Chapter 120

Small change in my schedule. Usually I go:

1- Boil water, make tea

2- Look at supid memes on the internet and antagonize people on Facebook

3- Take a nasty shit

4- Do yoga

5- Walk the dog

6- Get dressed, go earn my daily rice ration

...but today I switched 4 and 5. The girlfriend leaves earlier than I do, so we walked the dog together and when I came back home, it was 7:15. The yoga YouTube video was 35 minutes, so I went “Oh perfect, it will be over at 7:40, just enough time to get ready for work”. Maybe I have brain damage. I hauled ass and made it a few minutes late, thankfully I didn’t teach first period.

I taught classes to the eleventh-graders, reviewing the oxidation of alkenes. A bunch of girls were absent, they were outside practicing some kind of choreography, gyrating to K-pop, I could hear the music coming in through the window. It was a bit annoying, but I’ve been through worst than that.

Lunch was reheated paneer in a thick savoury brown gravy. Apparently paneer and ricotta are two types of cheese that are very easy to make at home, I should try it soon. I dipped the leftover naan breads in the bowl and wiped it clean. I also cracked open a huge green coconut, it wasn’t the easiest thing in the world but I wacked it hard with a heavy cleaver and only made a small mess. I drank the water inside and ate the flesh, I gave one piece to Triangle Face but he spat it out, there’s not many things that omnivorous little fucker won’t eat.

I watched the news, more hypocritical racist bullcrap coming from wokels. A black Republican senator gave a speech urging people to unite and stop fighting on the basis of race, and got called an “Uncle Tom” by left-wingers. It seems like everyday there’s more Clown World nonsense happening, I’m wondering if it’s worth my attention. I do find it entertaining but perhaps I could use my time better. I’m going away for the long weekend, that will be a detox of sorts.

I had a double with Attitude Class and let them study, making myself available if they have questions. Most of them worked on chemistry or math problems, some fucked around or slept, and I’m cool with that. They’re at the tail end of their servitude in the Chinese secondary education system, and it’s quite admirable they made it to the end, like the guy in Shawshank Redemption in his tunnel. I put on my Beats headphones and listened to Spectral Wound’s album, perhaps it’s not as good as my first impression gave me, it’s solid black fucken metal of the “trve Norwegian early-to-mid 90s second wave” but I must have been smack dab in the mood when I played it the first two times. Then the internet died and I put on the Testament remastered best-of. I feel like I could play this in a loop.

I finished my rather easy work day, went home, changed, got my bag and took a taxi to the bus station. I had a ticket for Wuxi Airport, and I was the only passenger in the minivan. Can’t be mad at that. I was pretty excited at the idea of going to the Nash Hash, the All-China national Hash House Harriers event, three solid days of hiking and colossal beer consumption, this year it’s taking place in Kunming, a city in southwest China. First I had to go through the always slightly unpleasant ordeal that is air travel, having to line up with peasants, go through endless security checkpoints where you get your testicles fondled, walk long distances through a sinister airport and sit around for ages. I got a few cheap gimbap rolls from the Lawsons before security but didn’t buy beer obviously, and there was no Lawsons or even any store selling anything useful by the boarding gates. I went around the whole damn terminal trying to find beer, the snack stores didn’t have any but the xiaolongbao restaurant had cans of Qingdao hidden somewhere, and they were cold. I cracked one open to celebrate the beginning of the trip, and to wash down my Korean snacks.

Another shitty aspect of flying in China is that the flights are always delayed. Always. Their trains are impressively on schedule, in over 10 years I’ve only had a few small delays even in the old days before high-speed railways, but I’ve had way, way more domestic flights that were late than those that were on time. Tonight was no exception of course, and I sat there for an extra hour in limbo. I sent a message to the Beijing hasher whom I was supposed to share a taxi with since our flights were scheduled to land roughly at the same time, his was also delayed (surprise) but less than mine, he was boarding and I told him to not bother waiting. In the meantime I ran into another hasher, I had met her at my very first hash a year and a half ago in the city of Suzhou, she proposed we ride together.

