The Cost Of Working Where I Work

Okay, for the purpose of memory, yours and especially mine, I am going to sum up the past three visa runs I've made from China to Korea and try to give you an idea of the level of frustration I have achieved in my quest for the oft-promised work visa. If you scroll back to my post entitled "Vacation 2017," that was in January. I had to get out of China for the second time since getting my business visa for my work at Renmin University. (not for, but AT)

I had a really great time with my friends in Korea, as I always do. And when I got back to China, I was still living in Beijing in the hostel where I couldn't cook or refrigerate anything. But I had already agreed, (while in Korea), to take a job in Taiyuan. So it could be said that this visa run/vacation allowed me to remain in China, move to Taiyuan and since I started working February 15th, it was the first time I paid to work for my new company. The trips to Taiyuan for interviews, moving, moving my stuff, ALL bills footed by me. The big one was paying the first three months of rent on my apartment. Again, no help from my employer. So I went broke in order to start working this job.

The March 2nd post, "New Place," was after I had been living in this apartment for about a month, and just a couple of weeks before my third visa run to Korea. My first from Taiyuan, but my second that would allow me to work in Taiyuan. I had finally made my apartment livable. It was not pretty when I moved in. That combined with the move and living for the first month in Taiyuan completely exhausted all my pay and holiday pay from Renmin.

On March 17th, I made another visa run. I had made a plea to management for help with this one. I cited all my expenses and told the second in command that I was flat broke. But payday was March 15th, (supposedly), and I was positive that I could cover the visa run with my first paycheck. Neither the help from management, NOR the paycheck came. I had to borrow money from the saintly HR co-ordinator, Faith, who had been instrumental in getting me settled in Taiyuan. So I stayed only two days in Korea and got back as soon as I could. I bought as little as I could in Korea too, just in case I didn't get paid as much as expected, or didn't get paid at all. This WAS a new company after all. The blog post, "Near Perfect Trip" describes how I was going to ask for a 4000 RMB advance on my end of contract plane fare. I did, and the request was ignored. The paycheck finally came, a week late, and it was only half a paycheck. You see, my new company does the old 2-week withholding of pay deal, (and, I'm sure I don't need to tell you that they don't mention it in their contract), so really, I was being paid in March for the 2 weeks I had worked in Feb. Nowhere near enough cash to pay Faith back, do a visa run to Hong Kong, for my work, (Z), visa, AND cover the next three months of rent, which would be due during that pay period.

So, it was arranged that I would be paid on April 10th, the FULL paycheck this time, and then I could go to HK and get my work visa. Well, in the mean time Faith and Samantha from HR both quit. I got a full paycheck, but it wasn't early and there was no visa run. Half of that paycheck went to cover my SECOND three months of rent and the rest went toward surviving another month. Some time around mid April I met the new HR rep. that was going to be doing Faith's job and would be in charge of negotiating my work visa. Her name was Miss Jang. I sent Faith a text about her saying, "She looks like she's in over her head." I also met Grace. She is the boss's P.A. And, I met the boss, Diana. I mentioned to every one of them how I needed to get out of the country by mid May and was hoping, practically BEGGING, that it would be on a Z visa run, NOT to re-re-REnew my business, (M), visa. Every one of them assured me there would be no problem. I think you probably know what's coming.

For the past month I have been HOUNDING all three of these ladies to the point of almost becoming obnoxious. The very last day, (May 18th), that I could be in the country of China without overstaying my business visa was fast approaching. I was frantically trying to find information on the visa run, the Chinese embassy in Hong Kong, hotels nearby, papers needed, flights, reservations, everything, I mean E VRE THENG was left up to me. All anyone else seemed like they were going to do was get my foreigner's work permit number and official letter of permission both dox from agencies I could not have gone to myself and both with company stamps on them. This will be important later in this tale of woe.

I started teaching the big boss, the owner, Diana, during this time. Grace also sits in on our classes as an emergency translator and a third participant in some exercises and games. I like Grace. She seems quite capable. And I am not hating teaching Diana. She's a great student! At the end of most classes I usually reminded them of my visa status and they both gave me updates and assurances that it was going to happen before May 18th. I found information on visa runs to HK VERY difficult to find. No real big surprise there. What I DID find describes the trip as a pain in the fundamental orifice! Evidently, the embassy is super picky about everything and applicants get refused for little things one at a time. Like the Gwangju Immigration Office in Korea. It sometimes stretches a three-day visa run into a week or more. This is NOT what I wanted to hear! But, with a full paycheck on May 15th I should be able to handle a few days, even a week in HK. The 18th was a Thursday so I knew I wouldn't be getting my visa in one day and would have to spend the weekend there. I told the gals that the visa run really SHOULD be made on a Monday or Tuesday so that it would be ready on the Friday, but I was okay with going at an odd time. I even found two phone numbers for visa information at the embassy, one was recorded info and one was an operator you could talk to. I don't know if it was English, Chinese or both because I tried to call the numbers and neither worked on my phone. I got a message saying I don't have long distance on my plan. ANOTHER thing I'll need HR's help in changing.

Anyway, I give these numbers to Miss Jang, because it would be a huge help to her being new to this and all. She tells me to shut up. He exact words were, "Honey, please be quiet!" This was texted so I was able to refrain from profanity. Then she actually went so far as to GUARANTEE that I would be getting the papers and going to Hong Kong by or before the 18th. Toward the deadline she even suggested I buy a ticket to HK, go to the airport and she would heroically deliver the papers to me before boarding. I said, "No. We will not be doing that."

The morning of the 18th she arranged a time to give me the documents at the school in my office. I got there on time, she was half an hour late. And didn't have the papers. I magnanimously told her that we'd chalk this up to a learning experience and that immigration offices all over the world were the same. She was apologetic saying I was right and she was wrong and all, but I have seen far too much of this Asian lie now and apologize later bullshit to feel anything but anger. I later said to Grace that Miss Jang's education was going to cost me a lot of money. I even said to Grace that I thought she wasn't capable of handling the position, particularly since I've been told that next semester there will be 5 new foreign teachers and this will need to be done for all of them. If they are new to this sort of career or traveling, it will be even MORE difficult than it had been for me. And I said to Grace that Miss Jang doesn't look like she can handle that.

So I then explained to Miss Jang and Grace that without the Z visa I couldn't get a bank account or a card that enabled me to buy a plane ticket online. I tried, I think it's called "C-Ticket" with my Beijing bank card and it didn't work. The reason I was given, you may remember, was because I am a foreigner. So Miss Jang wasted 2 hours of my final legal day in China trying and failing to do something the students I teach could easily do. I texted Faith and within minutes she had me a plane ticket and a train time. I would have to take the train to Beijing then fly to Korea from there. It was last second, expensive, and the schedule would be tight, but it was all that was available. Just before rushing home to pack and leave Miss Jang asked if I could fly from Korea to Hong Kong if they faxed or emailed me the documents. I said I'd be in touch with them but in the mean time they should get the documents and find out if copies were acceptable.

I bought my train ticket and met Faith's husband across the street from the train ticket store and paid him the money for my plane ticket. Again, Faith to the rescue! She even called me and told me how to tell the taxi driver to go to the train station. I got to Beijing and decided to go from the train station to the airport by shuttlebus. In LIGHT traffic that takes an hour and a half, but Beijing rarely has light traffic. I was sitting in gridlock watching the time tick away and envisioning the money for that first ticket going down an imaginary toilet. But luckily, my terminal, (T2), was the first stop on the shuttlebus and it got there 20 minutes before my flight was scheduled to take off. I had NEVER before had a flight into or out of Beijing Airport that was not delayed. In fact I was counting on this flight being delayed. I got to the check-in counter and asked if it was still possible to get on my flight. To my surprise, the girl at the counter said it was! Then, (of course), I checked my bag and it set off an alarm. I had to open it up and show everything in it. They didn't find the battery or bomb they were looking for. That wasted 5 minutes. I now had 15 minutes. I went to the scanner luggageless. The girl said, "You'd better hurry, your flight is boarding." Then Mr. Overkill, maybe BECAUSE I was late and he knew it, felt, fondled and passed that metal detector wand over me so many times I thought he was trying to cast a spell. He put his finger into the waist of my shorts in the back, pulled and looked down the crack of my ass! This is just getting out of hand, folks! The personal rights and freedoms violations we allow at airports because we just want to get where we are going are one sure sign that Big Brother is taking over.

I got through a lengthy immigration line and had a couple of minutes to find gate 11. Beijing Airport signage and layout is not the best. I saw signs that said, "Gates 1-11" and had arrows so I followed the arrows. They had those moving walkways that everybody here STOPS on and turns into moving STANDways to my never-ending irritation. Baggageless, I was able to deek out these blockers and get to my destination more quickly. I got past gates 1 through 10 and the airport ended. Where the HELL was gate 11? Luckily a young, pretty stewardess had seen my OJ Simpson impression and followed me shouting, "Incheon? You are going to Incheon?" So I followed her ALL the way back to gate number 11. Which comes before gate number 1. Chinese math.

I was the last person on the plane and I sat down almost exactly at the correct take-off time. The very first plane EVER to be on schedule in my experience at the Beijing Airport. Of course! But then we all sat in the plane on the runway for 50 minutes waiting to take off, so the airport's record remains intact.

I got to the Incheon Airport, which, incidentally, a fellow expat who lives in Korea posted an article online about. It was on the facebook page called OINK, which stands for Only In Korea. It bragged on and on about how awesome the Incheon airport was and how they've won the award for best in Asia. I posted, (and so did MANY others), that Changi Airport in Singapore can't be touched. Then I posted that the award was probably based on an internet poll. Koreans are invincible at those. I blasted through customs and immigration and waited patiently for my bag. I needed to get my Kindle and send Amber a facebook message letting her know I was there. Amber lives in Incheon and may have allowed me to stay at her and DB's place. But I hadn't had time to message them before leaving China. I hadn't had time for much. I just grabbed any clothes I could and threw them into my bag. Again, thanks to Miss Jang.

It was about 11 PM so I thought Amber and DB would probably just be going to bed. But I watched the baggage go round and round the carousel. Never saw my bag. An attendant or security guard or something comes up to me and barks, "Where you come from?" I said, "Beijing." He says, "Manila? Baggage not here." I said, "Not Manila, Beijing." He doesn't hear me because he's overvoluming me with, "Flight number. Flight number. Flight number." I point to the sign above the carousel that clearly says whatever the flight number was and from Beijing and read it for him. He says, "Go to lost and found." World class service right there, Incheon Airport!

I go to lost and found thinking that because I had checked in so late back in Beijing, and then had trouble with the alarm, they probably hadn't had time to put my bag on the plane. I reach the lost and found and the guy says, "Maybe next counter." MAYBE?

I go to next counter and there's a lady there talking to a guy from Fiji. She stops talking to him and looks directly at me. I say, "Hi. I can't find my luggage..." She says, "Wait your turn. I am talking with this man." So I apologize to the Fijian and we spark up a conversation about how frustrating it is to lose baggage. He was from the same flight as me. Then a THIRD guy from our flight shows up. He interrupts the lady to say, "Hey, this is my bag here, can I take it?" She says he can and then finally talks to me. She asks if my bag is in the pile of baggage behind her desk. I hadn't thought to look. And sure enough, there it is. Baggage handling at Incheon Airport - top notchi!

