This other night I noticed that there was a little damage to part of the building when I came in the front door. Last week was “Singles Day” 11:11 which is the biggest shopping day in China and this year the sales jumped up nearly 30% to over $25 Billion US. By the time I was heading out the following morning there were already many deliveries being made. I got a 32GB USB drive and a power-bank for the phone and so that was my 100 rmb for this year. So you are asking what has this got to do with the damage, well as the entrance is quite small and it looks like some people were buying the complete contents for their home, some of the items being delivered were rather large. Fridges, dishwashers, TV’s almost anything you can think of was bought and was being delivered. So somewhere in amongst the many deliveries part of the building was damaged.

According to Bloomberg,  it’s barely two hours into Singles Day and the Chinese have already forked over a cool $8.6 billion for friends and family.

To my horror and utter amazement it seems that this building I am in has some sort of polystyrene cladding. Now I’m sure it will have some good thermal properties but the real concern of course, “Is it another Grenfell?” I am here for another two weeks and I’m on the forth floor, which is really the third floor because they follow the stupid American way of counting floors. But never the less I don’t really want to have to exit via a window.

The cladding looks so convincing, it looks like stone and it makes you wonder if and possibly when will such a disaster strike China. There have been many fires around the world and many other tall residential buildings have some form of cladding that is actually fuel for a potential fire. Not a very comforting thought if you are living on the 30th floor.

Suzhou has a new shopping centre and it is vast, it has been under construction for many years and today I went there for lunch with a friend. We wandered about looking for one particular restaurant but it took us quite a bit of time even although we looked at the maps and asked directions twice, but it was worth the wait. It was a Xian restaurant and so the food was very tasty and a little spicy.

I only have a few pictures as the main reason for writing this is to show you what is on the top floor of the shopping centre. Mind you on the bottom floor there is an ice rink which of course is nothing unusual really but this one is very large indeed. I had to laugh as I watched a line of young folk edge onto the ice scared to let go of the rail and venture out on to the ice, although there were a few people doing quite well. I’m sure this will be a great place in the summer months when the temperature gets over 40c

But the pièce de résistance was the Pony Club on the top floor.

Now isn’t this the kind of thing every shopping centre should have? but maybe if they open this kind of thing in the west they will need to use Clydedales as I think the fat folk in the west would squash these wee Shetlands.

My Didi driver or Uber to you, was quite cute and her driving for the most part was very good.  However I couldn’t help but notice a few little problems with her driving.  The main one being the fact that the interior mirror was being used as a hanger for all manner of things and all I could see was the roof through it.  I’m sure if she looked at it she would have seen less than me.  There were also many cute toys and things plastered all over the dashboard and the techno Chinese music being played was interesting.

Her driving technique was interesting too. 2nd gear was engaged after about half a second but the shifts through to fifth were very smooth.  Coasting seems to be a big part of driving here and even the bus drivers do this a lot,  which I find quite scary because you can sometimes smell the brakes. But I am not complaining about my Didi driver,  but I am intrigued how she and many other drivers can happily and confidently drive without using the rearview mirror 😎 I think there must be some Chinese 6th sense at play here. 

This morning I have had a few emails from my real estate about repairs to the house and also about the current tenant. It looks like the skylight has been damaged by hail and needs to be replaced which is fine. However up until now I have been accommodating to the current tenant, they don’t have a lot of money and I know they are struggling a little and because of this I have allowed them to pay off the electricity and water bills. But they have not been keeping up with the payment plan that was agreed upon. There has just been a two new bills arrive which I have paid but they have not yet paid off the previous bills.

Now this is not all about money, I last was in my home in June of this year and was really surprised that they never even made an attempt to tidy the house before I arrived. The house was not particularly clean and the place was a shambles. The outside didn’t look much better. I was really pissed off and disappointed.

