Chinese Parent/Teacher interview

Why Chen Does not Play on any Teams

As a Principal in Jinhua, China...

I did not schedule parent/teacher interviews at the end of semester two for all of the parents this year because I felt that it was totally unnecessary.  My reason was what I term the 6% factor.  My experience back in Canada with Chinese parents, although positive in a different way, always led down the same rabbit hole.

In such interviews (at St Mary’s High School in Kitchener) the mother, never the father, invariable asks of me: How can Chen do better?  (If in fact her son’s name is really Chen).

I feign a cough, avert my eyes, enabling me to roll them and say, “But your son did score 94% on his economics exam and by every measure that we hold holy in the Commonwealth and the entire Dominion of Canada that is actually considered by most to be an excellent grade.”

“Yes, the mother says with some degree of patience in her voice, “But what happened to the other 6% of his mark?”

You see the 6% factor.

I mildly grind my teeth and tense my muscles since I have gone through this particular drill many times before and I have already, in my mind, raced ahead of the interview and am thinking, “Holy mother of Jesus is she not listening, or does she just want to wring every last ounce of individualism, joy, free time and spirit ourt of this poor kid?”

Instead, I smile and say, “What does Chen do for fun after school?  Is he on any teams?”

The mother is likely thinking at this point, as she too has probably gone through this process with teachers many times before at other times in other schools, “Holy father of Confucius, is this man dense...is this not a simple straight forward question, not some mystic Taoist  enigma.”  She looks sideways and gives a gentle, polite cough.

We share a moment of quiet across the desk and stare at each other for a brief moment in time.

If I wore a tie I would now straighten it.  I do sit straight, impeccable posture lends credibility.  I endeavor to explain to the mother that the so called missing marks are what I call located in a matrix called the holistic ether in what educators term the vague but otherwise nebulous place that can only be reached by clicking your pedagogical heals three times thereby expanding the soul outward in widening spirals in a quest for knowledge and insight often away from the core curriculum and in the ultimate quest of becoming a diverse student, and only then will the glory and radiance of the missing 6% show itself and shine down and bless Chen with ultimate perfection and insight, or you know words to that effect.  Chen is an unfolding hyperbola and is always approaching yet never reaching the point where ying intersects yang or the nirvanic bliss of Tom and Jerry.  I say this with a straight face.  I do not smile.  This is after all a Catholic school, so I make the sign of the cross.  The mother goes away perplexed yet hopeful.

So, you can see I did not schedule interviews with the parents of 246 students simply to avoid this type of no win situations in which over zealous parents force the limits of diminishing returns and hope to achieve perfection in their children.

To me it is like smuggling tea from Jinhua to Shanghai.  You can do it, but why bother.  Chinese parents often seem unable to receive kudos for their children and always demand more.  There is too much pressure on kids to perform.  They tend to lose their childhood in the process.

Instead I met with the parents of the few students who were actually struggling, or actually failing a course.  I thought I could help them.  I thought my time and theirs would be better spent. 

Life in China

Life in China: Shopping

It was a perfect day in the neighbourhood even though the temperature this morning was zero the significant factor was the absence of rain. It had stopped raining, there was no precipitation.  We could come out of our little hole and squint and marvel at the sun.  It was also scooter weather, but first coffee.  

We had brought several pounds of black gold, President’s Choice coffee from far off Canada, Zehrs in fact.  Let me get ahead of myself, it is now evening and we are preparing a dinner of Mennonite smoked pork sausages from Detweiller’s.  We packed them frozen in a collapsible freezer poach inside Cheryl’s suitcase and lied to every customs official we could about not carrying any food across international borders.  “No Sir, no food, none, nothing, not a morsel.”  Off course when our tiny reserve of coffee and sausage runs out we may revert to primitive ways. 

 Have you ever seen that movie about the soccer team whose plane crashes in the Andes.  I’ll say no more. We also brought our spices, dried soup mixes, over the counter drugs, oven mitts, garbage bags, protein bars and protein shakes, DVD movies and much more.  Yes, the DVD pirated movies available also across the counter in China, although of relatively good quality are mainly action adventure movies with aimless chase scenes, gratuities sex, no dialogue and lots of killing.  We are more into the “Sleepless in Seattle” theme and therefore the numerous downloads, hard drives and DVD’s in our luggage, if nothing else we watch lots of TV. 

 Okay so we had our coffee now when Matt, a teacher at CTC and his wife Van, ask us to meet them downtown in front of Walmart to go to a Japanese restaurant for lunch.  We quickly check our social calendar and see that it is blank for March and so quickly agree.  The sun is still shining and it is therefore still not raining.  This is after all a semi-tropical monsoon climate.  We bring our back pack, with reusable shopping bags, grab our yellow and orange helmets which are not CSA approved and head for the parking area below the building where our mighty SNOW brand electric scooter as been patiently waiting for the past month. 