We finally got on the plane and the three-hour flight went OK, as far as being crammed in such a tight space and constantly being told how to sit goes. I started a book by Tim Ferriss called Tools Of The Titans, in which he talks about different habits of successful people. Some parts were interesting, but some were really blowhardy. Like “Bobby Shabadadoo always travels light, but no matter where he goes, he brings a Japanese titanium tea set and an enormous stack of Tongxinglian loose leaf oolong from Taiwan, the only tea he drinks”. Am I supposed to think “Wow, this guy has extremely high standards!” or “Hmmm, he sure loves the smell of his flatulences”?

The Suzhou hasher has an old friend from school who lives in Kunming and picked her up at the airport, so I got a free ride downtown. Very nice. She went to the hotel, which was right across from the hash bar. It was nearly 2 AM at that point so most hashers had tapped out for the night to get ready for the long hike tomorrow, but I knew some hardcore partiers would still be there. I walked in the beer garder and there was a table in the corner with about eight drunk hashers around, at first they didn’t make much of an effort to make me feel welcome, the whole thing felt a bit cliquey in fact. In hindsight, they must have been pretty tired of socializing all night or even since the afternoon, and also some of them were obnoxiously drunk, slurring their speech and clumsily knocking down glasses. It’s always a bit weird being stone cold sober around super drunk people, I ordered a glass of IPA and eventually the ice broke and we had a few quick conversations before everyone left.

I rode a rent-a-bike to the hostel I booked, went through the long annoying check-in process and crashed, looking forward to the festivities of the next day.

Chapter 119

Getting up at 6 on the dot wasn’t hard as I thought it’d be, after a shortened night like that. I drank tea, browsed Facebook, and while I was taking a dump, I looked for the bus schedule to go to the airport tomorrow, and made a long throaty gasp, like GNNNNNUUUUUUUHHHH.

“What are you doing?”, the girlfriend asked me, while putting on her makeup.

“That’s the sound Baidu is making when I ask a question”

Baidu is the Chinese search engine/creepy omnipotent tech giant, the poor man’s copycat version of Google. It’s a useless piece of shit. I typed “bus schedule from [city] to [airport name]” and the results were a link to some bloatware crock-of-shit app, bus schedules with other starting points or destinations, things about our city but fuckall to do with transportation, and links to the Chinese equivalent of Quora or Yahoo Answers, that were at least relevant if not nearly useless:

rainy19890526: hello, does anyone know the bus schedule from [city] to [airport]?

chounong69: I don’t know

xijinpinglover01: find it yourself

rutabaga-wetwang: there’s no bus

aiguo888: DIAOYU ISLANDS BELONG TO CHINA

rockyliu15632190751: why the bus? take a taxi

se_lang_420: add me on QQ

And then you look at the date, the thread is from 2009. Fucking Baidu. Not sure if it’s the nature of the Chinese language that makes it difficult for search engines or if it’s piss-poor engineering, but I eventually just called the bus station and got my answer within seconds.

We walked the dog, then parted ways at the car, as the girlfriend drove to work. I did a bit of tai chi in the square, with the moves I remembered without having them in front of me on YouTube. Tai chi is meant to be practiced outside, and the weather is great these days. Walking back to the apartment building, the dog saw a white car leaving the parking, and excitedly ran to it, probably thinking it’s the girlfriend. I panicked and ran after him, thankfully the lady stopped the car. We’ll have to be careful in the future.

I got to work, went to the lab, and then the grade 12 classroom. I read and wrote and occasionally answered questions from students, there were quite a few, as the final exam is coming. I didn’t go home for lunch, we had a meeting starting at 12, so I ate the contents of my lunch box: lentils curry, tortilla bread, carrot sticks, and strawberries. I also had three vegetable samosas from the Indian restaurant, ate one and gave the others to my two coworkers from Sri Lanka. They were very happy with that taste from home.

Speaking of homesickness, one topic from the staff meeting was the summer holiday. Some of my colleagues have families with young kids back home and haven’t seen them for a year, they’re dying for updates. As it is now, there’s still a mandatory quarantine for anyone entering the country, two weeks in a government-mandated hotel at the user’s expense, and because of that, we’re granted an extra two weeks of holiday. Excuse me, say what?! I nudged my neighbor and asked him to confirm, perhaps I should start listening in those meetings. But yeah, rather than a late June/early July start, we’re off before the midpoint of June. Oh. Hell. Yeah.