The lease states that there is the young girl and her two kids living at the house but I know and the real estate know that the boyfriend is also living there. I don’t have a problem with this because as I say they are struggling a little and if he is technically not there then he will get more government assistance. So I feel I have been more than fair and yet I also want to protect my home, my hoose.

And so it seems that they are now avoiding contact with the real estate because of the money that’s due. There is enough in bond money to cover any monies due so that’s OK. So I have made the decision this morning to end their current lease and get new tenants. This is not something I really wanted to do as it is expensive process, but at the end of the day I have to protect my home. I just hope I can get better tenants next time………………..

There are many different styles in China and when it comes to what people wear it doesn’t seem to matter how outrageous it looks to the foreigner or to anyone else for that matter. This morning I saw a young guy walking his small poodle dog which had its wee coat on and he was sporting a pair of gold coloured training shoes. I’ve seen folk in the west get beaten up for less.  But in China this is perfectly acceptable along with the woman I saw wearing a T shirt which said” Who the Fuck is Mick Jagger? ”

So I find it quite a liberating experience to be able to wear what you want and not really be self conscious because in China anything goes.  So I’m wondering why is this the case?

Well for many years the Chinese people wore the same clothes, well not the rich or the elite but the normal everyday working man and woman, they wore the standard issue Chairman Mao suit.He wore this of course so that he could blend in and look like one of the many and to wield his power as dictator more easily. After all if you look like an ordinary person then you must be OK.

Kim Jong-Un in North Korea does the very same thing; you don’t see him wearing lavish suits in public. In fact quite often the people around him look better dressed. This basic ploy helps to make the Leader look like one of the people.

To this day Mao is a revered character to many Chinese both young and old.  If only they knew the truth about this man and if they did I don’t really think it would matter anyway. Mao seems to be remembered more for the good he did and not as the cruel dictator that killed millions of his own people and destroyed much through what is known as the Cultural Revolution..

He is seen as the man who made it possible for China to become what it is today, which is the most powerful country on earth. I say China instead of America because the tide is turning and it’s turning against America. America may still have more missiles but China has been slowly taking the world over by stealth. China has invested in every continent and has gone to many countries that the west will not or cannot go to. The new Belt and Road initiative will revolutionise the way goods are transported from east to west and vice versa. Of course this is seen with suspicion and maybe they should but maybe this is just a good idea. It will benefit many countries and of course China.

America is also not well liked in the world as they only seem to want to go into another country to change the thought process and of course steal the resources that might be up for grabs. Now I don’t think for one moment that China is going around the world as a benefactor, in many ways it is there for the same reasons as America but it seems to build infrastructure rather than destroy and conquer. It does it is a smarter way, as I said before; it does it by stealth and because of this it’s agenda might just out manoeuvre the Americans and the west.

What the Chinese government thinks is anybody’s guess but if you ask any Chinese person on the street that is going about their daily business, then the answer is mostly the same. The want peace and they don’t want war; they don’t want to take over the world. They don’t really care what goes on in the west and they hope that many of the western problems don’t come here to China. For instance the level of violence in many western countries is a concern. Many people here know that they don’t have total freedom but then again they feel safe and they are happy to compromise a little to feel safe. Some of the restrictions on the internet are really stupid and the sites that are blocked are so random sometimes it’s hard to understand why.

I’ve lived in China for the last year and a bit and I have not been converted to communism and I have not been brainwashed. Instead I have enjoyed my time away from the west. I’ve lived in Australia for many years and I still read the papers and keep up with a little of the news coming from there and it’s absolutely laughable at the state of the place. They really couldn’t organise a piss up in a brewery. The biggest laugh at the moment is the fiasco about the citizenship of many of the members of parliament; I mean none of them are really Australian, there a mixture of ethnic mongrels from the rest of the world. This could have been sorted out in a matter of days if they had done the audit that many members spoke about, Oh the other sad thing from there is that they are considering one of the biggest open cut mines in the world from a dodgy Indian Company called Adani. And corruption doesn’t exist they say, well this is proof that it does. For some reason which I can never fathom, is why Australia does not look at the rest of the world and see the mistakes made by other countries and learn from their mistakes rather than push on with eyes and ears covered.