 I fire up the engine, powered by the many highly polluting lead batteries, it makes not a sound, even in motion the scooter is like a stealth bomber.  As a pedestrian I tend to hate scooters because they can silently come up behind you and scare the hell out of you.  As a driver I love scooters because you can silently drive up behind pedestrians and scare the hell out of them.

 I have written about the zen of scooting before, but my ying and yang is out of sync with the universe because I have not driven for a month, none the less I soon learn to warp and weave and flow with the motion.  I am a molecule in turbulent waters and I feel free.  Best of all we did not have to have my secretary call a taxi for us to get down town.  the scooter is our freedom machine in china.  Unlike chinese I adhere to basic courtesy, random rules of the road and signal lights when in my favour.  We meet Van and Matt and they escort us over to the Japanese restaurant staffed by Chinese and full of Chinese.  We are the only westerners and people briefly look up and stare.  Van is actually Chinese and she helps us order.  I go for the picture menu with Matt, who like me does not like fish, raw fish, the smell of fish, fish bones, or the sea.  

Food is placed on an assembly line and travels the oblong counter.  Van and Cheryl dig in and have squid, sea weed, octopus, eel, prawns, dumplings made with tofu and numerous other things I could not identify.  Matt and I wanted to sneak out to Pizza Hut but we had beef over fried rice and vegetables with onions.  It was a great meal after we went to and I am ashamed to admit that we shop with regularity at Wal Mart but we do, where we bought some groceries.  Today we scored big and found cheese.  Yes, Jinhua, our city has no cheese, there are few cows in China, most of them defected or died on the long March with Mao.  

We quickly phoned Mat and Van and told them to come to the dairy section to get some mild cheddar cheese as it was going fast, mainly because we were buying it all and if they didn’t come we would have it all.  The meat department at Wal Mart looks like a pet store mainly because everything for sale is still alive: eels, turtles, fish, frogs and other of God’s creatures that I have not as yet identified but may originated from the Galapogos Islands.  

Cheryl got some fruit and it all has to be weighed.  Sadly this is a culture that does not know how to queue.  It is basically every man for himself.  I would have thought communism would have taught certain lessons concerning the greater good, but apparently this is but another urban myth, so Cheryl taught them lessons in Q etiquette. One man she noted had been waiting a long time to have his produce weighed while others pushed in front.  There was a pack of people with Cheryl in the middle. Like a traffic cop with white gloves she raised both arms effectively blocking the crowd and in particular a pushie Chinese women with water chestnuts and lotus root. 

Cheryl pushed her bags aside allowing the first this lone outlier and his vegetables and Cheryl to get her things weighed.  After followed a flurry of what may have been vindictive Chinese as the pack fell upon itself in a self destructive fury.  We paid for our groceries at cashier 12.  I always have to mime that I want bags and Cheryl always has to prevent them from over fillings the bags.  It takes two. It really does.  Walmart is a subterranean cavernous structure literally build underground and we take the escalator to the surface.  I often have a panic anxiety attack thinking what would ever happen to us if the escalator just stopped.  Think about it.  We got to our bike parked in an area with 400 similar looking bikes.  Here we reposition our groceries into the various compartments on the bike ie under the seat and the little truck behind the passenger, there is a bag holder and some things fit on the floor between my legs. 

missing you

missing you

if i could paint a wall

i could watch it dry

if i stare at bamboo

long enough i can

see it grow, but if i 

watch

clouds closely

 i can 

see your face

    and hope

the wind never erases

your image

  i’m missing you

Life in China

Conspiracy Theory and Rejection Reality

The first time I travelled to Shanghai now seems an eternity away, but by the Gregorian calendar on my desk it was only on the last National Chinese holiday. Then as now I was impressed with the fast trains and although it is about 350 km from Jinhua to Shanghai it still takes about three hours to make the trip because of the five stops along the way, including Yiwu and the capital city of Hongzhou.  That makes for an unimpressive average speed although the read out above each car door tells the passengers the top speeds and on this trip we were humming along at 238 km/hr about fifty feet above the landscape on a massive concrete causeway that stretched almost the entire distance from point of origin to my destination city. 

The Chinese made the Great Wall, which by the way can not be seen from space any better than our highway 401; they also built the Great “Firewall” which blocks all internet contact with the outside world, truly another marvel of modern technology and they have built an elaborate infrastructure for their fast train network.  Did I also mention they have already orbited astronauts around the planet that we share, will circle the moon and soon land on it.  How does one say “One small step for mankind...” in Chinese. My how “the times they are a changing”.

