Chapter 12

Aaaaaaand I failed the driving exam like a derp. I was taken aback a little bit by how it worked, I thought there would be an inspector sitting on the passenger seat with clipboard in hand, ticking boxes as I go, but no, the whole thing is pretty futuristic, I stepped in a vehicle decked with cameras everywhere, and had to follow the instructions from a computer. I parked in the spot, and was waiting for the robot voice to give me confirmation, and when none came, I thought I had to back down a little more, *DING* “you crossed the back line, you failed”. Damn it.

I can retake the exam up to four times, but I have to wait 10 days. Ah well, I’ve been a carless peasant for twelve years now, a few more weeks won’t change much. I sent a message to the driving school, the guy said I’d been underestimating the exam. Perhaps he’s right. I still don’t regret not waiting around yesterday to do a mock run, the problem is not how I drive, but knowing how the computer would give me instructions, which wasn’t part of all those practice hours I had to take. Anyway, I just have myself to kick for that fiasco, and it is what it is, I’ll have to wake up at dawn again and go line up at that test center far in the outskirts two weeks or so from now.

The girlfriend and I exchanged text messages.

“I fucking failed. Like a fucking retard”

“Aw my poor baobao, you’ll get it next time. Let’s go eat Sichuanese food this week, I’m treating you”

“No”

“Why not?”

“I don’t deserve it. I’m too stupid. I’ll stay home by myself, eat white rice and drink plain water”

I had one class late in the morning, I got a coworker lined up for covering me in case but I made it in time. I gave the students a free period studying for the final exams. One of them was wearing a hoodie that got my attention a bit, with a white design on black fabric that looks like the inscrutable lettering used for the logos of black metal bands. On the back of the hoodie was a pentagram with TOTAL FUCKING DARKNESS written in huge letters. I’d seen that before at a shopping mall, it doesn’t correspond to any real metal band, it’s merely copied on the aesthetics of metal culture, which is extremely poser. I’m 0% mad though, I’m not a gatekeeper, and in fact I find it hilarious.

“Where did you get that hoodie?”

“I buy in primary school. My friend buy same.”

“You shouldn’t be wearing this in school. You know there’s a zanghua on the back?”

Her classmates laughed and scrambled to see what was the dirty word I was referring to. Most hadn’t noticed. Hilarity ensued.

“Your PE teacher also had a t-shirt with profanity the other day. I mean, he doesn’t speak English, but you guys do, so why do you buy clothes like that, without looking at the words? It’s as if I came to work wearing a shirt with a big 肏 on it, how would you react?” More laughter.

I read a few pages from a memoir written by pick-up artist Krauser. Pick-up artists are a phenomenon of the internet age, men who dedicate a huge portion of their time and energy (and money, in many cases, through expensive seminars) to become good at seducing women. They get labelled as “creepy” and “manipulative” or even “rapey” but from what I’ve learned reading about that tiny niche subculture from first- and second-hand accounts, most of what they do revolves around self-improvement and learning social skills, though (or perhaps because?) you feel a serious autistic vibe perusing through their stories, with clinical analysis of each approach, narcissism, and tons of weird slang used. Krauser writes quite well and his backstory of how he got involved in the PUA scene after a divorce in his mid-thirties is compelling at first, but then it becomes bizarrely braggadocious and also he’s quite the racist, and not in an edgy joke or merely slightly-right-of-center kind of way.

I came to school straight from the driving test center, so I didn’t have my computer with me to pass the time in the office. I saw two coworkers sitting in an empty conference room, stapling a final exam paper, so I went to give them a hand. I have a few undesirable qualities, but overall I like to think I’m a nice guy and will help my fellow man in any way I can, if I’m not busy. One of my coworkers is from Sri Lanka, and told me he recently started day-trading on the Srilankan stock market. Seems like a lot of people from my generation are getting into this, as they slowly approach middle age and have money saved up that they don’t want to just leave in a savings account. I for one can’t, due to my non-resident status in Canada, I can only put money in index funds and have to wait until I get my residency back before selling any of that.

