Occasional Tales

“Let’s have a sports day.” Sports days in the Empire always seem to coincide with the threat of rain, and this week, we’ve been threatened with rain all week, rain that didn’t arrive until yesterday evening. It would appear that we can blame Typhoon Nesat, which smacked the Philippines around and then Hong Kong. I arrived at school this morning expecting to be teaching, but around morning exercise time we got word that the sports days were back on in spite of the increasingly heavy rain. I’m a little surprised at the decision, but I suspect that the school hierarchy schedules sports days so that they can go off on their hols a little early. Right now, the students are either huddling their umbrellas in the stands or taking part in some events on the running track. I’m stuck here mainly because I want to avoid being rained on more often than I can possibly avoid. But with the hols starting tomorrow, and having done all the necessary preparations for the resumption of cla

Random, not religious. I started clicking on the Next blog link without logging on to Green Bamboo. What did I get? Religious nutjobs. I clicked on the link again. There was another; and another; and another. What’s wrong with you people? I want random blogs written by sane, rational people. Why would Google think that I’d want to see a bunch of blogs by barking mad religious types? Ah, a little light comes on. It’ll be because my blogroll includes the British Humanist Association and Investigating Atheism, and for some reason a lot of people think that atheism must be some sort of alt. religion like Buddhism, for example. It’s not. Atheists don’t believe in disbelief as if it’s something that we worship. We just don’t ascribe life, the universe and everything to some alternative to the flying spaghetti monster, but rather to scientific principles. Born – live – reproduce – die. That’s it. In between, we may achieve something which leads to lasting fame, but for most of us,

Verge of disaster or business as usual? I’m not an economist with a special interest in China, but I have been seeing stories about the Chinese economy faltering. This is of some concern to me because the students in my programme come from some very wealthy families and my job depends on these people, their capacious wallets, and their love of conspicuous consumption. I’ve been wondering whether the two flats flanking my place are anything to go by. Neither of them has been occupied in a long, long time, and when people are there, they seem to be using the place as a matter of convenience. Someone turns up in the flat adjacent to this room to use the shower, but no one seems to live there. The other flat has occasional visitors, and seems, on occasion, to be lent out to people on a temporary basis. At the moment, I’m guessing it’s being used by Mr Shag-on-the-Side and Miss Concubine. Either that or these two like washing their underwear. But neither flat has been permanentl

Rebellion is never justifiable, is it? I’ve just been reading an article on The Economist about China’s attitude to the rebels in Libya and its wibbly-wobbly approach to dealing with the rebellion there. It includes one of those deathless lines, viz.: It does not want to send signals at home that rebellion can ever be justified. Let’s think. What happened the last time there was a change of government in China? Oh that’s right. A small number of people decided that by violently opposing the previous regime, which itself had not gained office through a popular vote, they had the legitimate right to govern the Empire. Did they bother asking everyone else what they thought? While we’re talking about irony, why are the Mainlanders complaining about the Americans selling posh kit to the Taiwanese? They should be quite pleased because Beijing doesn’t have to spend 一角 on the defence of Taiwan which, as we know, is part of China. (True, but a stupid truth.) Since the Taiwanese a

I have nothing to say, but this is the Internet. The financial world is going to hell. Again. And what can most of us do about it? Nothing. Europe seems to be about to slide down the toilet and even the Empire is apparently wobbling a bit. Meanwhile, there are particles which might just be able to exceed the speed of light. Confirmation pending. Amanda Knox might yet be released from prison. As on other occasions, I have no idea whether we’re being conned into believing she’s actually innocent or whether there really isn’t the proof to secure a certain conviction. I’ve seen one article, in The Guardian, which went into why the conviction was sound; but most of the time, overtly or covertly, the assumption is that the conviction was, at least, unsound. Meanwhile, the Americans are executing people on allegedly flimsy grounds and blocking Amnesty International writing campaigns. It’s also further proof that Amnesty International isn’t partisan. It leaves the Empire in an