On this trip I had made reservations in the Seventh Heaven Hotel on the Nanging Road in central Shanghai.  This according to my google map, the Lonely Planet and Agoda my hotel booking site tells me that it is in the hub of the action in this cosmopolitan world class city.  I figured if “Cloud Nine” was a good mental place to be then a hotel called “Seventh Heaven” should be right up there, excuse the pun.  

It wasn’t. 

It is a Chinese hotel, but it did have western toilets for which I was forever grateful.  I was on the 16th floor and looking down on the busy street far below people looked like a swarm of ants.  I packed my back pack to join the swarm.  

Being tall, white, single, and western I stand out as a target. Immediately I was approached by a man who flashed me a card picturing various electronics and asked me in Ginglish if I wanted to buy anything.  Not being in the market for an  i-pod, cell phone, laptop, or GPS, I passed up on his offer. 

Quickly seeing that I was not interested he asked, “Massage?”  He took out another card that did not feature any electronic items what-so-ever.  Pictured were what appeared to be professional, licensed and well trained masseuses. Not being born yesterday, and given my wide range of experience when it comes to massage and things of this nature I immediately declined his offer of a massage, as I knew at a glance that these girls in the pictures were not certified by any North American standard, and that any massage they had to offer would clearly be sub standard and of a non-therapeutic value. I was not so easily fooled! 

As the young Chinese man held the card with the pictures of the women and noting my hesitancy, he added, as if for encouragement or emphasis, “Sex Massage.”  My mind raced, Oh I get it and I bet all those electronic devices were also pirated clones of the originals.  This guy was clearly not as advertised.  My spider senses were on full alert. This situation reminded me of that lovely girl I met on the streets of Honolulu who said she only wanted a coffee and a chat, or that blond in Buffalo with the mini skirt, wasn’t even real leather, or that redhead during spring vacation in Fort Lauderdale who said she needed to get out of the sun would I join her, well you get the idea.  

Fortunately, growing up Mennonite has prepared me for these situations and I proceeded to walk along Nanging Road toward the South Bund, but before getting there a distance of about a km I had been offered a range of electronics and women enough to stock my own store and fulfill a life time of fantasies.  

Out in the streets I was jostled by the teaming millions, or at least they teamed by the hundreds of thousands.  I read that about 18 million people had left the city for the holiday but about the same number arrived, but concentrated around the core of the city making for an explosion of population thereby making Shanghai one of the most densely populated places on Earth, at least for the week I was there.

I sought solace and refuge at a sidewalk bar which kept most people away by virtue of its high prices.  I ordered a Corona.  It came with a lemon not a lime, but I didn’t really care.  I sat there and nursed my drink and watched as the crowds streamed by thousands in both directions.  I felt a stirring on my foot and was abruptly brought to my senses.  A shoeshine guy with his box of trade kneeled at my feet ready to attend me.  I wanted to be left alone.  I was wearing suede shoes.  Who shines suede shoes? Apparently this guy did and he started right in.  

“No, don’t worry, I no charge you.  I have five children and I can’t find another job, but you not pay me for the shine.”

I could see where this line of rhetoric was going.  I tried to pull my foot back but he was too quick for me and held my ankle in a vise like grip as he looked up at me and smiled.  “You pay only what you want.  I have no job.  I shine shoes.  I have five kids.”

Bullshit had this guy not heard of the one child policy.  Who the hell has five kids in China?  “Listen I have 6 kids and I don’t want by shoes shined, now let me get back to my Corona. You get back to your five kids and leave me alone.” 

I gave him 15 yuan for doing nothing and he insisted on 100 (about 16 Cnd) his English suddenly improving as we faced off.  I looked him in the eye and calmly said, “There is no fucking way I am giving you 100 yuan for not shining my shoes, take this and go shine your own fucking shoes.”

He went.

I know, language Marty, what were you thinking, but it was hot, I was annoyed, okay it wasn’t justified.  I get it. I have my regrets.

I drank my beer, now warm, in mouldering, festering anger.  Five kids my ass.  But now I was really in the “holiday mood” so I moved on.

The same scam was tried on me about a dozen times between the shoe shine show down and the Bund.  It was either electronics or sex massage, or both maybe some enterpriser was selling electronic sex toys, but I never found out.  It was hot.  My nerves were frayed being jostled around in the crowds.  It took over a hundred soldiers to regulate the crowds crossing the streets at each intersection.  The place was insane.

I felt a tug at my elbow.  My kids may get away with pulling my elbow, but no one else pulls my elbow.  “I heard the words that threw me over the edge and into the black abyss. I heard the phrase, “Sex Massage mister”. 

