On a Wednesday I go to an Italian company called MMG and I give English lessons to some of the employees there.Wendy is one of the girls I teach and she said to me a couple of weeks ago that her and her husband could give me a lift home which is great because my new digs are a fair way away from this company. Yesterday was my 3rd ride home and as usual it can be an exciting ride due to the very fact that you are in China. For some strange reason, which I have no idea why, we sit in the back seat. Often when you see a family here or even if the car has just a husband and wife then the wife will sit in the back and not beside the driver. So Wendy and I are chatting in the back of the car and her husband seems to be in the mood to change lanes all the time and getting no where fast. On the freeway he does a lot of heavy breaking because he is sitting on the arse of the guy in front. The driving tonight is an example of how the vast majority drive here. He doesn’t look ahead and read the road and so he’s on and off the gas. Rather than staying in the one lane his in impatience is getting the better of him and he gets caught at every wrong decision he makes.

We come to a set of lights which is always busy and when you turn right the 3 lanes narrow into two because we have to go over the bridge. As we do so we see this BMW on the back of a transporter and it has been seriously modified and quite recently by the look of it. He has a chuckle about how you have to be careful when driving in China, Pity he doesn’t take his own advice. After crossing the bridge the road splits into two and gets wider. He is intending to go right at the fork but the bus on the inside has no intention of that happening and so the race begins but the bus has the edge and he is forced to back off as it looks like the bus and car are about to become one. And then for a brief moment car and bus touch and he hits the breaks and then back on the gas as we begin to hunt the bus in front of us.The bus driver is doing a great job of keeping him at bay and of course as a one time crazy bus driver myself I know how easy and enjoyable it can be to play with someone like this. But not to be out done by the bus driver the husband has some crazy moves himself and he screams up the inside of the bus and then pulls in front of him several times until he wears out the bus driver and we both stop in the middle of the road, not off to one side but in the middle of the road. Bus driver and husband exchange words and it’s on………….

The next thing husband is back in the car and we are pulling off to the side of the road. Wendy is very apologetic and says that they will call the police and was I OK to wait or did I have to go somewhere. I said “No problem” I’m just curious to see what happens next. I get out the car to inspect the damage and to be honest I was expecting quite a bit of damage because before I got out the husband and bus driver were going at it hammer and tongs shouting about the damage. I mean it can’t be that bad, after all he still managed to drive the car like Starsky and Hutch.

I get round tho the passenger side and begin to mingle with the passengers from the bus that have all come out to have a look and see what the problem is. I look for the damage and at first I don’t see anything and then I notice the door mirror has a mark on it about 3 cm long and about 1 cm wide. This is the impact point. There is no other damage. I’m a bit bemused by the whole thing, after all it wasn’t all the crazy bus drivers doing, husband was also playing the same stupid game.But to this day I still don’t know what possesses people to take on a vehicle that is twice or three times their size, just let it go. Husband and driver are still screaming at each other, the driver is furious because he thinks that the damage is so small and insignificant and he’s no doubt going for his tea and just wants to get home and this is the last thing he needs is some nutter going on about a scratch. Husband will not budge. I stay in the background and get a few strange looks from the passengers. Another bus arrives and all the passengers board that bus to be whisked away . The police arrive on their ebikes and take particulars. The looks on their faces said it all. “What the fuck are we doing here?” Husband has over reacted and gone too far but he has to play it through to the end, I mean you don’t want to lose face.

After 10 mins the police go, the bus driver screams off and I return to the back seat and continue my chat with Wendy. I’m only 2 kms from my home so we are soon stopping again. Husband stops the car and you can see he is still a little shaken from the whole experience. I hope he learns from this incident and takes a bit more care when driving. I’m a great believer in giving people a little fear now and again to get them to pull their heads in and think of the consequences. I know when I saw some driver being a bit of a bully and forcing his way through the traffic when I drove the buses I would often give them a little fright by gently pulling out into their path and giving them a little scare. But sometimes I was also doing the right thing in the bus and some clown would try and fight with me for space on the road. One day a Volvo driver did this and he lost and I ripped off the front of his car, I couldn’t contain my delight. Although I was very disappointed I never managed to rip off a car door when one was opened in front of me, I always reacted too quick. When I returned to the depot one night and found out that one of my mates had managed to do this on Paisley Road West I was so so jealous.

​Yesterday I went for a wander down by one of the many canals here in Suzhou. It was a very residential area with many old houses on the canal, small businesses and one wee gem I stumbled upon was the Solo Cafe.