I wasn’t planning on leaving China, so this is a superb unexpected bonus. I still feel bad for my coworkers who are still considering or even dead set on doing the quarantine. It’s a harsh measure but it’s clear it’s the main reason China has been mostly virus-free for a year now, I’d rather have that than country-wide lockdowns.

I had a free afternoon chillin’ in the office. I listened to the Metal Minded podcast, they reviewed four albums rather lukewarmly, including Spectral Wound’s A Diabolic Thirst, which is my favorite metal album of 2021 thus far, in fact it’s the only one that really made a big impression on me. I browsed the news, Quebec’s prime minister is criticized for saying that the cost of an apartment in Montreal starts at 500-600 dollars a month, a three-second Google search shows that it’s a massive misquote and that he continued his sentence with “...and it quickly climbs to over 1000 dollars” but still it’s enough for his opponents to make some political capital on his back. What did you expect?

That sparked a lot of discussion on the housing crisis on Facebook, Montreal used to be one of the most affordable large cities in North America (and likely still is, but just because the others are more overpriced) but the housing prices have skyrocketed, leading to homelessness, financial stress on the working and lower-middle-class, urban spreading, increased pollution, among other ills. Sometimes people wonder why I live in China, I have to say that paying a few hundred dollars a year in rent for a large modern two-bedroom a short distance from everything is definitely one of the top 5 reasons.

(This is what is coming out of my pocket, with the housing allowance I get from my employer. Still, it’s part and parcel of my job here so I count it as such)

I admit I don’t know much about current Quebec politics and the prime minister Legault, I’ve been away for too long and the circus pales in comparison to US and Euro-Peon politics. For instance, I read the news and watched YouTube videos, one piece that caught my interest is an open letter to the French Republic written by retired generals, listing societal problems the country is experiencing and warning of a possible civil war coming up. Are we heading to a “reject Macron, embrace Napoléon” scenario?

I was starting to get bored and restless sitting in the office, with the sun peeking at me through the window. As soon as I got home I put the leash on the dog, grabbed a Holiday witbier from northern China’s Urbrew, and sat on a park bench doing my afternoon drinking. The girlfriend called, she had just arrived home and proposed we walk to a restaurant by her workplace, where she forgot a package. Buzzed by the beer, exhausted by my short night and a bit sore after the calisthenics workout, I was looking forward to an evening of doing absolutely fuckall but sure, let’s go for it.

I told her about my extended summer holiday, and she wasn’t happy, hers is the opposite, it got shortened because of the staff cuts. Covid affects different people very differently. We went to the small snack bar after a detour to a Lawson where I knew I’d get beer above piss-temperature, and ordered fried rice, a flatbread filled with beef and onions, won tons, and cold noodles. The boss is an old grandpa, he and his wife are always yelling at one another in a mysterious incomprehensible language, as they come from the city of Wenzhou.

We got back home, put the finishing touches to the Chinese translation, folded the laundry, and then I kicked back with a negroni, watching some Wrasslemania. It’s pretty cool to see that Kevin Owens made it that big, he’s from Quebec and more than 15 years ago I saw him wrestle in small local promotions (under the name Kevin Steen). Sami Zayn was also a wrestler in the Montreal indie scene back then, though I’ve never seen him live, and he used to wear a Mexican luchador mask and go by the hilarious name of “El Generico”. They kinda came up together, and now the angle for this Wrestlemania clash was that Sami Zayn was a crazy paranoid conspiracy theorist who thought the world was against him, including his former best friend. Logan Paul was also there, for some reason, damn those two Paul clowns are everywhere. Then it was another singles match, between Seamus and Matt Riddle. Riddle was a middling but promising young UFC welterweight who got suspended twice after testing positive for weed, and that led to him getting fired from the organization. UFC president and scumbag Dana White went on a rant during a press conference, calling Riddle a “dummy”, saying that he’s too dumb to just stop smoking weed in the lead-up to a fight, and telling him “good luck finding something that pays as well”. Well, I don’t know for sure, but I’d imagine he makes at least a teeny bit more now in the WWE than as a UFC mid-carder. And he’s pretty damn good too, I like his style very much, with memorable antics and badass athletic moves.