I turned with my full force ready to look eye to eye with my solicitor only to realize he was about a foot and half shorter; so I had to look down.  I practically yelled at the little guy. “Sex massage, do I look like I want a fucking sex massage...no, NO, NO.  A thousand times NO!”

I guess it wasn’t a case of practically yelling.  I yelled and the crowd looked in my direction ... the crazy Westerner in their midst and while I couldn’t actually read their thought bubbles above their heads because I was not in a cartoon, but something felt surreal about the situation, I knew what they might be thinking.

I was so pissed.  The little guy fled the scene and I walked on through the crowd seeking oblivion not really watching where I was going.  I finally reached the Bund and stood in front of a massive statue of Chairman Mao wearing a great coat and smiling at the crowds.  He looked content like he had just had a sex massage, in fact, and I was beginning to think that maybe I needed one too, or at least a shoe shine.  It might calm me down.

“Chairman Mao,” I said talking to the statue trying not to move my lips so no one could tell that I was going mad.  “What happened to the Revolution?” Is this where it all stops?  Is this what it all about...” I could have gone on but I thought I should stage my existential break down at a more suitable location and perhaps with a different icon.

The sun was intense and with the crowds I felt a little dizzy.  I was drowning in a sea of Chinese. I spotted a tour group of Westerners.  I craved their company. I approached them from the side and merged with them, only to discover that not all westerners speak English.  The Spanish for example do not.  I looked for another group.  I found one and struck up a conversation with a farmer from Scotland.  Not exactly English, but it would do.

He was retired and he and his wife were on a cruise with a stop in Shanghai and yes they were enjoying it and they had western food onboard but in the end the tour moved on and we said our good byes.  I felt such a strong connection in such a brief time.  it seemed like only minutes. He looked at me funny when I asked him to take me with him on board away from all of this and I pointed to the crowd.  He grabbed his wife and quickly walked away as if something had frightened him.

On the second day I was determined to see more of the city, stay in a good frame of mind despite the millions of tourists and just be in the moment.  You now “zen is as zen does”.  I don’t know if that is an actual quote, maybe Forest Gump might have said that, or I may have just made that up.  I walked in the opposite direction to The Peoples’ Park.  Okay, between the Seventh Heaven and the Park  I received 7 massage offers.  I stayed calm.  I did not lash out. (refer to my earlier article, Sept 2012, entitled “Anger Management and the Zen of Chinese Foot Massage”).   I crossed the street with the aid of the military.  Saw the beacon of life of all that is pure and holy in the western world and hopped into Starbucks for a latte. 

I was in good spirits. I walked up the stairs to the park. A young Chinese couple approached me.  “Could you please take our picture.  We are on our honeymoon and would like to have some memories.”

I was in a good zen frame of mind.  I took a moment and posed the couple, framed the picture beautifully and took a couple of shots.   

“How’s that for memories?”

“Where are you from?”

“Canada”

“Oh Canada, very cold.”

“More polite stereotypical conversation.”

“Would you like to join us for tea”?

RED FLAG

My staff had warned me that there was a scam afloat in Shanghai involving tea invitations and never accept one no matter what because you will end up paying for a very expensive tab at the end or worse.  I didn’t know what that meant and I didn’t want to find out.

I was still holding my Starbucks latte and said, “No, I’m good, not really a tea person, but thanks.”

I turned and disappeared into the park where another nice couple, actually a group of three asked if I would take their picture...they too invited me for tea.  Between Starbucks and the National Museum I had seven tea invitations.  I determined if I go south its electronics and sex, north is tea and over billing.  What lay east and west I did not know. 

In the park I passed the many rows of match makers.  I saw table after table with pictures of young men and women and intense negotiations taking place, no doubt over the marital future of the young people in the pictures.  Oddly there were only parents and match makers present.  No young people.  Conspiracy?

I walked on and reached the two hour line into the gallery where many of the nations historic art treasures were housed.

Instead of joining the line I thought I would sit in the shade with my book, one of the Bourne novels not actually written by Robert Ludlum.  I sat in the shade under the Banyan tree wondering if Robert Ludlum still lived and whether or not I should join the line in the blistering afternoon sun or just wait. 

 I waited. 

A street person came by, one of many in Shanghai, ironically I thought all people are equal in a socialist state but some are more equal than others.  He gestured with his hand placing it to his mouth indicating he was hungry.  I could have given him money, instead I opened my backpack and gave him the three bananas I had bought from a street vendor the day before.  I guess they had been a little bruised while riding in my pack. The beggar examined them closely and then by whatever standard, he rejected them out right and handed them back to me and moved on.  

