as is “coolie.”  (The Chinese ku-li is a back-formation.)  “Joss” is from Latin deus via Portuguese;  “paddy,” as in “paddy-field,” comes from Malay; and so on.

Social.  Even if a foreigner can speak tolerably good Chinese, some Chinese people still have a mental block against processing Chinese-language input from a foreigner.  Several times in China I have had the experience of addressing people in my tolerably-good Chinese, only to have them squint incredulously at me, turn to each other, say something like: “The foreigner sounds as if he’s speaking in Chinese.  Is he?”  “Yes, I think so.  It sure sounded like that.  Is that the weirdest thing you ever saw, or what?” then burst out laughing.  Round-eye acquaintances whose Chinese is far better than mine report the same thing.  This is likely a vanishing feature of the old, isolated China, however, and probably wouldn’t happen in a sophisticated, foreigner-rich environment like modern Beijing.

The wife and I are not that much in disagreement about how long she has been pregnant if you do the percentages.  Still, I am more right.  By the wife's reckoning, she is 8.5 out of ten months pregnant (Each month being exactly 4 weeks for her) or 85 percent on the way there.  By my calculations, she is 7.5 out of nine months preggers or 83.3 percent done with it.  Now I will do the math for you Michael Moore fans: 85 minus 83.3 is 1.7.  Now being the magnanimous sort when victorious I will begrudge the wife her 1.7 percent.

I will never forget the day we made the baby.  We went to the Great Wall, the Summer Palace, Wanfujian, Tiananmen Square, Kunming, Xian, Xuzhou, Suzhou, Taixing, Jiangyin, Chengdu, Abbotsford, Vancouver, Seattle, Chicago, Hong Kong Disneyland, The Taj Mahal and Xihui Park.  We also ate Roast Duck and Steak.

Jimmy from Taiwan tells everyone to come out to the Blue Bar on Thursday night for his last night in Wuxi.