Anyway I digress, but when it comes to fashion trends I think that in China there is not one trend. There are so many styles here it’s way too hard to put a label on it. You will still see the older folk wearing the traditional cultural revolution Mao clothing and many of the older woman wear these really colourful jackets that looked like they have been made from left over curtain material. Young folk, especially the women wear so many diverse styles that to a western eye would seem out of place. For example we would get dressed up to go somewhere special, they seem to think every day is special. If I had some pictures, which I don’t unfortunately, then you would understand a bit better what I mean but then maybe you will have to come here and see for yourself.

I’m on the bus even as I write and this bus driver is a fucking pain in the ears.  Not only does he blast his horn when we arrive at every bus stop but he has to annoy almost every other individual that he comes across. 

I have my head phones in but my ears are starting to bleed because I’ve got the volume so high.  What a useless prick.

The horn has become of no use at all other than a noise and of course to annoy me. It’s used so much that no one really pays any attention to it.  I’m at a loss to understand this habit.

I got home quite late last night from my outing to Shanghai. As I came out the lift onto the landing the family in the unit opposite were seeing their guests off and so I politely said hello. To my surprise I knew the next door neighbour, what are the chances of that. This was Tom who had been my first student when I arrived in China and I always new that this apartment block looked familiar, but now I know why because I had been here before, almost 12 months ago in fact.

So how bizarre is that? I just can’t go any where any more.

Yesterday myself and my friend Lydia went to Shanghai to see this exhibition on Renaissance Art and it was great. I’ve always enjoyed this period of history and more importantly Leonardo Da Vinci, who in my opinion was one of the greatest minds in history. So it was also great to see a real self portrait of the man, although the Mona Lisa that was here was a copy.

We were lucky enough to arrive early and so there was not a lot of people and for those that were there they treated this with respect, speaking quietly and moving about enjoying the feast that was on offer. After we had seen all of the exhibition, Lydia said that she had missed seeing the Mona Lisa and so we back tracked to the beginning going against the flow. Just as we reached the last doorway to that room there was a hoard of tourist entering and unfortunately the ambience of the place disintegrated in a heartbeat. When a tour guide is leading a group they use a microphone and small speaker which is usually way too loud and the sound quality is shit. And so we have gone for a quiet environment  to this dreadful rabble flowing through a healthy body like a insidious poison.

This has got to be one of the most annoying attributes of going to public places in China. The groups are way too large and they when they flow through a space they have little or no respect for anyone else. But as I said, we went early and so we were lucky to enjoy this exhibition before it got chaotic.

I hope to go to to Italy and see more of this wonderful artistic period and if all goes well then I might even be able to fulfil this dream in January or February next year. I’ve been putting off for too long a trip to Italy and so I think I will bite the bullet and make plans.

From Suzhou to Shanghai is only around 40 mins on the high speed train and this is very convenient but the problem is when you arrive in Shanghai, because it’s such a big city and although the metro system is very useful, it just seems to take a long time and many changes of metro lines to get to where you want to go. It took longer to traverse the city than to travel from Suzhou to Shanghai. Not my cup of tea.

But was it worth it? Of course it was………………it was a great exhibition and it shows you what can be achieved by man even although all around him is chaos and war. Although this seems to be a very romantic period in history, Leonardo was tasked with designing weapons of mass destruction. He created such detailed drawings of the human body that for many years these were used as a reference material and guides to help doctors. Some of the engineering solutions he perfected are in use today.

To find out more about Leonardo you can have a look here because I am too lazy to write anymore.

Leonardo

I got invited to speak at Toastmasters this evening about my travels and so I did a wee talk about India. Most important message I gave was” to watch where you step” because the cows leave so much shit everywhere and you don’t want to stand in it with your new sandals, although your feet might feel a little warm and sticky after the experience.