Chapter 118

I got up early, stretched, browsed the internet for a bit, walked the dog, rode to work, supervised a lab and gave a review class to a bunch of excited and goofy eleventh-graders. Maybe my life is a teeny bit more interesting than the average person’s due to the large numbers of hobbies I have and the fact that I live in China, but of course a lot of it can be pretty repetitive. As always I listened to music when I had time, first some Franz Liszt and then a Korean hardcore punk band named Slant, both very good listens for obviously different reasons.

I got home and scolded the dog for shredding a box of crackers and eating its contents. It’s my fault mostly, I thought I hid it well but clearly it was within the reach of his nosy little triangle face. I reheated some spaghetti and started watching the second half of Wrestlemania. There was a match between Randy Orton and a crazy horror movie gimmick called The Fiend, who got summoned from a giant jack-in-the-box by some kind of satanic schoolgirl in a short dress, giving very creepy and borderline pedo undertones to the whole thing. It was a bit short and I expected something much more insane, judging by previous matches I’d seen from those two guys and the build-up that involved Orton burning The Fiend alive, but for sure it was original. Then it was a women’s tag team match, and it was pretty good, though not as crazy as the NXT women’s tag team chaotic match from last week. I remember Shayna Baszler from her time in MMA, she was a pioneer who unfortunately didn’t get much success in the UFC, but from what I’ve seen and heard she’s doing well in her new wrassling home. Speaking of which, I’ve always found it a bit confusing that they never ever use the word “wrestling” or “wrestler”, instead saying “sports entertainment” and “superstar”. And yeah, I heard the explanation, but it still makes little sense to me.

In the afternoon I did a bit of writing and looked for some music, I clicked on a Russian post-punk compilation and wasn’t disappointed. In fact that’s the kind of music I’ve been listening all afternoon and the next morning, I like the bleak aesthetics of this “Russian doomer music”. I had one class with the eleventh-graders, but with the twelfth-graders now I just give them a free study period, and individually help students who request it. A better use of everyone’s time, and the exam is right around the corner, the work should be done already.

I went home and did a calisthenics routine, the one recommended on the subreddit /r/bodyweightfitness. It’s pretty exhaustive (and exhausting!) and sustainable, I will commit to do it, or slight variations thereof, three times a week after this upcoming long weekend. Then I took a cold shower, had a protein shake and took a one-hour nap with the animal curled in bed against me.

I woke up at 7:30 and the girlfriend called. My initial plan was to go play pool for an hour with some friends and then meet her after her pole dancing class at 9:20, but she went to the early class today and was now heading home. So I canceled my pool game and waited for her. She suggested we go to a restaurant, and now that I have a driver’s license, might as well go somewhere a bit further than the ones we usually patronize. Hmmm, not a bad idea, and to make it worthwhile, we checked out restaurants serving cuisines we can’t get in our city, and decided on an Indian restaurant in the next city, 60 km away. She called to make sure they’re open late, and after taking the dog around the block so he’d poop, off we went. Impromptu road trip!

It felt quite good to be behind the wheel, I am far from what you could call a “car guy” but I’ve always enjoyed driving. We brought some CDs along, from the metal label’s clearance sale, the problem is that the envelopes were not labeled and most of them don’t have the band’s name on the CD itself, so we didn’t know what we listened to for the most part. I knew there was Aulnes, an excellent sludge metal band from Sherbrooke, Quebec, and a black metal band that was seriously badass and will be on top of my rotation, though perhaps not when she’s in the car. She tolerates metal in small doses and was lenient tonight due to the occasion, but I won’t abuse her generosity. The other two blindly-picked albums were more of a mid-tempo type with clean vocals, something she liked a bit better. I’ll check around town if there are some computer shops that can burn CDs, it obviously feels like a very obsolete form of technology.

The Indian restaurant doubles as a jazz bar with live music and a big selection of microbrews so it stays open late, and they said on the phone they serve food until 10 o’clock. We got there... at 9:48. Worse comes to worse we’ll just go elsewhere, but when I asked the Indian waiter if we can still eat he seemed a bit confused and said yes. We ordered a bunch of curries and naan breads, and when I went to the toilet I passed by the kitchen where three Indian men in cook frocks smiled at me. They didn’t seem mad like they had the right to be, and when I politely asked them if they can up the level of spice they nodded. They all left soon after, saying goodbye as they passed our table (now the only one occupied after a group of Chinese left) so perhaps we did keep them here a bit past the end of their shift.