I get my bag and go through customs and out into the airport. It's now after 2 AM. I am instantly accosted by the sketchy taxi drivers that you expect in Jakarta, Manila, Bangkok etc., but not from the "best airport in Asia." I tell them I don't need a taxi when I want to tell them to fuck off and dig out my Kindle. I wonder if it's even worth contacting anyone. All buses and subways from Incheon Airport are now finished. It is close to exactly NOTHING this airport, so a "nearby" hotel is a 20 or 30 dollar taxi ride away and who knows how much it will cost. But luckily I check my phone and WeChat is working. I see a message from Amber that I am welcome to stay at her place. I try to send her a message. Incheon Airport wifi is down. Best airport in Asia in the most wired country in the WORLD and the wifi sucks. But I got intermittent coverage and managed to send a message that I was on the way. A 40=dollar cab ride later, I arrived at Amber and DB's by 3. They got up early the next morning too. I watched hockey and napped.

My visit was a lot of fun, as it always is with Amber, DB, and the Peet/Spiwaks who were elbows deep in a walkathon raising money for cancer research. I had arranged to stay until Wednesday this trip because that two-day turnaround over the weekend is horrible. Mostly because of the horrendous trip back to Taiyuan. Last visa run I had to wait 3 hours in the waiting room for my train. But I talked with a nice guy who was in the coal industry. Taiyuan is China's main coal city so I'm not so sure I should cheer for its prosperity even though the rich families are the ones whose kids I will be teaching. After the weekend I sent a WeChat message to Miss Jang saying that I could go directly to Hong Kong on Monday or Tuesday if she did three things: acquired the two documents I still needed, (which she assured me she had), emailed them to me, and found out FOR SURE if Hong Kong would accept copies of documents such as these. Remember, they are stamped. What good is a stamp or even a signature if it's photocopied? She gets back to me a day later with, "Are you going to Hong Kong? Have you renewed your Korean tourist visa? I've been working very hard so I'm replying to you now." A DAY LATER!!! I again ask if she's got the dox and if I can use copies in HK. She replies, "You need print it yourself. Must be color print."

I then take a deep breath and dive into an explanation of one of the picky, picky rules I've read about. The visa application needs to be downloaded onto a computer and filled in with typing. You can't print out the application then fill it in in pen. Even though it must be signed in pen. So I filled out as much of it as I could but there were some blanks for my alien work permit number, which was one of the dox Miss Jang told me she had acquired, and one for the name and address of the employer. I only had that in Chinese on WeChat and had tried to copy and paste from WeChat but couldn't do it. So I told Miss Jang I would send her the application and she could type in the Chinese and the number for me and send it back to me. Long silence from her. I sent, "So I need your email." She sends me her email. I send her the application and let her know via WeChat that I've sent it. She replies, "OK." FOUR hours later I send her a message, "Never mind, I will just fly back to China." Remember, she wasted Monday not replying to me. It's now Tuesday and I'm in the same boat she put me in in Taiyuan: I have one day and don't know what ticket to buy but I know it's going to be a crappy, expensive one because it's last minute. So I booked a ticket to Beijing. The next day I got a message from the travel agent saying that my flight was cancelled.

So I go back to the travel agency, (Unique Travel in Itaewon is the one I like), and the agent is pulling out her hair trying to find ANYthing but everything is full. Why then the flight I had booked was CANCELLED??? Maximization of profits. So I ended up deciding on another ticket. In the time it took to book that ticket THAT flight filled up. I had to take a flight on Thursday and arrive back in Taiyuan a day late. Well, not my fault. That day I got about 15 or 20 WeChat messages from Miss Jang asking if I'd decided to go back to China. Explaining that an interpreter, (Grace), would contact me. Apologizing AGAIN at her handling of the visa. Saying that she has been, "re arranged" and won't be in charge later. Then letting me know how nice it has been to know me and not to hesitate to ask for her help with anything in future and she hopes we will see each other again. She probably got the position the same way she handled it: assuming that SAYING you can do things is just as good as being able to do things. Then assuming that an apology will make everything all right when you can't do the things you are hired to do. Unbelievable! Well... in my experience in the ESL industry, BELIEVABLE!

So I got up at 5, said my goodbyes to everybody and was off at 6 AM. I got a 25-dollar taxi to Gimpo Airport, the one IN SEOUL! I can only imagine what it costs to get to Incheon by cab. The taxis used to be cheap in Korea. Now they are almost like Canadian taxis. Everything goes smoothly to Beijing. Even, to my surprise, immigration. I thought they'd give me some hassle knowing that this was my 4th renewal of my business visa and I HAD to be working in China. In Indonesia after my 4th renewal of my business visa there, I was almost refused entry. But the guy in Beijing didn't even flinch. I took the shuttlebus from the Beijing Airport to Beijing West Train Station from stop #7. The tickets can be bought right beside the information circle in front of the hallway that leads to the Airport Express. The bus comes every 30 minutes or less. It takes 1 1/2 hours or so and probably could take more than two in heavy traffic. I didn't have my train ticket yet, so I was not on a deadline like I was on the shuttlebus from the train station to the airport days before when I nearly had to eat my ticket. So after a much less stressful and not so trafficky ride of about an hour and 45 mins, I was at the train station.

I go into the entrance marked misleadingly as "Tickets Entrance," a hard one to find really, and after the requisite Chinese line-up I find out that if I want the fast, 3-hour trip I have to wait till 9 PM. It's about 11:30 AM. I ask if there's anything else and there IS one at 3:29 but it's a slow train that makes more stops and takes about 4 hours, and here's the kicker: standing room only! So I take that ticket and proceed to waiting room number 11. It is JAM PACKED with humanity! No seats available and very little standing room. And I've got a 4-hour wait followed by a 4-hour stand on the train. I DID get McLunch and sat in the crowded eating area of McDonald's for maybe half an hour but stood the rest of the time and stood in the dining car for the whole 4-hour train ride. It was even more nightmarish than it sounds since the dining car was packed with other standing passengers and I was leaning on one of the small tables from time to time and once during the trip a dude bought a meal and ate it, NOISILY, about 4 inches away from my head where my ears are. Grace had offered to get the school driver to pick me up at the station when I arrived, but this was when I had foolishly assumed I could just buy a train ticket to Taiyuan and go there. Instead of arriving around 2, when I could have been picked up, I got to the station at 7:30. I sent Grace a message saying that I would find my own way home and for some reason my WeChat wouldn't work. I was accosted by the sketchy taxi guys and went to the genuine taxi area. I said the name of the school, showed the driver the Chinese writing which says, "Please take me to Taiyuan number 5 High School," a landmark in Taiyuan and the driver says, "Hmmmm wo bu jr dao..." like he doesn't know. Just then, like a superhero, I get a call from Faith! She asks how things have gone and I get her to explain to the driver where I'm going. We then have a nice conversation until I reach my place. It's now after 8 PM and I make some Kraft Dinner, with hotdogs with relish. The KD and relish Heather got me from post. Can't find either in Taiyuan. So I ate supper with relish.

The next day I met the new HR co-ordinator, Amy. I had met her before, but she wasn't the HR co-ordinator before. Her English is much better than Miss Jang's and she seems like she may be able to handle the job. But she says to me, I will get the documents from the ministry tomorrow and give them to you. TOMORROW! Meaning STILL nobody had retrieved the damn documents! They had just lied to me and said they did.

I did get the documents! STANDING OVATION for Amy! But now we have to arrange a time to go to HK. I wanted to go this Monday, (tomorrow), but we can't for a few reasons. First of all, (of course I was the one who checked this...) Tuesday is a holiday in Hong Kong so I probably wouldn't be able to get the visa on Friday, so I'd have to spend a week in Hong Kong. Also, when I got back from my previous visa run and plans had been made to get me my work visa from Hong Kong back in April, the company drew up some new contracts. I think I will need to bring a contract from my employer and show it to the people at the embassy in HK and, obviously it can't be dated from February. That way the embassy will know I have been working without a Z visa. So they drew up new contracts. I guess I never got my copy of the new one because all I can find is one dated from February. So we're gonna probably need to draw up a THIRD batch of contracts. I will be doing a camp here as well as my normal classes for June so there is only a small window for me to do this trip properly. That will be on June 12. That gives the company 15 days to do the contracts and arrange flights and hotel for me. What do you want to bet they start on this June 11th?

But at least I'm working.

The Legend of Bobby Orr

As the young boy in the rink dressing room began inserting his foot into his CCM Tacks, a voice from the shadows said, "What are you doing, son?"
The boy was startled and looked toward the far corner of the dressing room to see the old timer approaching. He said, "I'm just putting on my skates."
"No yer not!" corrected the old timer. "Not with yer socks on, son. Never with yer socks on."
The young boy, still holding the laces of his left skate challenged the stranger, "Why not?"
"Because Bobby Orr says not, THAT'S why not!"
"Who is Bobby Orr?" the unfortunate kid replied.

Unfortunate because, although there are no shadows in any dressing rooms, kids are now trained NOT to talk to strangers who might lurk there, and usually such strangers, no matter how well-meaning, get forcibly removed from dressing rooms, I, your faithful blogger, am, through the magic of blogging, that stranger. And I am going to keep that legendary boy off the ice by telling him of a game, a time, and, indeed a player that make true hockey fans stop what they are doing and get glossy-eyed in wonder at what could have been, and what could still be in the most exciting sport in the world. If you're a baseball fan, think of Josh Gibson in the negro leagues. If you're a football, (or baseball), fan, think of Bo Jackson. I bet there are hundreds of stories of evanescent athletes the world over who just didn't get a chance to live up to their potential. I count Bobby Orr amongst this group even though we DID get the privilege of watching his greatness for a short, but glorious time.

In my, and the opinions of most hockey knowledgeables, the only thing challenging the certainty that Bobby Orr was the best hockey player ever is the diabolical fact that he played in an era before arthroscopic knee renovations. Otherwise, he would have removed all doubt that he was the best, most revolutionary, most dominant player of hockey, (dare I say ANY sport? (I dare! I dare!)), EVER! Keep this in mind whilst I take us back to the beginning of the glory days of hockey, and so many other things. He was injured in 1967 in a charity-benefit exhibition game when colliding knee-on-knee with a teammate. This is when he was 18, folks. His rookie season in the NHL. Playing in charity benefits already. And every game he played after that, that is, practically every game of his far too limited career, was played in pain. We're talking bone-on-bone, no cartilage pain in the knee! By the end of his career, BOTH knees!