“What the...I muttered under my breath in bewilderment.  What manner of beggar is this who refuses my sustenance.  I get all olde English Shakespearean when I am confused.  Just a thing I do. Rejected.

As I left the museum I was approached by a nice couple asking if I would take their picture.  Politely I replied, “How many pictures do you need today? 

I walked towards a huge water fountain at the center of the park outside the museum where children ran in the water as they flew kites with long red tails that drifted in the breeze. I was transfixed by the beautiful site of the colourful kites and the laughing children when I was approached yet again.

“Hi, could you please take our picture.”  The well dressed young couple eagerly held their camera out to me. 

I smiled.

I had a moment to decide would the camera go into the fountain, or would I do the morally right thing.  I chose the high road.

“No I can’t and won’t take your picture, but since this is your honeymoon no doubt, I can tell you where to get a great sex massage.”

I smiled and walked away fervently hoping they actually were part of the greater Chinese tea conspiracy.

Marty

Men as Shoppers

This story appeared in the Globe and Mail on March 1 2017

Men as Shoppers or Hunter Gatherers

Males as shoppers is almost an exercise in futility.  I don’t intend to betray my gender but I have to say there are a few observations I feel compelled to share along with the odd universal truth about men in the market place.  Bare with me as I explain a few facts about the male shopper.

First, and foremost if you haven’t already noticed, and I guess my audience now is mainly the opposite sex, men don’t want to be there.  That is in the stores, the malls, especially the malls, window shopping, out there aimlessly walking.  It is a painful and meaningless experience for most.  

I now work in a men’s clothing store and as such I have crossed borders and have a slightly different perspective on the subject.  I see couples arrive in the shop.  The men look agitated, some of the women do too.  Sometimes frayed at the edges, a touch haggard.  I greet them as up beat as possible.

“Good Afternoon/evening may I help you find something you will absolutely love?”

 The man is a mute.

The wife says, “I am looking to dress my husband.”

After a pause she adds, “If I didn’t pick out his clothes he would probably go naked.”

I am sensing tension.

I inquire, “What would you like to see?”

The man struggles, he stutters, he pauses, looks at his left foot and finally says, as if in physical pain 

“Slacks.”

I see relief from his wife.  Her body language speaks volumes.  Her husband has spoken an English word in a clothing shop and has initiated the shopping process. This is all good.  It is like a break through in therapy, after the crisis comes progress. We may now proceed with some vigor in the selection of a pants.

Men I have discovered can not dress themselves, or at least not adequately.  General they do not even know what they want or need and unlike a woman can not discern a want from a need.  They are not up to the demands of the culture as they lack comprehension of style, form, function, co-ordination, colour, pattern sense and fit.  Women bare the burden of proof and must coax, and prod to achieve those first tentative steps toward wardrobe acquisition.  It does not come naturally for men.  It is their cross, their albatross, their perpetual burden to carry through life.

Men for example, will come in at noon  to get a black suit for a wedding or funeral to be held that same day and will often buy the first one they try on, which on one level is an example of time management skills and should be respected as such.  But is so wrong on so many other levels I don’t know where to begin.

Some men will not even enter the store and expect their wives to bring clothing selections curb side to the waiting car or home only to have a great proportion of them returned later.  

My rising star was a fifties something mechanic who met an exotic flower at the produce section of the local super market and asked her out on a date. He knew she was out of his league and so came in for a wardrobe to meet his needs.  But what he needed even more was my up lifting banter on how she was right for him, how he needed to go through on this date, how good he would look and how wonderful this could be if only he would believe in himself. I sold him several outfits but I sent that guy out with confidence to meet his lotus blossom from the distant city. That man needed more than clothing. 

Country men come in to be transformed by suit and tie as groomsmen in spring and summer weddings.  Miracles can happen.  We fit suits up to size 60.

Old men shop in traditional ways for their non-elastic socks and made in Canada Stanfield underwear.  Big and Tall 6X men come in for massive tent-like shirts and pants.

Certain men can even pull off the fedora or bowler hat look while others go the Tilly route or the “old man cap” with the cardigan sweater.  These all represent buying habits, in most cases, established through years of repetition with female assistance from mother to spouse until some men reach a level of pseudo independence.

“How does this look dear?”

“Whatever you think.” is the response as the wife tries to push the eaglet out of the nest.  She is whispering to herself, “Fly little bird fly”.

“Just pick one.”

“I hate shopping can we go now?”

A set back.

“Please don’t get me more pants.”

Distraction

“Go look for some more underwear, you know the kind you like.”

“Would you look at the label of what I’m wearing?”

I avert my eyes as we are in a public place and these are adults.

She seems to be giving her husband a wedgie but in fact is reading the label on the inner recesses of his under wear.