It seemed a bit out of place here but as I continued to wander I soon realised that the University is not too far away and that some of the houses here look quite large so I guess there will be some coffee lovers around.  This wee place is just that, it’s wee. You can have any type of coffee, it sells booze,  ice cream and small snacks. There are book shelves filled with books, mind you they were all Chinese but that’s OK because I took my own. There is a mixture of tables and chairs.

And where I was sitting on the comfy sofa, a large window overlooks the canal. Mind you I wouldn’t swim in it but it still is quite a nice vista to have when reading and sipping coffee.

In the background classical music meanders through this small cafe which helps transport you from the chaotic world outside. A brief respite from the horns and madness that is China.

The coffee was also very tasty, I would have preferred a little stronger but it was by far the best coffee I’ve tasted here in Suzhou. And so I shall return to the Solo Cafe and look forward to parking my arse on the big comfy chair beside the window for another long black.
I took it down because of the amount of spam but I have managed to find an easy solution to the problem. ..

Yesterday as I was walking passed the Suzhou University near Donghuan Lu, I saw a young girl cradling this young man in her lap. They were in the bike lane at the side of the road. His body was lifeless and she was gently patting him as she sat there. She seemed very calm. There was a flaky looking young lady beside her that didn’t seem to be doing anything apart from holding some shopping and then to my amazement took a picture of them both lying on the ground. As I walked passed them I didn’t see any obvious signs of trauma, there was no blood on him but there was also no signs of life.

Everyone that passed them, whether it be on the motorbikes or walking stopped to have a look, but no one helped. I did not help either but then what could I do. I can’t even speak the language well enough never mind diagnose the problem and then maybe phone for an ambulance, what is the Chinese for 999? I must admit I was fascinated by the whole incident as morbid as it may sound. I was wondering why the girl holding the boy wasn’t on the phone calling an ambulance, maybe she had. Eventually another young girl stopped and took the boys arm to see if he had a pulse, well that’s what it look like. But there was little reaction from her also. She did however turn to flaky girl and tell her to go across the road for something and so she did with shopping in hand and then nearly got hit by a bus. After a few minutes she came running back with shopping in hand and was promptly told to go back again. I guess 10 mins a had passed and I hadn’t see a phone call being made or anyone else lending a hand.

I decided that my morbid curiosity would not be satisfied as I was not prepared to watch any longer.

A few weeks previously I was walking to the bus stop on the same part of town. As I reached the but stop I noticed, well heard this white AMG Mercedes first of all and then I saw it rip passed the bus stop at warp speed. A common sight in Suzhou and as night falls, many of these kid boy racers come out to play. Now bear in mind that most of the drivers in China are shit and it is a very small minority that can actually drive with any due care and attention.

My bus arrives a short while later and on I go, I grab a window seat and connect to the free WiFi so that I can see what has been happening with The Donald. After about 5 mins we are stopped at a set of lights but it’s obvious that something else is going on. I’m on the drivers side of the bus and we are about to pass the white AMG Mercedes which is parked diagonally across the road blocking off one lane. There are about 15 people gathered and they are all discussing something. A short distance away on the ground lies a young guy in his 20’s staring into space, motorbike lying behind him but again no sign of life. The bus is stopped for at least 3 or 4 minutes and again I’m fascinated that no one is with the boy on the ground, but then again if he is dead why worry. The boy is lying on his side and his head is resting on his arm and at first I’m thinking he must be really hurt and they don’t want to move him, but no one is with him. The longer the bus sits there, the more my eyes are drawn to the young man on the floor and then I realise that his eyes are wide open and they have not blinked once, he hasn’t moved, I think he’s dead.

So I’m not sure if the AMG was involved in all of this or he was just a good Samaritan taking control of the situation but either way it is still very different from the way this situation would have been dealt with in the UK or Australia for instance.

Death is of course is the final leveler for us all and will come to us in different ways, we can’t avoid it. But I’m hoping that it will be a while before he comes knocking at my door. To be honest I’m very surprised that I haven’t seen more death in China while I’ve been here because as I’ve mentioned many times the driving here is dreadful, but not only that it’s the way people move across streets without looking. They don’t seem to have any idea of the risk to their life’s, they just don’t think through the decision before they make it. I guess the only way you can really know what I’m talking about is to come here and see for yourself.

Didn’t understand a bloody word they said but it was certainly an experience going to watch the Kunshan Opera.

I might grow my beard this length and then get a job as an actor in the Opera. 

It’s a strange mix of talking and high pitched singing which often seems out of key and it’s sung in the local Suzhou language so I wasn’t the only one in the performance today that did not fully understand what was going on. 