But this is not impressive until you hear what he did on one knee. Darryl Sittler, a guy who once scored 10 points in a game, (a record still untouched), said, "Bobby Orr was better on one leg than anybody else was on two." Consider that before Bobby Orr, most defensemen in hockey everywhere, stayed away from the offensive zone. The records for most goals, (19), and most points, (59), by Red Kelly and Pierre Pilotte respectively, were just sitting there all vulnerable-like. Now, to statisticians out there, okay, Doug Mohns, a defenseman, scored 25 goals and 60 points in a season, but he was playing as a forward on a line with Stan Makita while doing so. This was an era during which stats weren't as important as they are now so Mohns was listed as a defenseman, but wasn't playing as one. But also consider the forward pass in hockey was not allowed until 1930! So offense was a developing idea in pro hockey. If you got 50 points, you were a superstar. In fact POINTS weren't really a stat for many years. Only goals were recorded. So old timers like Joe Malone, Newsy Lalonde and the like, might have been better than we think. Nobody scored 50 goals until there was a war on and a good deal of the good players were overseas fighting. Even Maurice Richard would admit his 50 goals in 1944/45 should have an asterisk, I'm sure. It didn't happen legitimately until 15 years later, and it wasn't Richard, it was Boom Boom Geoffrion, although Gordie Howe got 49 and 47 in there. Not taking away from the Rocket! He DID get 45 legitimately, but, like Orr, we'll never know what would have been if circumstances were different.

And then, when the virtues of skill and offense were found to have dollar values, Bobby Hull and Phil Esposito blew those records away. But we're talking about forwards, whose job it IS to score. They rarely, (especially in Espo's case), strayed into the defensive zone or were any help there. It was largely, VERY largely because of Orr that Espo got his 76 goals in 1970/71 and this was all while Orr was also being defensively responsible and fighting and doing all the unglamorous jobs of a defenseman as well. Just as a teaser, Orr got a plus 124 in that season, the highest ever by any player in any position. Now I have never been a fan of the plus/minus stat. It is inherently misleading, but when it's this massive, there's something to it!

So this was the way hockey was before Orr. It was largely played by big, toothless, tough, low-paid grinders. And it was dull. A common score was 1-0 or 2-1. People satisfied themselves with believing that the excitement was in the competitiveness and the close scores. It was Slap Shot hockey. Easily the games that got the most asses out of seats and cheering were the ones with the most fights. It wasn't the low, but close scores. I hate the old close scores argument! I say, if close scores make sport exciting to you, try soccer. They sometimes don't even HAVE a score. And they won't give the fans any overtime if the score is 0-0 at the end of regulation time. Still, the fans of soccer, many from countries where it is the only sport they can afford, satisfy themselves with it. At least there's SOMETHING to cheer for! This is the same attitude hockey fans had in the dark ages of our sport and the dark ages of our countries. Speaking of the U.S. and Canada.

We had just gone through the great depression, the "dirty 30's" and then WWII. The countries and the sport were in a state of rebuild. And in no time things became prosperous. Unfortunately by the time every average man had a good job, a house, a car and a TV, Gordie Howe's glory days were over. We didn't get to see much of Mr. Hockey on TV. If we had, WE'D be as scared of him as every player in the NHL was. He was not the superstar we know today. Not by a long, long shot! He played in the days when I think hockey could best be described as "prison hockey." You had to fight. You couldn't avoid it. And if you wanted to prove you were tough and stay in the lineup, you had to take on the toughest guy. That was Gordie Howe. For a while. But soon people just stopped taking him on and gave him room. That's how he got all his points. Think of Happy Gilmore beating the living crud out of the player saying, "That's MY puck. You don't touch MY puck!" Then driving his head into the boards. That was Gordie Howe. And that was what a superstar was before Bobby Orr. Even if your team won 1-0 because Gordie Howe faked a punch to the head of the goalie causing him to flinch, then shot it past him while he was covering up, you were happy with the win. Skill, grace, and transcendental hockey savvy were not yet appreciated. They were clobbered. Gretzky, who always idolized Howe, played a game against him and lifted his stick and stole the puck. Howe confronted him later in the game and warned him never to embarrass him again like that. I don't think he'd idolize him so much if he'd played many more games against him.

So Orr knew he'd have to be tough. He KNEW he was good! And he had that whole list of things. For the love of Don Cherry, he was turning heads at the age of 12! NHL heads! The Bruins sent a scout named Wren Blair to a game to look at a couple of older players and they saw Orr. He was by far the youngest at the tournament but he played every minute of the game except the 2 minutes he was penalized and made the scouts forget about the other guys. When he was 13, the Orrs agreed to $2800.00 a car and a stucco job on their house to sell the rights to their son Bobby to Boston. When he was 14 years old, (what were YOU doing at 14?), he lived in Parry Sound, so could only play the home games on weekends for the Oshawa Generals, but still, playing against mostly 19 and 20-year-olds, got 21 points and landed on the 2nd all star team of the Metro Jr. A League. While having sleepovers, smoking his first cigarette and maybe even kissing a girl. I mean, his parents probably didn't allow him to play the road games because he would get home after his bedtime! A true prodigy!

The next year he played the full season and got 29 goals and 72 points. Let me refer you back to the NHL records of the era: 19 and 59. And although I've seen no footage of the days when he was playing Jr. hockey, I'm sure it would look the same as his NHL footage: total domination. He probably made the 19 and 20-year-olds look silly. SILLY! I saw footage of Connor McDavid courtesy of Hockey Night in Canada, when he was 14. He was playing with kids much older and making them look silly. But not to the extent I'm sure Orr did. Don Cherry, (blessed be His name), stated that he saw him pass up points against expansion teams and never run up the score! So his stats could have been a lot bulkier if he had the mindset of the modern player, (or businessman). I guess I'll never know. This is the advantage we have today. Nobody saw this domination of Orr but family, friends, opponents and the Bruins' scouts. The Bruins' scouts who represented a team desperate to win a cup! Their last win was 25 years before and fading from the memory of the fans. Their stadium was echoing. Their debtors were calling.

Much, (or EXACTLY), like today, I believe this desperation was the ONLY reason the Bruins took a chance on Bobby. No team wanted to play offensively, especially with their defensemen! Their job was behind the centre line, CERTAINLY not beyond the opponents' blue line! But that just hadn't worked. For 25 years. This kid was too good to waste. So they took a chance. I absolutely HATE that teams have to be so desperate to "take a chance" on offense. I firmly believe a strong offense wins in most sports most of the time. I don't believe, I KNOW, it's a helluva lot more fun to watch, even if you don't win! The Bruins, and the Oshawa Generals, were about to find out how lucrative an exciting offensive team could be.

Bobby played the next season and broke the goal record for defenceman in the league with 29 goals. The next year he broke his own record scoring 34 goals. In the next season he scored 38 goals and after a 22 year absence, got the Oshawa Generals to the Memorial Cup! These three more years for the Oshawa Generals compiling mouth-watering stats gave hope to the Bruins' front office. Could he do for the Bruins of the NHL what he had done for the Generals? The only reason he wasn't playing in the NHL as a little boy was because of the minimum age of 18 rule. Yet another thing that makes you wonder what might have been. Orr broke all the records ever recorded for defensemen in the minors in his ensuing 3 years playing for the Generals. He DID have his problems with injury, however. Perhaps a sign of things to come. In the game of hockey, if you play at the speed of light, you will encounter some darkness. This was said by a very knowledgeable hockey man and it has held true for several stars who have injured themselves flying into the boards, the net, the glass, the bench, other players or anywhere you shouldn't be speeding into. The recent spate of concussions and knee-on-knee collisions in the NHL may be one of the main dangers that has lead to the infuriatingly defensive, careful, absolutely dead boring, (and I'd like to add cowardly), hockey that is the norm today. It has become as careful and defensive as yesteryear. They might just as well bring back the no forward pass rule, I sometimes think. Sadly, Orr may be its best argument. Hey, but at least we HAVE hockey to watch, eh?

So finally Bobby Orr turns 18 and is eligible for the NHL. He signs for a whopping $25,000 and there were untold bonuses too. To give you an idea, it was 1966 and there were only 4 other players, all proven vets, getting more than 25 grand at the time. The Bruins were pulling out all the stops and rolling out the red carpet for Orr. He didn't disappoint. He scored 13 goals and 28 assists for 41 points. Now that sounds pretty average but that won him the Calder Cup for rookie of the year. It was pretty impressive, particularly for an 18-year-old! In his second year he had an injury but still managed 31 points in limited action. Again it sounds like nothing but it was considered star worthy. Then in the 68/69 season Bobby Orr got 64 points. Remember, Pierre Pilotte's NHL record of 59? Gone! Even if you are a fan of Mohns, Orr beat him too. At the ripe old age of 21. But this was small potatoes. Orr was just rounding into form. Rounding because of only one good knee, of course. heh heh.

The next season, 1969/1970, I was 3 years old. I only WISH I was old enough to fully appreciate what Bobby Orr did that year! As a 7-year-old I actually went to Buffalo and watched the Sabres play the Bruins in 1974 when Bobby Orr's star was brightly shining and was STILL too young to get it. It remains to this day one of the biggest regrets of my life that I saw Bobby Orr, Phil Esposito, Ken Hodge, Johnny Bucyk, Wayne Cashman, Gilles Gilbert, even Terry O'Reilly and I not only didn't appreciate any of them, I was voting for the Sabres! I like the French Connection. Gilles Gilbert, Rene Robert and Rick Martin. Shows how much I knew! When I was 7! I couldn't even tell you who won that game. Probably the Bruins. All I remember clearly was the taste of sour cream and onion chips which I HATED! Ha ha ha. Now I love sour cream, onion, and sour cream and onion chips. I was SO different as a kid!

The 1969/70 season of Bobby Orr was when the whole world recognized his power. If you want a very good account of it, go here. I'll just share the highlights. It is agreed to be the best season by any hockey player EVER! And I don't even think it's Orr's best! Just try to bring yourself back to the year of 1969. The Beatles made their last public performance on a rooftop. The 747 and Concorde were just out. The Pontiac Trans Am Firebird was the hottest car around. Woodstock! Apollo 11, Charles Manson, Abbey Road, the internet was ARPANET, Elvis "In the Ghetto," The Guess Who, Sweet Caroline, Come Together, groovy, Bewitched, Bonanza, Ironside. This is what I'm talking about.

Orr gets 14 points in the first 7 games! That's 2 points a game! Gretzky would be hard pressed! In the 80's! And he was a centre!

Just a miraculous start! He's gotta slow down. That's what everybody thought. And he DID...

but not much. This was unheard of! 38 points was far more than a respectable total just past the quarter post!

So everybody is assuming he'll slow down. I don't remember this spectacular year by Orr, but I DO remember Gretzky's 50 goals in 39 games. He, like Orr, just got BETTER as he went along! By his 54th game Orr had 84 points. Do you know how many players scored more than that this year, (2016/17)? SIX! In the whole year! Bobby had over 20 games to go! And this is in an era BEFORE the 80's when NObody had ever even come close to this! This is a spectacular season for a forward and Orr was NOT a forward! AND he still had 20 some games left! Can you imagine the GOD this guy was to hockey fans, never mind Boston Bruin fans!?!? The mind boggles! At the half way point of the season he broke the assist record for defencemen. Three nights later he breaks the record for points. HIS record. Remember he's 21 years old!