He gets back on the pant theme.

“I have a closet full of pants.  I only need three and can only wear one at a time (attempt at wit)...then an aside to me...”Every time we come in here she has me try on pants.  I’ll do it.  I just want to keep her happy.”

In the end its all about domestic peace.

“Now,” she adds, “Try on this polo top”. She attacks in small increments.  I see she is good at what she does.

“You know they will shrink a bit.” He tells her in an attempt to sound knowledgeable.

He goes into the change room.  There is a long silence followed by a crashing sound.

“Are you okay?”  His wife says, with no alarm in her voice, probably aware of his delaying tactics.

“Yeah, Yeah.”

“Can I come in?” she says as she opens the door to the changing room.  

I hear more commotion.  The wife comes out with the polo shirt and hands it to me simply says, “Its a no go.  He likes a really loose fit.”

She knows her man.

Eventually he comes out.  Proudly places one pair of black Wrangler jeans and a pair of Stanfield underwear on the counter and says in a definitive manly tone.  “I’ll take those.”

A man of action.

Bitter Sweet

Bitter Sweet

Time and reason stopped moving,

my hair was still wet

riding in a lost taxi, in a storm,

separating hopes from reality.

“That’s not my cello.” I said

to the driver.

He insisted Haiku has 17 syllables

swerving hard left

just missing the pan handler

and his black cat.

It is the rum runners

and swindlers with their knock

off purses who control

the market place.

The poets and singers delegated

to the alley ways

their thoughts discarded

by jaded politicians and their

double talk in fast time

spinning circumstances

counter clockwise

black is white

up is down

Alleluia

Dry Season...China

Dry Season

A calming walk along the river bank exposed after weeks of no rain, a long continuous row of willow trees lines the length of the park, roots seeking moisture from deep below. Scooters, bikes, walkers, old, young, families, all walk the inlaid stones and view the sluggish brown river below. The constant fisherman, some on flat rafts, others along the receding shore, it is the dry season now and they spend the day in futile design.  Young couples hand in hand oblivious, men in tense groups thrust cards to a small table, two brown poodles play on the grass, an old man crippled and bent walks with his wife every night, small boys play with their bubble machines, they eagerly run past my bench and stare at my strange western face, soon distracted they run along the path. The evening cools, its been such a long hot day.  The gardener brings out his record player, opera transcends the willows.  The dancers will soon arrive.

Chinese Washrooms...

A Cautionary Tale

One of the funny things, or highly bizarre and unusual in a very disquieting sense, about China of course has to be the state of public washrooms, in the women's’ washrooms, at least those in which there might be western style toilets, one might see a little warning sign above the toilet that looks something like a no smoking sign, the difference is the warning sign shows a picture of a toilet with an image of a woman squatting on it, and over all of that exquisite imagery is a red circle with a thick red line through it indicating-do not squat on a western toilet.  Never the less women of the non-squatting persuasion will still find footprints on the toilet seat where Chinese women have ignored the warning and gone about their habitual squatting ways.  They find that having contact with a toilet seat is not hygienic. Leaving footprints on the seat for the next woman does show some sort of disdain for the greater good, womanhood in general and hygiene in particular.

Meanwhile in the mens’ washrooms, where few men wash, as there is rarely any soap, there are often pools of pee on the floor beneath the urinals.  Here the warning signs often ask men to step forward one more step (one small step for mankind...) with the supposed objective of increasing aim and accuracy for low pressure users and thereby avoiding spillage and the formation of urinary pools on public washroom floors.  In both cases, male or female, the washrooms come with a cautionary tale.

Trump/et A new word in the English Language

Trump/et  (homonym)  definition a fact presented in an argument, debate or discussion which when scrutinized by fact checking proves to have no basis in fact or reality.

Is There a Republican God? ...Revised

Is there a Republican God?

I had a religious epiphany on the road to Damascus today.  Actually it was a weird insight while driving home from work on Margaret Avenue this evening.  

I have been thinking about politics of late, mainly because of the insane results of the recent  American presidential election.  You would think that for a two billion dollar investment in campaigning, manipulating the mass media and the masses one would be able to come up with much better results, but sadly it is what it is.  

During the brief two year lead time to the election I listened to much of the rhetoric, cons, lies, promises and misdeeds that make up a political platform.  Some of this rhetoric and quick retort has to do with religious issues, or moral ones at least, such as the right to abortion and the woman’s right to have domain over her own body, capital punishment, war and aggression, immigration, terrorism, education, gun control, gay rights, and universal health care. However, the religious right takes any or all of these issues and more and associates these causes with not only God but country as well.  In America it is a package deal.  