There is an orchestra with a heavy percussion sound and there was a strange looking pipe instrument that I had never seen before with an interesting sound.

There were two performances and the first one was about a henpecked husband and to be honest the expressions of the actors told quite a bit of the story.  Even although I didn’t understand any of the dialogue I got the gist of it at times. 

If you want to learn a bit more about Chinese culture then I would say come and take a look,  but I have a sneaky suspicion that this will be my one and only time for me. 

I’ve been in China for just over 6 months now and it’s given me a chance to look at life in a more detailed way. It takes a while to adjust to any new space and of course it a can always be a little overwhelming at first and so you tend to miss what’s going on in the background so to speak.

Apart from all the noise and the chaos, the traffic etc I began to notice the legions of old people, some of them looking after the grand kids and others are aimlessly walking around lost in a lost world. There are very few Grand Parents that I have seen that are really living in the moment, in the present. Most look to out of place and out of time. I have been living in a very quiet complex for the last 3 months and there are a variety of folk to choose from. Early in the morning when the weather has been fine there are around 6 older women, grand mothers I would say, doing their Tai Chi for at least an hour. I always wanted to go down and join them as it is something I have been interested in, but it was winter and it was too difficult to get out of bed for 7am to start Tai Chi, I’m not a morning person. These women were all quite fit obviously because they do exercise but they also looked young because of the way they dressed. These weren’t farmers that had been dragged from the country and dropped into the 21st century and trying to get a handle on things.

The old men wear suits, usually black. Mind you this is also common in older generations in other countries, it’s not unique to China but I think there are many more here. It’s like a uniform for the older man and I haven’t seen many Chairman Mao suits, which is a shame really.

But apart from the clothes it’s everything else about them that I find intriguing. A lot of them have mobile phones but there not smart phones, they would be the equivalent to a Nokia 5510 but with one difference, when they punch the keypad it shouts the number out loud and proud for all to hear. When the call connects it’s quite funny, although a little annoying, because they shout down the phone and you can hear them for miles. Mind you I have no fuckin idea what they are saying because my Chinese is not that good. It reminds me of when I was a kid and I made my first telephone with a piece of string and two empty bean cans and sometimes you did have to shout depending on how long the piece of string was. But it seems to be the women, more than the men that shout down the phone loudly and it sounds so so aggressive but that’s just the Chinese way.

In this digital age that we live in many people haven’t quite mastered the technology, I myself know a few like this and some are just not interested but the difference is they seem to be engaged in the modern world, these old Chinese Grand Parents seem to be the complete opposite and I think that is why I get some smiles and interesting looks when I use my technology to pay for shopping, or to navigate the public transport system using my trusty Samsung S5. ( I’m old and grey you see) The Chinese have several apps of course, but one you may have heard of is Wechat. I can send messages with it, voice or text. I can pay my mobile phone bill, I can buy things using this app. I don’t carry money anymore, I use my phone. I can transfer and receive money using it. Order a Taxi, a meal, train tickets………….the list goes on and on, oh and you can make phone calls for free. This army of old folk have no idea what potential the modern world holds. This might be because they never received an education and so can not read or right well. Mind you I’m illiterate here too.

Many of them have been drafted in of course to bring up the kids while the parents are out at work. It is the Chinese culture that dictates this continuity, even in the digital age. So I wonder what will become of these old lost souls, are they going to be able to adjust or are they to be doomed to live in a world so alien to them that they walk like zombies.

These old folk are not stupid, they may be illiterate but if you were to put them back into their natural, familiar surroundings you would see them bloom once more.

I went to IKEA today, but I didn’t have the Meatballs although they did look tempting. Instead I had some diced pepper steak with rice and black coffee. The layout of IKEA feels very similar to the one I have been to in Springwood near Brisbane.

When you walk in you have the option to go to the restaurant or straight into the store itself and of course like all IKEA stores you are forced to walk around the whole building to get back out again. One difference of course is the amount of people walking through the store, not as many as you would find in the Brisbane store. Plenty of parking, mind you that’s of no concern to me because I got the free shuttle bus.

I was however surprised at some of the pricing, it is very cheap in comparison to a couple of items that I purchased a couple of years ago.

This day bed will cost you around $250 here but in Australia I think you will be closer to $600.

This kitchen table is $200 cheaper in China. Mind you it would have been a helluva lot more expensive to stick in my luggage to fly it back.

I got through to the checkouts and I got some IKEA chocolate and you can also buy some cakes and things just like you can in any other store, but I must admit I haven’t seen this sign on the IKEA in Brisbane.

I stood here for a while hoping that something might happen but alas I was disappointed, ah the story of my life.