By March he has 100 points, 74 assists, and 27 goals, ALL records for an NHL defenseman. But he's not finished yet. He ends up with 33 and 87 for 120 points. THEN come the playoffs! He demolishes the playoff goals and assists marks for defencemen and scores THE GOAL. Everybody has seen this picture.

Orr won the Art Ross for scoring in the NHL, a feat no other defenseman has ever accomplished, (except himself), he got the first of 8 Norris trophies for best defenseman, (again nobody else ever did this even though most have longer careers), he got the Hart for MVP, and he won the Conn Smythe for playoff MVP. Nobody has won 4 except Lafleur and Gretzky who won the Art Ross, Hart, Conn Smythe and the Stanley Cups, but Bobby Orr, in his 4 personal trophy year ALSO won the Stanley Cup making him the only 5 trophy winning hockey player ever. It will be nigh onto impossible for anyone to do that again since it would have to be a defenceman leading the league in scoring on a team that wins the cup and he dominates the playoffs. In a hundred years that is probably not going to happen! That's why Bobby Orr is considered to be the best. But that's just one season. Let's continue.

The next year he becomes the first player ever to record 100 assists. In 1970/71 he gets 37 goals, 102 assists and 139 points. The point total has never yet been eclipsed by a defenseman although Paul Coffey scored 138 in his brilliant 1985/86 season. As mentioned, his plus 124 is so crazily better than anybody ever it almost proves the stat as meaningless as it is. And he won the Hart for MVP and the Norris for best defenceman again. I hope you don't mind my interchanging defenceman and defenseman. I don't know which is right.

The next year he won four trophies again. He got the Norris as a matter of purer course than any award ever given to any player. He also got 24 playoff points and the Conn Smythe for doing so. He got the league MVP, the Hart, of course. And since the Bruins beat the NY Rangers in the final, he got the Stanley Cup again. That's 4 pieces of hardware again. Remember how rare that is! Let alone FIVE! I think I love him WAY more knowing he beat the Rangers!

In my opinion, knowing how hard it is, and how rare an opportunity arises for a defenceman to score a goal, his best season may have been his last full season. Which begs the question, "Where could he have gone from there?" He scored 46 goals and 89 assists in 1974/75. 46 goals wass just an astronomic number never before mentioned concerning a defenceman. He GOT that in the 70's! This is BEFORE the 80's when skill and creativity were most appreciated in the wonderful game of hockey. And even in THOSE days there was only one defenceman who approached the status of Orr. I would say more than approached too! Paul Coffey was a phenom the likes of which hockey would be lucky to find ever again! But STILL not the gift sent down from Olympus that Bobby Orr was!

Just to fire them off at you, I'll list a few more impressive facts: He remains, and probably will always be, despite his short career, the only defenceman with 9 career hat tricks. When was the last time you saw a defenceman getting a hat trick? Rare as an honest ESL boss! His career 1.39 points per game is a crazy goal for a forward to consider, never mind a defenseman. It's important to note that in his big, breakout year he also had 125 penalty minutes. He had to play tough AND offensive, unlike the majority of high scorers in the NHL. There are forwards who are considered superstars in the NHL who have never approached his statistics. In 1979, (coincidentally or not? Gretzky's rookie year), he became the youngest player ever inducted into the hockey hall of fame.

The next year he was pretty much bankrupt. Without cash. Even being so highly paid! How did this happen? Well this is an all too familiar side story to every story we hear nowadays. We are just now beginning to notice these screwjobs and get angry about them. Soon, hopefully we will DO something about them.

Toward the end of his career, when his knees were shot, Boston offered Orr a contract to stay with the team. They could not imagine him elsewhere. They went so far as to offer 18.5% of the Boston Bruin franchise. WHICH HE DESERVED. His agent, the criminally convicted liar and fraudster, Alan Eagleson, (who served time in prison and was removed from the NHL Hall of Fame), had an arrangement more profitable for himself with the Chicago Blackhawks and hid this offer of Bruin ownership from Orr. He signed with the Hawks. He then had another operation and this one finally rendered his career a no go. So, YEAH, he DID have a lot of money as a player and we wonder where that might have gone, BUT, he could be the 18.5% owner of the Bruins by now! A million or maybe billionaire. There is nobody in the Bruins organization who would begrudge him this share in the franchise. Except, of course, the greedy scumbags who actually control it.

Gordie Howe was another example of a commodity being exploited. He was happy that the Detroit bigwigs gave him team jackets whenever he wanted. And while he was giving and taking beatings night in and night out, those jacket gifters made untold MILLIONS!

Here I am torn.


I'm torn again at the decision of whether I respect Gordie Howe and Bobby Orr more for just playing the game they love and not considering the financial details, or wish the two of them had held their owners' feet to the fire knowing, what they OBVIOUSLY knew: the money THE OWNERS made was exponentially humungous compared to the money they were offering the players. Now, I think, in the cases of several athletes I've seen, financial details were not within their personal realms of understanding. Fine, if Gordie or Bobby want to plead ignorance or lack of intelligence, I'm okay with that. But, I think Bobby was smarter. Possibly, and I'd go so far as PROBABLY not Gordie. But I think one of the greatest rip jobs in professional sports history was the trade of Bobby Orr to the Chicago Blackhawks.

Alan Eagleson was disbarred, criminally convicted and found guilty of fraud in the arena of trying to STOP things like he perpetrated on Bobby Orr from happening to NHL players. Jerk! He was involved with several NHL players including Darryl Sittler, who gave that previous quote. Gordie Howe was screwed by the Red Wings management for being nice and not shrewd. The very fact that the players NEED an association to fight for their rights is witness to the corporatization of the most exciting game in the world and it makes me want to blow a toilet full of puke every time I hear it.


I'm not on either side of the lockouts, strikes and bickering over money, by the way. I'm on the side of getting back to the good old days of hockey, and of Canada, and I assume the U.S. when people had good jobs and pay that everybody knows is fair. When there was a pretty good chance you'd own your home someday soon. When you had a job, social life and a partner that was steady. When hockey players, (musicians? artists?), were exhibiting the freedom and creativity that people exhibit when their primary needs are satisfied. When people were taking chances in sports and life. When things were not nervous, pedantic and uninspired. When sports weren't either.


You see, I believe sports is the best analogy for life, and at the same time it might be the best reflection of life. While life was hard and there was an epic struggle to rise above the poverty and hopelessness of society, people had to scratch and claw and fight. So did hockey players. But in the glory days of the 70's and moreso the 80's when things had loosened up enough to allow people more freedom than ever before, we had our best hockey ever! Skills! Excitement! Goals! And still the fights! Now since the greedy less than 1% have made us scratch and claw again like the days of the depression, hockey has become a frustratingly boring game of soccer on ice. Frustrating because those of us who remember the 80's know what could be. And this poor excuse for our favourite game just makes us as depressed as the people in soup lines during the depression.


"What I'm sayin' kid, is today is an environment in which Bobby Orr could not have existed. He would be told to clutch and grab, clog the neutral zone and block shots. Do you want to play like that? Do you want to stain his memory by stopping at the centre line during a power play? I hope you don't. The future of hockey is depending on you."

Then the man from the shadows left the dressing room. He didn't say another word.

...to the young Connor McDavid! Hah! I'd like to include that but after the game 7 Edmonton played this year, I still think freedom in hockey is being suppressed. Freedom. That's what it's all about, isn't it? Ovechkin can't play like Ovechkin because the stupid management thinks he should play fewer minutes and block shots and backcheck rather than shoot or set up plays. Which he has perfected all his life. No, do the opposite of your nature and we will give you lots and lots of money!

This is what has ruined sports and our whole world.

At least that's what I reckon.

Everybody Drink the Brawndo

I just watched the Penguins get thumped and even though I was trying my best to just enjoy the hockey, I couldn't stop my brain. The first culprit was these commercials for some loan refinancing company in America in which people are talking about how they lowered their interest by 40 or even 50% on their student loans and saved thousands and thousands of dollars. Where to begin? I see countries GIVING away education to citizens, (regardless of financial status), who want to use their brains, make their lives better, make the lives of others better and with very little doubt, inject immeasurably more back into the economies of the smart countries that didn't charge them to get an education. Then there's dumb countries like the U.S. and Canada corporatizing education. I started thinking chicken and egg-like. Are the U.S. and Canada dumb for turning education into a racket that makes few rich and hurts the entire country, or has this practice already lead to people being dumb? So then dumb people rise to positions in which they could change this, but refuse to. And then I went a bit further into the realm of conspiracy and wondered if pricing all but the wealthy out of proper educations wasn't just a tactic DESIGNED to make these countries dumb. Dumb enough to vote for people like Donald Trump, Christy Clark,

or even, (and thank GOD, he's out of the race now), Kevin O'Leary.

I can just imagine what HE would do for education! And if you don't remember, here is Trump's pick for Education Secretary, Betsy Devos:

Now, I don't know exactly what goes on in the States or how deep this horrible scam they have turned education into runs, but I know it's pretty evil in Canada. My country actually uses the student loan bait and switch. They promise GRANTS for people from poorer families, (the ones that will take longer to pay off loans and maximize profits), then after it's too late to pull out of the agreement, like when you are already attending classes, surviving from emergency loan to emergency loan, they change their minds about the grants they had promised you, but offer you a high interest loan when they're positive you have no choice but to accept it. That is what happened to me, and that's why I will never pay back my student loans. I'd sooner go to jail. I wonder if they have this scam in the U.S. too. Americans are fond of thinking they've got it tough and Canada is this wonderland of free education and healthcare and all that nonsense, but they only hear the good stuff. They haven't LIVED in Canada and learned the truth.

I also wonder if the laws are the same on the maximum amount of interest allowable by law. I know in Alberta 23% is the most allowable because some of those payday loan places, (again, put up in low income areas and targeting the poor, who take longer to pay them back and can be bled for more), were busted for charging too much interest. But I guess it varies across the country. If I'm in Newfoundland I could get charged up to 60%! And then if I am charged even MORE, there's no telling if the perpetrators will be properly prosecuted. Is this law the same for student loan providers? Is it provincial or federal? Is it enforced? Are students paying back 60% or more on their STUDENT loans?

I've read that the rate of 7% is pretty common on student loans in Canada. At that rate, if it takes you 15 years, you will have paid more than twice your loan. This article says that a typical loan burden in Canada is $27,000, though, that's from the most recent Stats Canada numbers on this, taken in 2012. It can very easily cost a student that much in one year to go to a school in Canada now. So interest, if the scumbags at the banks actually ARE limited to charging 7% interest on student loans, (and I doubt the shit outta that), would be about 1900 bucks a year. Doesn't seem like much - until you live in Canada. A person with a university degree can work his ass off for 10 bucks an hour and STILL not have 1900 bucks a year extra. Been there, done that. So in 15 years of working midnight shifts, maybe clawing your way up to 12 or 13 bucks an hour, you might manage to pay off the interest. MIGHT!

And the situation is even more dire in the States and the U.K! The Globe and Mail article stated that the returns on a B.A. are not what they once were. I'll say! They are actually falling below the cost of investment. The solution? Don't go to school. Don't get educated. Stay dumb. It's almost as if this is the plan...