Or tock, tock, tock. My access to the real Internet has been a little intermittent so far. I’ve had some quite good runs, but also occasions when nothing is getting through. It probably depends on the amount of traffic; and even if only a small percentage of Internet users in the Empire are surfing on authorised sites outside the prison walls, a small percentage of them using the same service as me is still quite a lot of people. As a consequence, posts here may be few and far between both because there isn’t always something pointless to say and because I haven’t necessarily been able to access the site. Right now, having got access to blogspot for the first time today, I’ve now lost it again, and even if I get it back, it won’t last. There, it’s back. I should go while I still can. No, it’s gone, and I’m having no luck getting through. Back. No, damn, gone again. Bugger! Total wipe-out. And there it goes again. 23.09.11 The ending to yesterday’s entry was abrupt becaus

It’s not deliberate, but it is stupid. Now that I’ve been able to view the real Internet again (within certain technical limitations; access comes and goes), I’ve found that neither the Phil Soc site nor the downloads section of the pgn mentor site have vanished. Both have almost certainly been blocked not because the imperial government hates the Phil Soc or chess games in pgn format, but because they’ve been taken out by the primitive Third-World software which does the blocking. The Phil Soc has probably been whacked because it looks like Tibetan or is a word in Tibetan. It’s merely the usual abbreviation for the Philological Society , which has no particular interest in the Empire or countries occupied by the Empire. If you’re one of the Empire’s Internet snoops (I expect you can surf wherever you please), check out the site. Harmless, as you’ll see, and blocked without justification. As for the pgn mentor site, I can only guess at that one. I suspected that pgn was the

The hole in the wall is still open. I had thought that the hole in the wall (by which I don’t mean some species of ATM) had been closed and that my brief return had been cut short once again. The news, unexciting, is that the weather has turned quite cool after last week’s summer-like temperatures, and the forecast isn’t looking promising. There would seem to be no gentle decent into autumn although I’m hoping that the present spell of chilly weather isn’t the harbinger of a long, cold winter to come. In my first year here, it snowed on the 1st of November and did not get warm again until late April The bicycle inventory which I mentioned led to reg. plates for our bikes. My plate is in my rucksack. I completely forgot about it last night. Honestly, I don’t want to attach such a thing to my machine, and I don’t see the point because foreigners, at least, don’t have to register their bikes. In fact, I’m not sure anyone does these days. The joy vampires have been at it ag

You really don’t need to know this. When Bruce came round this afternoon compiling a list of those of us who ride bikes, I got a sinking feeling that someone has decided we need a lecture on road safety. Road safety in China? What the hell are the road rules here? Cars at least obey the traffic lights (unless they’re turning right), and valiant men and women armed with flags make others stop at intersections because the electric bike people and cyclists think the pretty lights are optional. In fact, to them, all the rules are optional. There’s a hierarchy of size, but that’s a custom not a law. Riding the wrong way and riding on the pavement are also popular customs. It’s also a popular custom among the police to turn a blind eye to such indiscretions. Pedestrian crossings are a joke because the people crossing pay little attention to the cars and the cars pay little attention to the pedestrians. I’ve been riding a bike here for about five years now and have three basic

Or, Western vs. Oriental speed. A couple of days ago, I had an encounter with the Chinese director of our programme. I’d just got back to school from buying lunch and for the first time ever since I’ve been working at the school, I got reminded of the rule about wheeling bikes through the school. I don’t do that because as far as I’m concerned, rank hath its privileges and, as a teacher, I shouldn’t be subject to this particular restriction. I note that those teachers who drive cars don’t have to get out and push their cars and that the ground staff never get off their bikes. I think what’s really going on is the over-solicitousness which foreigners sometimes encounter here. It’ll probably be known that I’m quite fast on my new bike (although I was also quite fast on the old one), and they’ll mistake my reasonable pace for speed because their own pace is so sluggish and torpid. I have heard one story about a foreigner who bought a bike and could go nowhere without being surroun

Did you even miss me? Thanks to one of my colleagues, I now have access to the Internet again – the whole thing and not just some declawed cat. I’m now facing my old dilemma of what to do with this blog which has been so idle for so long. My WordPress blog remains my main blog with my LJ one in the wings. Apart from those two I have a couple of others for my more specialised interests, but they need not concern anyone apart from me. The first difference I note is that YouTube videos are appearing on websites where they have, until today, been missing. It’s not that I was a massive fan of YouTube, but it is a blasted sodding nuisance to miss out on the video part of some online article because of a bunch of mean-minded, miserable sods. In fact, I’ve started calling them joy vampires because they want to suck as much happiness as they possibly can out of everyone else’s lives. I see over on Language Log, Victor Mair has posted an entry about the use of the phrase “ hurt the