The food came quickly, likely the curries were reheated but there’s zero problem with that, Indian food generally is the product of slow simmering and if they made everything to order from scratch it would take ages, plus it tastes much better when reheated, like my own curry cooking experience has taught me. At any rate it was fucking delicious, and like promised, the dishes had a good spicy kick.

“I recognize the place, I came here many years ago”, I said, between mouthfuls of Kathmandu-style mutton or garlic naan dipped in a rich chicken curry sauce.

“With your er nai?” (mistress)

“No, with a 60-year-old American coworker named Tom”

I went to pay, the bill gave me a backhand flick to the balls, especially after I told myself I’d save a bit of money after traveling so much in the month of April. It was well worth it though and we intentionally ordered way too much, to have leftovers. Like idiots, we forgot the bag of leftovers, but the lady called just before we got back in the car. She had the girlfriend’s number from when she called to ask about opening times, and that was very nice of her. So I ran back there to get the goodies.

Driving back on the empty dark highway was a bit boring, and the girlfriend said she’d stay awake but promptly fell in a deep slumber, combination of a long day, a belly full of rich food, and the sex on the beach cocktail she had. We were in bed a little before midnight.

Chapter 117

I woke up a few times in the middle of the night, with severe pain in my neck. I hope it’s just a normal ache that will vanish with a bit of patience and self-care and not something serious. First order of business, I did a 60-minute yoga session focusing on the spine, and while it was a bit hard to bend my neck at first, eventually I managed, and felt so much better afterwards.

I got to the office and listened to music, mostly underground Chinese metal bands. Some students came to ask me chemistry questions and I was happy to help, then I had a double with the twelfth-graders. I rode home, reheated some R n’ S and ate my meal with green grapes for dessert. A friend shared a video on Facebook, it was a 45-minute documentary from 1988 about the Canadian army boot camp. Aside from some small changes (VHS quality of the footage, older uniforms, cheesy 80s music) it really reminded of my own time in the military, and it was quite funny to hear the narrators being shocked at things that I now see as perfectly normal, after going through that mountain of shit sandwiches. They called it “hell on Earth” and yes, it’s a brutal experience, but judging from the comments on the video and from my own experience people tend to remember it quite fondly.

Another friend sent me a link to a very bizarre story: a blond-haired Russian guy joined a Chinese TV reality show, in which the goal is to survive until the end without being eliminated by weekly votes from the audience. Most of the show’s content is about singing and dancing, and the finalists get a contract as members of a boy band. The Russky hated the show, and tried to get eliminated by botching the contests, antagonizing the other participants and trying to be unlikable, but that only endeared him to the young female audience and he kept coming back in. White privilege is one hell of a superpower, even when you try your best to fail, they don’t let you.

At least that’s what I understood, perhaps I got it slightly wrong. I’ll ask the girlfriend if she knows anything about it. That reminded me of one of the funniest books I read in a long time, NFL Confidential, about an offensive linesman who hated football and tried his hardest to be a bench-warmer instead of a starter.

I went back to school and sat in the lab while students did a mock practical exam. I then sat in the office and did a bit more volunteer translation work, the parts from English to Chinese I really wasn’t sure about, it’s probably intelligible enough but with totally mangled grammar, I’ll need to get it proofread and corrected. Most translators don’t work with anything but their native tongue as the target language. I listened to the trip-hop album Mezzanine by Massive Attack (or the other way around?), one of the few I discovered from that Top 500 that I liked. I’ll dive back in there eventually, not very enthusiastic about it for now.

I had another review period with Attitude Class and went home. I took the fermentor to the kitchen alongside a big pot that I filled with water and two sterilization pellets, washed my bottles and caps, added sugar to the fermented proto-beer, and filled the bottles. I opened one homebrew from the last batch and it violently volcanoed, causing a big mess. I probably added too much sugar and tried my best not to repeat the mistake, using my little scale to weigh 5 grams of sugar per liter of beer. There were not enough bottles and I didn’t want to waste beer (the ultimate sin) so I just filled up empty bottles of rum or other spirits. There must be a reason why homebrewers don’t do that but I’ll try, not as if I have much of a choice. I made sure they were capped tightly and put them in a box where they have zero exposure to light.