Is God a patriot I began to wonder. Further I conjectured, if two Christian countries go to war, whose side is God on, given that each side prays to the same God for victory.  My thoughts began to race as I drove home and eventually they drifted toward the idea that  the craziness that has become part of the Republican mainline is Bible based and these same born again believers are often patriotic war mongers. People who believe in God, Country and Foxe News and grapple with evolution, global warming and other subtle facets of reality.  I mean the Maldives and Miami are under water and Republicans believe they can “walk on water” because God said there would never be another flood. Christians or just idiots?

For example, Gay rights have actually been subverted into religious rights for those who do not wish to serve Gays. If the Republicans are so God fearing and  their Christian beliefs are so bent and distorted, I can only conclude that in good conscious I  can no longer believe in God if Republicans do. Republicans give God a bad name.

Republicans are just killing religion for me with their hypocrisy, narrow mindedness and cruelty.  They have no love of humankind. Or, do I have this all wrong?  Is the manipulation of religion in God’s name all about power and control to achieve a political agenda? 

Religion is simply a guise.  

Let me rethink this tomorrow as I drive home.

The Sound of Crickets

The Sound of the Crickets

Sports Day is a big event at Jinhua No 1 High School, so much so that the Day is actually an event which stretches over a three day period.  The students have been in active training since early September when they jog past my apartment window at 6 o’clock in the morning in military precision before I have even had my first cup of President’s Choice coffee.  They catch me at a disadvantage even though I hold the high ground. 

In the spirit of camaraderie, brotherhood, solidarity and for the greater good I vow that (one day)I will enter into intensive training and prepare myself for the staff event at sports day.  It is incumbent upon me to bring honour to my country and show these little morning joggers a thing or two about running.  To my horror I discover that some of these students are near world class runners and can do the 100 m in under 12 seconds. I am relieved to know I will be running against only Chinese staff who live on nothing but rice and vegetables and have short legs.  

I cleverly begin my fitness regime after hours when the students are locked into their dorms and I have free and open access to the track and walkways where I can leisurely walk, go by the canteen, pick up an ice cream cone and work out.  I do this for three nights before the big race and am fairly confident of my level of preparedness. As I know I am fated to set a record of sorts on the appointed day.

When Harriet, our office secretary, placed the sign-up list for the race in the staffroom it remained ominously blank for several days.  No one was willing to pick up the gauntlet. Terence, a former high school football player was first to sign and so I quickly signed and encouraged the others to as well.  We had five runners.  The Chinese, as always, had us out numbered.  Terence planned to finish last.  I devised plans of intimidating our rivals through a series of false starts and screaming, “I float like a butterfly, I sting like a bee.”  

On the day of the race the stands were full.  I had on my Canada t-shirt (made in China) my Nikes (made in China) and my nylon super light running shorts (made in China).  Pius was running in bare feet.  He is from Nigeria and he says that’s how he ran as a child in the villages.  Terence had his football jersey from high school on and looked imposing, Melanie had pink tights and had more of a Tinker-bell air about her, like she would fly to the finish. 

I watched the first round, batch, heat, group of runners, whatever they are called, all staff, and I have to say lightening fast would describe them, especially the one who taught Phys Ed.  He travelled at warp speed.  I took an immediate dislike to him.

Our turn came. The anticipation had been intense.  I was well hydrated and confident in my training. My shoe laces were tied with a double knot.  I bent down, placed my feet in the starting blocks and nearly lost my balance.  I calmly looked up and down my row.  I breathed deeply.  As in e-biking, I was in my moment and found my focus.  I was one with my environment.  I could hear crickets chirping on a distant mountain top.  I was ready to rip.  

The starter raised his gun and I took that moment in time to I step forward.  I walked toward the crowd, jumped up and down, raised my arms and they stood and either cheered or jeered, there is a subtle difference, but the sound is very much the same.  I got back in line.  

The starter seemed to aim the pistol at my head this time.  I looked down the pebbled track toward the distant finish-line and imagined myself there.  The gun fired, the adrenaline rushed and I was off like Jack the bear in Disney land on the fourth of July.  It was exhilarating.  I was in the lead.  I could hear the deafening sound of the crowds, there were no crickets.  My mind and body functioned as a well oiled machine until the very moment, despite my training, the ice cream, my walks, when my legs turned to cement.  By sheer will power I forced my legs to keep moving.  Lift damn you.  Lift.  Move.  Move. My body was betraying my iron will.  I crossed the finish line mere strides ahead of barefoot Pius and meters behind every single Chinese teacher.

My heart was racing, but I shook each runners hand.  I checked my time and surely the Gods were with me as I had indeed set a record as the first “over 60’s western administrator” to do the 100 m dash in just over 20 seconds.  I turned my face to the sun.    I basked in the glory. I smiled at the adoring crowds and vomited. 