Then my mind got even MORE hideously capitalistic and I thought, "What a great time to start making derivatives and shorting student loans!" This is what happened to the housing loan market. Greed made people actually start betting on people not paying back their loans. HOPING they'd fail and their dreams of owning homes would fall short, making CDS, CFD and whatever other downright Satanic derivative buyers cream their Armani suit pants. I guess I'm not the first person to think of that either. Here's an article that includes a "smart," (I'd prefer "predatory"), investor telling an interviewer that if you want to take advantage of the student loan bubble, buy Navient. They loan money and student loans are up, which drives college tuition up, which drives student loans up. It's actually CALLED a rip-off in the article. But, wisely, he doesn't get into how to profit from the loans that WON'T be repaid. At least not on the record.

Because I have exactly no faith in the vultures who people Wall Street and whatever its equivalents may be in countries around the world that are creating these student loan bubbles, I have little doubt that there will be a crash. And because the loans are guaranteed by the country, it's going to be taxpayers who bail out the lenders, so the lenders don't give a flying fuck. Here is a very good summary of the 700 billion bank bailout of 2008. It has now cost in the 16.8 TRILLION dollars according to the article, and it's nowhere near finished. And really not much has been done to keep it from happening again. The key line in the article was, "The industry is not afraid to do it again because they know no one goes to jail and the government will bail them out." Maybe the industry will just do to the student loan market exactly what they did to the housing market. Could the next big financial crash be in the student loan area, and not in housing?

And at the risk of straying too far into unknown territory, is it not possible that this loan consolidation company doing commercials during hockey, Sofi, I think it was called, (Social Finance?), just goes looking for these impossible to collect loans? Loans, like mine come to think of it, that have had money paid into them, some with more money paid back than the original loan and 100% of the remaining debt is solely from interest. They buy these loans off the banks cheaply. Let's face it, the banks know they won't be repaid so 50, 40, 30, probably even 10% is a win for them, especially since they've already been paid back more than they loaned. Then these companies offer their services to the people who took the loans, for a fee, of course. They knock off a certain amount like the 40 or 50% they talk about in the commercials. This way pay it back or not, the company still makes a profit. Furthermore, the company takes out CDSes, (credit default swaps), on the loans worth more than they paid for those loans. This way Sofi gets even MORE money if they person doesn't pay the loan back! It looks like everybody wins, no? UNTIL companies can't pay the CDSes any more and the government, (taxpayers), are on the hook. Now, I'm no expert in this area, but do you suppose this isn't going on? Do you suppose this is why Navient is buying back its stock thinking that their company is worth "far more than the sum if its parts?" Just something I think about while watching hockey.

That's ONE of the things I was thinking about as Washington handed the Pens a drubbing in their own barn this morning. Well it was morning to ME anyway. It was good to see Crosby back. I like watching players like him and McDavos. They do a lot of little things that don't get noticed by most. Some, especially in the case of Sid the Kid, are dirty little things, but they make big differences in the game. Things you probably wouldn't notice if you haven't played. That makes watching the game more fun. Another thing that makes a big difference to me is the announcer. It was Mike, "Doc" Emrick. I like his announcing. He has more words for "shoot" and "pass" than anybody. And he often slips really fast jokes into the call. Today he says, "There are a number of referees who thought there should be a call on that play. I agree but then I'm not wearing stripes. Some think I should be but..." and without a stop, a laugh or anything launches into an ad. An AD! If I remember correctly it was an ad for some holiday resort somewhere. I was personally affronted! I go to great lengths to illegally watch live streams of hockey online that are usually stolen from NHL Center Ice or just rebroadcasts onto youtube from Russian feeds of Canadian broadcasts or whatever. I get heavily pixelated picture a lot of the time. I get stoppages due to crappy wifi a lot. And it is all worth it so I am not exposed to the further dumbing down of North America through commercial ads. Now they're sneaking them into the broadcasts! Sickening!

But then I started thinking, "I wonder what I would do if Huawei came up to me and asked me to promote their cell phones and services during my classes. Would I be strong enough to tell them to stick their offer up their "pigu," or would the school insist? If the school insisted, would I do it then? Are we all eventually destined to be forced into this capitalistic nightmare the world is turning into?" I thought back to the joke Doc threw into his broadcast almost as if it weren't allowed. Then I thought about the recent interview with Trump in which he clearly does not understand the former president George W. Bush's joke about the reason the oval office is round. He said it's so there are no corners to hide in. Trump doesn't get it. So many questions! Does greed kill humour? Was even Dubyuh better than Trump? I can't stand to see people sitting back and allowing the destruction of our education system and our world. I wonder if those who can do something and don't are just as guilty as the scumbags who jump at the opportunities for reasons of greed. But one, maybe the ONLY, solace, respite, last bastion of hope for the weary, is when we can laugh at the magnificent jackasses these spirit-sucking swine appear with their lust for money and power and stalker-esque obsessions with themselves.

And I started wondering, down the road, hopefully WAAAY down the road, when people are drinking Brawndo, eating extra big ass fries and watching "Ass!" and "Kicked in the Balls," will that be the only humour remaining? Fart jokes and slapstick? Will we lose all wit and thinking humour? If so, I am glad I won't be here.

Is the world turning into one "extra big ass" Idiocracy? And is it getting that way because most people's attitudes are, "Go away! Batin'."?

This kinda ruined the hockey game for me. More than the score.

I don't know though... Maybe if I could just dumben up, go with the flow, do what I'm told, be a good consumer, drink the Brawndo etc., etc., I could at least, then enjoy a hockey game.

Up at 2:30 Friday night

Yes, as the title would have you believe, I am up at 2:30 on Friday night. Most people who know me would assume that means I'm out. Having beers with friends or meeting some new ones. Some who know me a bit better might think I have just arrived in a new country and am too busy drinking it in to hit the sack. Some who know me even better might think of my current situation and put the fault on the ever enterprising Chinese mosquito. And those who know me best might think I'm just watching sports that are being played at some godly hour in some godly country. But you'd all be wrong.

It's actually 3:30 now since I had to check Facebook and make TWO cups of tea before writing this. Though I just put an end to the parasitic lives of two mosquitoes with no less relish than I'd feel doing the same for a couple of their human counterparts in politics or the ESL industry, I was not awakened by high pitched whining in my ears. NHL playoffs are 5 hours away and as far as I know there is no rugby, curling, baseball, Olympics, golf or other sports of note happing at this time. I'm not even nervous, excited or stressing about a class I have tomorrow, which, might have caused the stress to compound with every hour of sleeplessness. This happens too sometimes, but not this morning. And I say, "this morning," because I have already slept a couple of hours. That might be all I get for a while.

It isn't all that uncommon in my new place for me to be up when I shouldn't be and for that matter, sleeping when I probably shouldn't be. I give at least some of the blame for this to the air here. Taiyuan can be a nice city to walk around in. Some days. Why, just yesterday the AQI was around 50 or 60 and I took a stroll down a very modern shopping road. It was mostly full of shoe stores and athletic apparel from huge name brands like Nike, Adidas and such. I was more interested in the shopper food that was available. It was just more of the wandering around I've done since coming to Taiyuan, and the fortification of the idea that there is nothing I am interested in buying here really. I mean, I DO need some running shoes, but I won't be buying them from a team of workers dressed in matching pastel athletic gear hawking overpriced merchandise made by companies that are already too rich at stores with spine-rendingly loud and popular music encroaching on any possible transaction and earning a dollar an hour if they're lucky. And thinking that is a fantastic wage! No, I just spectate.

But I've learned that when the AQI gets above 100, I probably shouldn't do any such wandering or spectating. Even when I stay indoors, I need to open a window or two and let some air into my apartment and I think that air, coupled with the fact that I pretty much seal myself into a small bedroom with an electric oil burning mosquito killer going the whole time, makes it so I need to wake up every couple of hours, open the bedroom door, replace at least some of the stale air with mildly better and cooler air, probably invite in a mosquito or two, then try to get back to sleep, is the reason I find the only time I am sometimes unable to sleep in Taiyuan is at night when I should be sleeping. Now, during the day when I can leave the bedroom door open without mosquito attack being a certainty, I can, and do sleep very well, thank you. My whole life I've loved the nap. I feel like stealing a couple hours of sleep in the daylight is like getting away with something. I've read that Taiyuan people are actually very fond of the nap too. The kids at school here get lunch from noon to 2:30 and almost all of them nap. I've got a couch in my office where I've napped and I have walked in on more than one teacher/cleaner/administrator/stranger using the couch for that same purpose. It's one of the things I see during my wandering as well. And it's one way I'm fitting into my new city.

This is a watermelon vendor in Taiyuan bagging some Z's between customers.

Here's a shoe vendor from Taiyuan doing the same. I have seen about 100 similar stores about town with the identical selection of shoes. NONE that I want. Shoes are difficult for me. They have to be wide enough, which rules out 99% of all shoes in Asia. Then if you find that rare shoe made for a man, not a Japanese geisha girl, you're really pushing your luck to hope it has ANY arch support to it. So generally, I HAVE to get my shoes from other countries. If I absolutely MUST buy them in Asia, I try to find a western shoe store, hopefully without brain-melting music and ten underpaid, hardselling students per customer sporting referee shirts or some other matching uniform.

Anyway, I don't think I'm the only one in this city who doesn't sleep the best at night. And even though I should be working tomorrow, (Saturday), but my Saturday student is sick, (yippee!), I won't feel like I've really had a day off unless I get enough sleep. And since I'm going to watch about 6 hours of hockey starting at 8 this morning, guess who has two thumbs and will be getting his main sleep at 2:30 PM instead of A.M.

It really is one of the sacrifices I have accepted for this job. I wake up at least once every couple of hours to cough, blow my nose, go to the bathroom, kill a mosquito, take off my sweaty shirt, let some cool, clean air into my sleeping dungeon, get a drink, or any combination of these. That's every single night. Not one time have I slept through the entire night since coming here. Not once. It isn't all because of the Taiyuan air, of course. The clogged head goes back years. I think the polluted air of Korea started that. I've tried medicine while in the drug pushing environs of North America, but nothing helped. I reckon I'm stuck with this for life. When I'm upright, I hardly notice but lie down and it feels like I've caught a cold. Usually when I get up in the morning it takes a while and a few sneezes and nose blowings to drain. So at night I'm a noisy, snoring mouth breather. Somewhere out there there is a gal who didn't marry me who is awfully lucky to be sleeping alone and in peace. I wonder if she knows...

Again, the new philosophy applies. That gal might think she's got it bad being lonely and single but, hey, at least she doesn't have a husband who's getting up 20 times a night and snoring when he's not up. As for me, I'm up to my elbows in this job and this city. I just finished paying for the first half of my year of rent on this apartment. I have lost my great helper, Faith. She has been replaced by a girl who looks as though she's in over her head. She has until May 19th or so to get all the Z visa stuff worked out and I have serious doubts about that happening. That's right, I STILL don't have my Z visa! My first paycheck was half of what I expected because I was purposely not informed of the two week stagger in payday and cut-off day. Or maybe that was created on the day I was paid. Then the second payday was a week late and even though they can't pay taxes without the government finding out I don't have the proper visa, taxes were taken off. I've already made two visa runs while employed here, at my own expense, may have to make another, and will be paying for the Z visa run so my kindness is definitely being taken advantage of by my employers. BUT, at least I'm not THESE GUYS!