I got home and ate the last of my R.n’S. while watching YouTube videos. Styxhexenhammer666 foresees riots on January 20^th, and an economic crisis for the years that will follow, as he fears “Beige-ing Biden” will sell out the USA to China. Now would that be something. Kyle Kulinski, the left-winger, was vehemently angry at how Twitter banned Donald Trump from their platform, though he’s no fan of Orange Donny. He pointed out, rightfully, that some genocidal maniacs much worse than Trump are still on the platform, and also that it’s a strange dystopian world when tech monopolies have more power than heads of state. He compared this to the Patriot Act, except than now it’s Silicon Valley rather than Langley Falls doing extrajudicial grey-area repression. I agree with that nuanced analysis, unlike many of his “Orange Man Bad” audience members who rejoiced in the ban.

I also watched a 30-minute video in which former MMA fighter and current osteopath Rosi Sexton talked about injuries that occurred in UFC fights. I remember watching her fight a few years ago, she wasn’t quite good enough for the big league and was on her last mile but was considered a pioneer of women’s MMA. Of course the commentators kept hyping how educated she is and how uncommon it is, and now she’s a practicing doctor specializing in combat sports. The video was very interesting, it’s not that cool to revisit some of those gruesome hematomas and bone breaks that remind me how much of a barbarian I am to enjoy such a sport, but with her expertise on the subject and the high production value, it was a good watch.

On the way to school, I listened to Forming The Void’s last album. I normally don’t like metal with clean vocals, I much prefer screaming, shrieking, grunting, growling and squealing, but this Louisiana quartet has got some nice grooves and alternance between grungy melancholic passages and heavy riffage, I particularly like their track Onwards Through The Haze.

We had a meeting in the afternoon. The month-long winter vacation starts soon, and we’re advised not to travel too much around China, though as of now we’re not forbidden to do so. The conditions are 1) advise the coordinator of our plans so we can get updates regarding areas of high-risk and low-risk, 2) come back 4 days before the end of the holiday and take a covid test and 3) refrain from posting on social media, as there are people who have travel restrictions imposed by their employers and it’s not very nice to rub it in. Fair.

There was also talk about Chinese coworkers re-teaching parts of the curriculum that we’re responsible for. The principal called it annoying, I call it fucking disrespectful. I am supposed to share the courseload with a Chinese teacher, we sit down at the beginning of the year and split the syllabus in two. I confronted them already a few times about giving homework or re-teaching my chapters (but in Chinese, through rote memorization, and with none of the vocabulary), they’d nod with an absent glare and say “Yessuh, yessuh” and then do it again a week later. Now I shrug and don’t give 0.5% of a fuck, that’s NOT a hill I am ready to die on. Still, that raises the question, why am I even here?! The school could have every class taught by a Chinese crammer who’d just go through every exam question since 2002, one by one, until the students memorize patterns, hell that would cost them one sixth the salary load and they wouldn’t have to deal with long-nosed foreigners and their pesky demands and their stupid nasal language. But apparently it’s a question of “marketing”... the Chinese inferiority complex runs deep, and white faces still carry a lot of weight.

I also had some time to dick around the office, so I listened to a lot of music. From the old-school death metal of Outre-Tombe to the crossover thrash of Enforcer and the crust/thrash of Triumvirate. All excellent stuff. I also played some tracks from one of the absolute greatest hip-hop albums of all time, The Infamous by Mobb Deep, on the way home.

I aggressively went through my workout, to let go of some of the frustrations of the day, notably failing that stupid fucken driving exam. Then I cracked open a Goose Island IPA, cooked some ham and cheese tortellini in a marinara sauce, and plopped down on the couch to watch some Japanese wrestling. Some friends recommended I watch NJPW Wrestle Kingdom, their biggest show of the year, so far I’ve seen a royal rumble with 20 guys and a singles match with lots of high-flying.

At 8 PM I bundled up in my thick clothes and went outside with the dog. I rode my longboard to the girlfriend’s workplace, and we drove back. Then I watched a bit more puroresuling, cocktail in hand, and read a bit in bed.