Trump and Walls ...

Fences


in 1985 Canadian poet Joy Kogawa
wrote a poem entitled Where There’s a Wall.

Where there’s a wall
there’s a way through a
gate or door.  There’s even
a ladder perhaps and a
sentinel who sometimes sleeps.
There are secret passwords you
can over hear.  There are methods
of torture for extracting clues
to maps of underground passages.
There are zeppelins, helicopters,
rockets, bombs, battering rams,
armies with trumpets whose
all at once blast shatters
the foundations...

Where there’s a wall there are
words to whisper by loose bricks,
wailing prayers to utter, birds
to carry messages taped to their feet
There are letters to be written-
poems even.

Faint as in a dream
is the voice that calls
from the belly

of the wall.

Robert Frost, who spoke at the inauguration of John F Kennedy, once said that “Fences build good neighbors”.  It was a signature line in a poem set in a pastoral setting.  This line resonants with me as I think to January when another president will be inaugurated.  Trump has also spoken, although less eloquently, on the issue of fences or walls and their relationship with neighbors.  I believe Trump in his own way believes what Frost says in his poem about making good neighbors, yet he speaks from the point of view of an isolationist.

It has always been my view that when mediation fails, when negotiations fail, when all civilized form of reasoning and civility fail, then people, politicians, revel at building walls.

In an historical perspective from the Great Wall of China to the Berlin Wall and everything in between walls do not have a high success rate.  In terms of a cost benefit analysis their return on the dollar in terms of security is actually quite low.  Yet even today The Israelis have built a wall separating them from the Palestinians.  During the recent Olympics in Rio de Janeiro a wall was erected to prevent foreign tourists from seeing the extreme poverty in certain parts of the city as they made their way to various sport venues. 

Walls are the brick and mortar manifestation of social /political failures. Yet Trump has promised to build his wall separating Mexico from the continental United States.  let me tell you why this will fail...

It's just so fucked up on so many levels.  Any civilization that ever built a wall soon went into decline or was defeated by what ever lay on the other side of the wall.  The dirty little secret about walls is that people can go over them, under them or around them.  They are not impervious. 

Walls are an excellent means to delineate a border and thus avoiding border disputes as to who owns what, but even that is a bit iffie depending on who built the wall...when and where.  The Israelis for example have been condemned by the UN and international community, but not the United States, for the placement of their infamous wall.  All their wall does is create more tensions and breed more terrorists who grow up wanting to kill and destroy things like walls.

This is not an alternative fact but most of the illegal drugs and immigrants that come into the United States do so through existing border crossing points in some of the 5.5 millions trucks that pass through.  It would make more sense to "beef up" up security at these crossings rather than building a wall and charging a 20percent tax which ultimately hurts the American consumer and the American economy. This policy is similar to the process of shooting oneself in the foot.

For Trump to add insult to injury by insisting that somehow the Mexicans will also pay for the wall he and his government erects is particularly bizarre.  How this will take place is uncertain, as is the methodology in deporting 11 million people back across the wall.  These procedures may be precursors to impeachment and rebellion, but really its only a wall.  maybe they can dress it up with some well placed graffitti on both sides so we have something attractive to look at as we contemplate the political failure the wall will grow to represent.

When Emperor Hadrian came to power over the Roman Empire in 122 AD his empire had been shaken by rebellion in Egypt, Libya and Judea, much like today. The great leader took it upon himself to build a very strong wall.  It would be a great wall because he said he was really good at walls and maybe just maybe if he played his cards right he could get those rascally barbarian Picts to pay for the wall, but here, as with other historians I merely offer conjecture.  I think Hadrian just wanted to make the Empire great again!  

Also in the realm of conjecture is the reason(s) as to why Hadrian put so many valuable resources towards a wall.  Why not a series of forts, or move in the troop or just bomb them.  Some historians state that Hadrian built solely for defensive purposes.  Others feel it was actually a mechanism to control unwanted immigrants, while a third hypothesis is that it was built to control customs and therefore facilitate the collection of taxes.  Whatever the reason he did commission the building of a wall which varied in width over a distance of 80 Roman miles (117.5 km or 73 US miles), likely because it was a huge distraction.  You know the empire is in trouble let's do something to make everyone look the other way...much like the "Bread and Circuses" of Rome.  For Trump, today I suspect a case of "Wall Envy."  

The wall is a tourist attraction today.  Its purpose never clear.  Hadrian came and went as did many other leaders who later abandoned the wall.  The empire eventually fell.  The Picts crossed the wall and the silly bastards never paid for it!

"Something there is that doesn't love a wall..."

Robert Frost