While, I must say, again, new philosophy, Robert Flower may think this is bad now, but I have seen so few of these Korean wives with western husbands situations work out, he can surely count the possible cancellation of wedding plans as ONE positive to come out of this whole mess. On the other, the MANY other hands, this has been going on forever. It's happened to me in Korea, Indonesia, and even sort of in Canada. It's never the teachers' fault, but they are almost always the ONLY people who suffer. The business and the ministry that probably conspired to create the sketchy situation in the first place won't even get slapped on the wrist. They'll be opening up fake schools and issuing improper visas again before these poor teachers get back home. But if you think Korea's bad, why were these teachers who are qualified to teach in Canada over there to begin with? Because things are even worse in Canada. Gone are the days of full time work, summers off, great salaries and benefits for new teachers in Canada. Fully qualified teachers are just barely scraping by doing part time ESL gigs. CRAPPY ESL gigs! And that might be what these teachers will be forced to return to. Some might return to Vancouver where they are way too late but FINALLY starting to plumb the depths of the fraud the government has been allowing in education since it has been corporatized. That's why I'M over here. That and I'm too "nice" to do anything about it.

But hey, at least they're getting their trips home and salaries till June paid by the school! That's a free holiday! When Lincoln International School in Icheon, S. Korea jacked me up, I got an apology and two week's pay. When Wall Street English in Indonesia got busted for hiring teachers on business visas I got the promise of help finding a new position, (which was bullshit), the promise of a flight home, (which was bullshit), an apology and no extra pay. I have STILL not recovered from that disaster!

So these guys might think they've got it bad, but at least the glass ain't totally empty! And, it just might not be such a bad thing to be getting out of South Korea right about now. I'll tell you, the entire time I was there I had people asking if I ever felt nervous about war breaking out. I never did. NOW, even though I'm not there any more, I feel more nervous than ever before. I fear for the safety of my many friends in Korea. I think Trump is just the whackjob to start something up over there. I've seen all kinds of signs recently and have been waiting for breaking news out of Korea. Still nothing, but as election day rolls around in the South, tests always happen in the North. What will the self-imposed king of the West do?

The unplumbed shallowness of the mind of Donald Trump being what it is, I wonder if on some level, conscious or usual, he isn't almost angry at South Korea for impeaching their president and giving America such a good idea! It did allow the sneaking of the THAAD missiles into Korea, where they are highly unpopular, while the country is between presidents. But I still think the Trumpster might not want any country getting the idea that ousting a shitty leader is a good thing. Or maybe he just wants to blow some more shit up.

Immigration officials, businesses, schools, and governments should be allowed to completely fuck up the lives of nice people with impunity, shouldn't they? Our acquiescence, no matter how reluctant, makes their occupational sodomy consensual in their minds.

Leastaways, that's what I reckon.

Think of nothing

Sometimes I wish some intellectual areas were as malleable as others. I mean for instance, science. Even though there are so many past scientific "certainties" that we now know are false, and everyone has heard at least a million times how people were killed for not believing the earth was flat, there are an awful lot of science bullies out there who are trying to force me to believe and not question the science they theorize to be fact. And the more insistent they become, the worse they are going to look when and if what they are saying is disproved by science. And chances are pretty good it will be. Then what will they do? Will they snap into a state of cognitive dissonance and just willfully ignore the truth? Or will they have the strength of character to admit they were wrong? The harder they push, the worse they will look whichever the case may be. But push they do.

How do you think this guy feels?

It is particularly distressing to me because I can think of two science bullies that I absolutely love! I really wish they'd stop doubling down their bets because sooner or later it's gonna cost them. I'm speaking of Neil Degrasse Tyson and Bill Nye the Science Guy. I watched Bill Nye's show. It was a bit after I was a kid, but I love science so I watched it anyway. That was his niche. Telling kids not to believe their parents, but to believe HIM is NOT his niche.

Okay, okay, it's quite unlikely that science will find irrefutable proof that the earth is only a few thousand years old, but, still, when you start targeting children's impressionable minds, it sure looks like a desperate tactic.

Then there's Neil Degrasse Tyson. This is a guy I have a ton of respect for! I bet he drinks beer. I'd love to have a beer with him! I've seen him on TV a LOT and he's always very interesting and I almost always learn and agree with him. But not just once, a few times, I've seen him take an all or nothing stance on the losing side. Yes, he's been WRONG about science more than once, but tell me who is going to challenge this man. Even if you're right, he can probably overpower you with the support of his many fans. And if you're wrong, well his legend grows. Here's a recent example.

I'm sensing a very palpable desire during this entire video, almost more of a MIKE Tyson desire, to just thump the listener over the head and say, "Scientists are smarter than you, just believe what we say!" And you know what? That would be great! If science was the way science is supposed to be. But it's not. It hasn't been for a while. Like most areas, science, or certain parts of it, have been commercialized and corporatized to the point where the scientists don't publish, or study what they want, they study and publish what pays. Publish or perish is nowhere more apparent. Ask a scientist. Not a famous one like Neil or Bill, one who's still got 50 thou in student loans. Are they really trying to find new things? No. They're mostly trying to prove or disprove things they're told to prove or disprove. This breaks rule number one of proper science: Above all, remain objective. If you are given a desired conclusion, objectivity flies out the window.

From the facebook page of the very same friend I got the above video, I read one about why marijuana was illegal in the States. It was about a fella in a position of power in the U.S. way back when, who went to 30 scientists and asked if marijuana was harmful. 29 said no, but the 30th, who knew which side his bread was buttered on, said it was harmful. And they tied marijuana use to an axe murder committed by a dude who never actually used marijuana, but nonetheless, it worked. For practically a century, marijuana has been feared in the U.S. More tragically hemp, but that's probably got more to do with Randolph Hearst, Dupont and plastic than anything. A great shame if you ask me. But there again, the greatest crop ever, scientifically transformed into anything from clothes to fuel for a car, repressed. Scientists, who were well paid by the tobacco industry, proved for years and years how safe tobacco smoke is for us. Why, it's probably healthy! And the hardest scientific pill for me to swallow has been the pharmaceutical industry, which I have only a tiny shadow of doubt has cured cancer many times but would rather treat patients for a long, expensive time than cure them cheaply. There are several other areas I've gotten into on this blog before that could be repeated. How many times have you gotten frustrated with wires for every electronic device you own? If science were science, there'd be no wires. We wouldn't even be paying for electricity. But you can thank Westinghouse, Edison and I think J.P. Morgan for the expense and the inconvenience. They wouldn't have made a bazillion bucks if they'd allowed Nicola Tesla to give the whole world free wireless electricity. THIS is why, in my mind, we MUST question science, because it has been successfully repressed in the past and I have no doubt is being successfully repressed as we speak right under the noses of Tyson, Nye and all of us.

The video appears to use four examples of how people who don't know much about science are standing in denial of it. I just gotta include this vid of someone who doesn't know much about philosophy standing in dismissal of it. Anyhoo, there's evolution, which I have blogged about before. Micro-yes, macro-requires a healthy scientific suspension of disbelief to accept as fact. It's not made clear in this video, but I know from past experience with Tyson that he believes in the harder evolutionary theory to believe. Vaccinations, again, if you say vaccinations are bad, I would agree you are just as wrong as if you say evolution doesn't exist. But there ARE and have been vaccinations that contain dangerous ingredients, are not fully tested and are being $old and administered. The government of any country could just as easily decide to use untested vaccines on the general public as they did their armed forces. Maybe they have. This is something we NEED to look into, not just trust science on. It's a trick as old as Moses' shorts to group people into black and white categories that make derision easier. That's what's being done by the science bullies. I'm not an antivaxer or antivaccer or however you want to spell that ignorant word. But I AM against shooting people full of untested drugs so pharmaceutical companies can collect their pay without fully earning it. This makes me an "antivaccer!" Burn him! ANTIVACCER! I believe that various parts of the theory of evolution are still highly theoretical and in fact identical to the metaphysical quandaries innate to religious belief in God. Then I must be against evolution! Ignorance! BURN HIM!

So that's two strikes against Tyson. Global warming I definitely won't complain about that. I trust the science, not the politics in that case, but COME ON, Tyson! GMO's? You want us to literally swallow THAT science whole? I mean, I sure HOPE Tyson is suggesting that the science being done to find harmful effects of GMO's is the science that should be trusted, but it's not clear. I am not going to trust anybody who is making a paycheck to mess with something so physically intimate as my food, thank you very much. And, again, from past experience, I know that Tyson believes GMO's are perfectly safe and it's science that should not be questioned. Strike three, mon ami! It absolutely SHOULD be questioned because we put it into our bodies every day! "I now believe, as a much more experienced scientist, that GMO crops still run far ahead of our understanding of their risks." That's a quote from a scientist who worked with GMO's and doesn't share Tyson's ideas.

Tyson, bless his gullible heart, still seems like he believes in science. And good for him! But, like I said, he's been wrong before. This is science that demands PROOF, not science that treats theories like proof. Apples and oranges. Yesteryear we had the apples, today we get oranges. Respectable scientific journals have printed articles on how the definitions of "theory" and "proof" mean different things in today's science. I can't tell you how many times I've heard people say, and I've read, in these same respectable scientific journals, how the Higgs Boson has finally been discovered! YAY! Maybe you might have read that too! It's been printed. But the God particle, as yet, retains its elusiveness. STILL not discovered. But, if the science bullies are to have their ways, we are to BELIEVE that it has been! Well they're, like, almost, sorta, totally positive it's like gotta be true. You know? Go back to painting your nails, I want to talk to a REAL scientist!

Notice in the video how in the beginning Tyson talks about how science is questioned by other scientists and then others. That's the way it used to be and SHOULD be! But then later in the video he says you don't have the option not to believe the equation of relativity. (I can't type the squared). Yes, yes I DO have that option. In fact greater minds than mine have opposed it. Like Nikola Tesla. One of its pillars, if I understand it correctly is that the speed of light is the fastest speed anything can go, yet other scientists have shown, (Tesla demonstrated TO Einstein), that things can move faster. He also said that when you have an established scientific emergent truth, it is true whether or not your believe in it. BECAUSE proper science is a process of constant questioning, emergent truths are being disproved all the time. That's what I call scientific progress. Accepting something because science says so is not.

Science is becoming a subject I don't really want to talk about with friends because stances are becoming too strong. People are willing to go to the mattresses over theoretical ideas that Ray Bradbury wouldn't even include in one of his books because they're so implausible. The Chuang Tsu might say, "Our words fly off like arrows, as though we knew what was right and wrong. We cling to our own point of view, as though everything depended on it. We are caught in the current and cannot return. We are tied up in knots like an old clogged drain. And yet our opinions have no permanence: like autumn and winter, they gradually pass away."

Which brings us to an intellectual area that IS malleable and seldom if ever has caused me the stress of scientific disagreements. Philosophy. More accurately, Eastern philosophy. Or even still more accurately, the kind I'm most fond of, Taoist philosophy. Not the modern, Taoism of magic and mysticism, but the more Lao Tzuian concrete aspects of spiritual obviousness that are hidden in distractions all around us. The thing that I may like best about this kind of thinking is that the harder you try, the farther, (or further), away you stray from the "Tao." The way. The WAY or at least the Way, is something evanescent and unattainable without proper instruction. And as Lao Tsu says at the beginning of the Tao Te Ching, "The Tao that can be expressed is not the eternal Tao." Which pretty much negates the entire book. One of the best beginnings I think EVER in a book. He's just conditioning the student to expect negation, contradiction, irony, and complete opposition from life. Only in that way will you understand it. But he cannot teach you, (which made me wonder the entire time I read his book, why Lao Tzu wrote it), only you can teach you. "If one is true to one's self and follows its teaching, who need be without a teacher?" Your "self" is an "it" according to Taoism. It can teach you. It is the ONLY teacher that can teach you! I have found in my many years of teaching that the student learns best who thinks he/she is teaching him/her self. Give them hints but not the answers. When they do the work and find the answers, on their OWN, they remember. Everything we need is inside us. In the Bible, Luke 17:21 says that "Heaven is within you."

This is reminiscent of the idea of the Good that Plato talked about ages and ages ago. He said it is at once a creative and sustaining cause of the universe, the condition of all knowledge, and the Summum Bonum or supreme object of man's desire. And here's the part I think is most pertinent to my point here today, he went on to say, "Being a metaphysical entity, it cannot be perceived by the eye or ear of sense, and is therefore ridiculed by the inferior man of little intelligence." This, in my humble opinion, is possibly best illustrated by some men of science. The bullies. They fancy themselves intelligent, but they can't see the noses on their faces. They are like any normal thinking human being and can perceive things in the universe that require a measure of faith. Indeed, they have tried to dress that faith up in scientific garment as best they can, but what it comes down to is, like Plato's cave full of people who glimpse the wondrous light and still return to utter darkness, like Lao Tsu, who in great bitterness of spirit called himself a dullard and a clown for not being able to lead a careless generation to the Tao, which he venerated as the most precious thing under heaven, they cannot abandon their cherished, comfortable, stable positions of darkness.

Great minds of science have written and spoken about the firm place the metaphysical MUST have in a proper understanding of science. Tesla called it the Aether. Charles Darwin till his death was convinced of a "creative force" beyond human understanding. Even Richard Dawkins, as I have blogged, gave God a greater chance than evolution. Agree or disagree with any of this, when you start thinking about the VERY beginning, you get into some metaphysical areas that science would LOVE to claim, but never will. This, along with the growing number of examples in which science proves to be decidedly unscientific, behove us to question scientists. Even well respected scientists like Neil Degrasse Tyson although we may find it hard to do so when a guy has such a cool name. Neil Degrasse Tyson. Hard to doubt. I'll give you that! And, as I said, despite his very occasional wrongness, I love the guy! I just wish he wouldn't be so adamant about being right. I wish he could catch some Tao and just relax and look at what's in front of him and think REALLY hard about it. Anywhere you are you can do this. This is the first test of the Tao. Just sit there. Where you are. For hours if you have to. It'll come to you. I can't tell you what. You have to figure that out on your own. But it's there.

Someday Peter Higgs might say, "You bunch of clods! How can any field be EVERYWHERE? And even if it can, how can something pass through it? I can't believe they gave me the Nobel Prize for this shit!" Someday Satyendra Bose might say, "A particle with no mass? Absurd! I only invented the Boson to beat the thousand other dudes who were trying to save scientific method and make the impossible sound plausible." We don't know. But it could happen. That's why we shouldn't just trust scientists because Neil Degrasse Tyson tells us to.

Here's a fellow who knows a bit about Taoism you might like to listen to better than me. Go right to the end. It's there, it's all there. The key to the big box too! It's there! Just look long enough... lol. Anyhoo, it's what we all need to do. Slow down. Stop the distractions for a short time. Just sit there. It may take longer for some, but it'll come to you if you give it a whirl. Thing is, most of us are kept busy by people who don't want us to discover what's there. But it's there! And when you come to that great epiphany of self and world knowledge at the same time, you realize what intellectual masturbation a lot of people are engaging in. It's enlightenment. It's worth a try, isn't it?

Nice or Stupid?

It's a long weekend of sorts here in the people's republic. It's a holiday called Qing Ming Jie during which the people tidy up ancestor's tombs and celebrate the dead. I hear that there also used to be a festival called Han Shi that coincided with Qing Ming, during which the people ate only cold food. I was out walking amongst the people of the people's republic today. It was a beautiful day. Sunny, not too smoggy, and warm enough to scare the locals with my white legs. I wore shorts outside the house for the first time today. I got some looks! One girl on a bicycle was so astonished that she almost rode her bike into a tree. I mean staring at my legs and pedalling by so that she was looking almost completely backwards. She was lucky her Mother was walking beside her and stopped her before she wiped out. Oddly, because of months of sock and pant wearing, my legs are largely hairless more than half way up the calves. Perhaps reminiscent of the plucked chicken skin on some of the food offerings at graves on this day. I guess friction has worn the hair away. A couple weeks of sandals and shorts'll take care of THAT sitch.

I didn't notice people eating any more or any less cold food today. Eating habits appeared as normal. But I DID see the paper flower and fake money offerings being sold all over the place. I just love the paper money! Just across the street from the cyclist I scarred for life, there was a small booth selling bills all the way up to a 100,000,000,000. A one hundred billion bill. I noticed no currency denoted on these bills. I suppose it's unclear what the currency is used in the afterlife. Look at the very first pic in this explanatory webpage. "Hell bank?" Is this just a(n) hilarious translation or is this an offering to some ancestors who weren't particularly nice? Maybe it's a sort of, "Thank you for being a bad person and leaving me a nicer house?" Or is the afterlife considered hell? I'll have to ask. Maybe it's a nicer hell than life was, so long as the living continue honouring you with sacrifices. Not sure.

I say the air was fairly good because the AQI, (air quality index), was 77 when I ventured out on my walk in the early afternoon. That's yellow. Not too bad, but not green, which is clean. However, tonight it's up to 109. That's orange and is described as dangerous for sensitive breathers. Take a look at the SECOND pic on that website I linked to this post. That's likely why. Over 1000 tonnes of paper products a year are burnt during this holiday. They're cracking down though because of fake money burning that has led to forest fires. It's funny the things a man recollects. I very seldom think of my Chinese girlfriend from my days when I lived in Hongcouver, but today I remembered her and her aunt going to a place in Vancouver where they burnt fake money. I never would have remembered that otherwise. What was her name? I wanna say Sophie or Sophia but it could just as easily have been Stacy or Selma. She wasn't burning any fake money to honour ME I'll tell you that. Just spending my REAL money. Meanwhile she worked three jobs and saved presumably so that someday somebody will be burning some fake money in her honour. I guess that's one of the horses on this old Chinese merry-go-round.

I actually saw a merry-go-round today outside the little shopping mall I walked to. Both were miniature versions of the real things they might have in Beijing, but I prefer the reality of the smaller city. I went off the main streets a little today and saw some of that reality. Narrow, bustling streets that looked as if they were dug up and patched by the locals, not the city so required that my concentration remain on the terrain and the motorists and cyclists and not so much on the earthy, Chinesiness all around me. Loitering. Lots of loitering. Some good smells of HOT food cooking and some bad smells of liquids being carried out of shops and sloshed down the sewer holes. And everything from the asphalt to the neon and non-neon signs to the vending tables seemed coated in a thin, grey film of pollution and cooking oil. I was looking for seeds, soil and pots so that I could do my part for Qing Ming. This is the time of year when farmers traditionally sow seeds as well. I saw no flower and bird shops, (Interestingly, this is the combination in the shops that sell seeds and pots and soil. They also sell birds, whatever the connection may or may not be...), but I did see quite a few other things. MANY fruit vendors that had bananas, strawberries, pineapples, apples, oranges and other fruits that were so obviously bought off the same trucks that I only really needed to look at one. Some of the fruit vendors had these tiny, pointy nectarines too. I was tempted to buy a few, but they were too hard. I saw variety stores everywhere; some slightly larger markets; barber shops; clothing stores; one tattoo shop that I looked in and saw someone getting a haircut; some coffee shops that, and I could be wrong here but judging by some of the young and sexier than normal pedestrians I saw, could have been comparable to the Korean "coffee" shops where you actually drink with young, available ladies. None of them were open yet. The girls I saw were probably just waking up and going out for breakfast at 2 or 3 in the afternoon. I saw a guy pulling orange video gambling machines out of a literal hole in the ground ostensibly to be used later in the evening and put back at sun-up. I saw a few tiny restaurants with big pots of soup or rice on the boil outside and hopeful, mangy dogs and cats lurking nearby. I nodded hello to one young man who was just standing around with a few other young, what shall I say, uh, industrious, shinily dressed, overcalogned, but enterprising looking fellows and he grinned and gave a barely audible ni hao. I saw a filthy, matted cat on a two-foot chain meowing in complaint. I saw kids chasing kids. Two or three 8-year-old boys crowding around a small, weathered video game didn't notice the passing wei guo ren. That means "foreign person." I don't hear that even close to as often as I heard "waygook saram" in Korea! And, although I still expect it, when I am approached by groups of teens, they DON'T say hello in English and laugh their asses off when I say hello back. I've been greeted by some kids, mostly in my school, and when I said hello in reply, there was no laughing! Perhaps the Chinese have not yet tapped into this ENDLESS fountain of Korean enjoyment.

I saw many of the same shops I see everywhere including in my own neighbourhood like video game places, hardware stores, dumpling, dimsum, noodle and rice shops, a couple mobile vendors of fruit, music, Chinese pancakes and wraps, and a whole lot of restaurants serving the same, more genuine, but less delicious Chinese food than they have in Canada. Other than the tattoo parlour and the possible girly bars, I just saw lots and lots of the same stuff that I don't want. Much like the fruit vendors, almost every shop has the same selection of the same stuff off the same trucks. But it was nice to see a new neighbourhood. Different vibe and different people. There were also four very nice, old and over the many years, badly pruned willow trees. I took some pictures of these beauties of nature overhanging the unnatural capitalistic hawking and haggling on this unseasonably hot afternoon, but I took them with my poop cam and that is incompatible with this computer so I can't share them.

When I reached the shopping area where two of my students, Krystal and Tiffany, told me I would be able to find what I was looking for, I had been walking for over an hour. The respite from the warm sun was welcome. Inside the dimly lit building were probably a hundred little privately rented areas where people had about 10 different kinds of shops. Not the first one of these I'd been to. Seriously narcoleptic patrons of shops were too tired to give me their hard sells. I took great pains to avoid eye contact and make their choices to remain in zombieville seem warranted. They weren't all totally idle, however. A few were talking with shop owners nearby, often with the identical products in their basically identical stores. Most who were not full on vegetative were lost in cellphones, which isn't much more alert. So it was fairly non-confrontational shopping. To me, that's a very good thing. I have a few rules when it comes to shopping in Asia. I detest shopping for all things except sports memorabilia and groceries. But since Asia has none of the former stores and so very few of the latter that are good, suffice to say, I detest shopping in Asia. Rules have made the experience a bit more, but not much more, bearable. Rule number one: if the store is playing loud dance music, local pop or even English pop songs, nothing good can be bought and no good price can be found at that establishment. Move on. I HAVE to give a beautiful example from today before we get to rule number two. I was walking down the long street that was almost all sports clothing and running shoes. Much like Korea, China has areas where they sell mostly one thing. Shoe areas, glasses areas, musical instrument areas, etc. So this particular shoe store had two athletically clad, high school to university aged girls either saving for university or paying for it with a job in which they pull down a couple bucks a day more than likely. They had to stand outside the shop and coax people inside. Inside where the song was playing, "Yo, yo, any you mothafuckas wanna rock?!?!" I smiled and almost accidentally encouraged one of the girls to approach me but I looked to the other side of the street.

Which brings us to the rule you've probably guessed by now: number two: don't make eye contact. That just encourages the hard sell. This goes with rule number three: If they try the hard sell, they've lost the sale. Even if I actually WANT what they're flogging. I don't want to encourage that harassment. Rule number four: Don't ask for help. Generally, whether you speak the lingo or not, the people in stores hovering over you as you browse are not there to help and CAN'T help. They know roughly as much about the store as you do. And if it's a store you frequent, less than you do. They're watching to see if you steal. And they're getting paid miniscule salaries, even in the richer countries in Asia, so don't expect expertise. Quite honestly, especially if you don't speak the language, the LAST thing they want to do is communicate with you and help you. And with their salaries, it's nicer of us to leave them the hell alone. Rule number five: No prices - no business. The shops that don't put prices on products WILL rip you off. Most countries over here have fairly standard rates for different races. There's the local price, the not local but same country price, the foreign white guy price, the foreign Japanese/Korean price and probably some others. If they put the prices on things, they can't discriminate. Some say they do this because it leaves the option of haggling open. This brings us to rule number six: I don't haggle. Okay, okay, I know it's our responsibility to do so in order to curb the cheating of our fellow foreigners, but rule number 5 discounts this. This is why I'm not generally excited when someone invites me to a market of some kind. Markets = haggling. I HAVE on occasion been known to outsource the haggling to a female Asian. Take your pick, whatever country in Asia, they're TIED for the best hagglers in the world. If you have a big purchase to make and you want to save some dough and aren't too worried about saving time, an Asian woman will save you money. It's a fact.

So employing these rules, I browsed the mini mall. It didn't take long because as I said there were 10 shops. Snacks where there were supermarket bulk bins full of nuts and sweets. Probably 10 of these with identical nuts and sweets. Toy stores where they had the identical cheap crap as the other stores. Stationary, houseware, salons, electronic knickknacks, cleaning supplies, bathroom and two floors of clothing. I avoided those floors. The first floor, every shop had the same items as every shop that sold the same stuff. I really didn't need to spend as much time there as I did, but because there were only the 10 different shops, it was very easy to get lost and I did. Luckily there were three shops that sold mostly fake flowers but some pots and seed. No birds though. I got some pots and seeds and then exited the mall. Of course the minute I stepped outside I sneezed. It was still bright and sunny out. I walked home down a few new roads. I went to about 10 or 15 stores in a printer neighbourhood I stumbled across including two shops that were Canon printer stores, but none could find me a black PG-945 ink cartridge for my printer. A few of them phoned other stores as well. They have what they have. LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS of what they have but no variety. I'll have to get it online. This is why Jack Ma is a gozillionaire! He's the guy who owns Ali Baba. The online megastore. I think he's bigger than Wallmart now. Jack Ma is no genius, lemme tell you. Well, he might be, but his business plan isn't. You give people what they want, not force them to want what you give, and guess what, you get rich! Especially if there are 1.4 billion of them.

So anyway, back to the top when I said that this is "somewhat" of a holiday for China. Believe it or not, it's pretty common in China to have these holidays during the week but do make-up work on the weekends. Almost everybody worked Saturday to make up for the holiday. All the kids went to school on Saturday. So it's really NOT a holiday. Here's how that complicated MY life: I teach one or two hours on Saturdays. Zoe, the Chinese teacher I work with, originally said that she would teach 2 hours and I'd teach one but it has never been that way. I've been teaching two hours every Saturday and she's been teaching one. This past Saturday was cancelled and the one before I was in Korea so my students hadn't seen me for two weeks. Zoe tells me that two of the kids quit and I only have one student now. Then Zoe tells me that because our student goes to classes on Saturday, I'll have to teach her on Sunday. Well I've already been told that I'll be doing make-up classes on Saturday so now I'm only getting a 2-day weekend out of the long weekend. Pretty much like everybody in China. Oh well, no biggie. So Zoe says I'll teach in the afternoon. Then she asks if that's okay and I say I'd prefer the morning because it makes it seem like the weekend is longer. So she says fine and then we talk about what to teach but never really land on anything. So I go in in Sunday morning not knowing what I'm teaching exactly. Then when I get there, Zoe tells me I'll be teaching all three hours because she has to go to church. Then Zoe becomes like one of those university girls getting 3 bucks a day hauling people in off the street: I can't make eye contact with her. I KNOW she knew about church on Sunday when she was telling me about the schedule change on Friday. This is probably why she originally said we'd be teaching in the afternoon. But I think, well, she DID the full three hours when I was in Korea and it's probably not worth complaining. On the bright side, I was never officially told but it turned out that the kids studied on Saturday what they would have been studying on Monday. Since Mondays are days off for me, I didn't have to go in on Saturday. So I still got a three-day weekend anyway, if not consecutive.

The thing I wanted to blog about today before I got sidetracked on the shopping adventure and tips, was just this. It happens an awful lot to me. Because I'm a nice guy. And all you nice people know what I'm talking about. I guess I shouldn't be surprised since you could just scroll back to many other entries in this blog and find on several occasions where I've commented that to a Chinese person, nice equals stupid. I feel like I'm paying all the bills here so far because the school knows I'm nice. I feel like Zoe made that move because I'm nice. I think that maybe this whole Saturday class, for which I make zero extra salary, could just be a private class I've been thrown into to fill out my sched and make someone else more money. But in keeping with my new philosophy, at least I'm still employed. It could be worse.

That said, I've been thinking a lot this week about why we're put on this earth. All the students I get instantly see that I'm a nice guy and they're faced with a decision: do I still respect him and do what he tells me to do or do I take advantage of his kindness and goof off? The problem as I see it, and this goes back to the ancestors living in hell, is that making your life successful by the standards of an increasingly acquisitive world, requires taking advantage of the kindness of good people. So many people sacrifice their principles to screw nice people in order to make money. And it's not only an undiagnosed mental illness, it's encouraged! Being an asshole is not natural, it's not good and it's not honourable. If you make your way in the world by being an asshole to nice people, I kinda hope you get to spend the afterlife in hell and that no matter how much money your descendants burn, they're only doing it because you left them money or stuff, they didn't love you, they never loved you, because you were an asshole! I hope that just makes your hell a little bit worse, you dicks!

When you really give it a think, you will find all kinds of situations in our lifetimes in which we have this same choice and if you ask me, these are the situations that measure the worth of a human being. All your friends are bullying the new kid and he's too nice to fight back. The substitute teacher is nice and he/she can't control the students. The cashier in training gave you too much change. Some jerk pushes his/her way to the front of the line. People are constantly faced with chances to take advantage of nice friends, family, mates, authority figures, all kinds of people. And people are constantly faced with chances to do something about OTHERS who are taking advantage of kind people. All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.

Even animals! It's been said that the way you treat helpless animals says a lot about how you treat people. Or the way you treat people who can do nothing for you, like homeless or poor. There are no grey areas either. No tough decisions. We all know when we are faced with these tests and we all know the right and wrong decisions to make. Nowadays we are much better at justifying the wrong decisions but I think only the truly psychologically damaged can't tell the right from wrong. This is not to say these decisions haven't been a part of life for time immemorial, however. Way back in Biblical times there were decisions like this and people taking advantage of the goodness of their fellow man. There were people who made good livings at it. And even Jesus didn't like them. What? That's not right? Jesus loved everyone, you say? Well, when he was telling us to love everyone, including our enemies, he expanded on that by saying that it won't do much good to love the good people, even publicans can do that! Even a lowly, scumbag piece of human garbage like a publican can love someone who loves him.

Let's get some perspective on this. What exactly was a publican? And why did Jesus, even Jesus, think they were all lower than snakes bellies in wagon ruts? Back in the old Roman times, the collection of taxes was the basest of all livelihoods. They were appointed by the "equites," the richest class of Romans, so extortion, overcharging, and outright fraud went all but unpunished. Since it made the rich even richer, they were all actually encouraged. And who are the people who can do such a loathsome job? People who care not a fig about their public perception. People who aren't out to make friends, just money. People who would rather have people fear them than love them. Psychopaths. Sociopath/psychopath, again, I'm not sure there is a difference and if you've read my blog enough, you'd know my feelings on this: I think a person using the mind to figure out the mind is just creating his/her own personal conundrum. A quandary inside a conundrum wrapped in an enigma. It's intellectual masturbation and far from scientific. The very well accepted "test" for psychopathy, even though it was devised by a Canadian, is a very good example of what I'm talking about. Most of us, through movies, TV, and some of us, books, know enough about sociopathic personalities and even various real life examples, to create as good a test or better. Just look at the test. To me, it's so simplistic, you'd save time by just asking ONE question: "Hey, dude, are you a psycho?"

But, this, believe it or not, is what we have. It's the best tool we have for spotting the psychopath. Yet, within the test itself lie its weaknesses. If a person is manipulative, charming, a liar, intelligent and versatile, he or she could easily see through this test and reverse it so now he/she is in the head of the shrink who's administering it. Look at my earlier post with the vid of Bundy being questioned by Dr. Dobson and see who you think is testing who.

So why bring this up? It's just because of what I see in our world. The number of suspected psychopaths is presumably 1 in 100. With this Hare test as our gauge, I'd suspect higher numbers, since most psychopaths should be intelligent enough to sidestep detection with so obvious a test. But even if the numbers were as high as 2 or 3 in 100, I agree with the thinking that they are the vast minority. Most people have normal emotions and empathy. Most people are NICE.

So why are so many psychopaths in positions of power like CEO's of large corporations or politics? Why are the minority of assholes running this gong show we have on Earth? BECAUSE we're nice and they are just taking advantage of us.


Psychopaths do bad things and some of the nice people go along with them because it's easier to be a dick than to stand up for what's right. Psychopaths lead and nice people follow, making it appear that there are more amoral jerks out there than there really are.

Nice people need to protest! We need to fight back. We need to kick some sociopathic ass! But we're too nice.

At least that's the way I see it.