That took a big chunk of my evening, and I brought a little tinny speaker to the kitchen to listen to another Jocko Willink’s podcast about the Korean War. He told the story of a company of Marines that got surrounded and 90% of them died from repeated enemy attacks or hypothermia, and concluded with the rather obvious but too-often forgotten life lesson of how imperative it is to appreciate life, get after it and stop making excuses, knowing about the hellish experiences others had to go through that makes our problems pretty damn trivial in comparison. I’d rather hear that than the too-common nihilistic whining that infests so many.

That also got me thinking, opposite US forces in the Korean War was the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, and I wonder if I ever met veterans from that conflict. Maybe the 85-year-old walking his poodle in front of my apartment complex killed a bunch of Americans back in his day, and the sight of white people gives him flashbacks.

I made spaghetti with lots of sliced garlic, ham and parmesan, and watched four UFC prelim match-ups. They were pretty good. Then we watched one episode of The Office and went to sleep.

Chapter 116

Up early, back into the groove. I spent too much time on the computer drinking my tea, and the girlfriend wanted to go walk the dog together, so I didn’t do yoga or tai chi.

I had a full morning of classes, like every Monday. It’s my last one though, as the final exams start next week. The remainder of the semester should be smooth sailing. Classes went by like a breeze then I rode back, stopping to buy vegetables and a container of rice. I mixed the rice with leftovers from the girlfriend’s takeout from yesterday, ground beef, bacon, and three eggs, making a spicy R n’ S bowl that I ate while watching stuff on YouTube. I then browned oxtail pieces and put them in the slow cooker with onions, hot sauce and spices, for dinner.

In the afternoon I listened to the Metal Minded podcast, and then to an album by Endseeker, an old-school Swedish death metal band. It was well done but nothing that blew me away. I had an enormous stack of lab papers to staple, I did it while watching various hip-hop videos, mostly French stuff. Then I stumbled upon a video from a YouTube series called “Analyzing Evil”, about movie villains. This one was about Alonzo, the crooked cop played by Denzell Washington in Training Day. Training Day is one of my absolute favorite movies, and one I’ve seen countless times, as it was one of the few DVDs I owned a while back when I didn’t have internet at home.

After three hours in the office, it’s a bit hard to get back in teacher mode for the last period of the day, but I did what I had to do and gave Attitude Class some exam review. Then I went home, took a nap, and primed myself for BJJ practice. My neck was all kinds of jacked up, a combination of Saturday’s class, headbanging at the two shows in Shanghai, and a slouched posture watching TV, I guess. I considered taking the night off, but our old coach was in town and said he’d come so I told myself I had to go.

There was also a guy I hadn’t seen in a long time, a big muscular Chinese guy. I rolled with him for a round, he mostly just gave me advantageous positions to practice his defense, he was damn strong. I also rolled with the Italian, but my neck was too fucked up once the adrenaline wore off, and I reluctantly stepped off the mat. Damn, just when our purple belt coach is in town, I can’t even roll with him.

I got home and opened a beer, a 10% ABV “imperial NEIPA” from Dainton Brewery in Australia, one of my numerous harvests from the imported beer shops in Shanghai. The pão de queijo were in the fridge and turned hard as golf balls, I was a bit scared but a few minutes in the oven and they were tender, the girlfriend and I ate them quickly. I could eat my bodyweight worth of those addictive little balls of cheesy dough, if I lived in Brazil I’d weigh 400 pounds. I took a shower, then ate the oxtails and some broccoli the girlfriend just steamed and fried with a bit of garlic. I watched the two remaining fights from the UFC main card, both ended in grueseome leg injuries. The one sustained by Chris Weidman was the stuff of nightmares, be warned if you look it up.

Chapter 115

My alarm rang at 6:30, I’d have gladly stayed in bed for several more hours but it was time to go. I loaded my heavy backpack full of beer and jars of olives and pesto on the front rack of a rent-a-bike, and rode the relatively short distance (for such a gigantic spread-out city) to the train station. One can of beer fell on the asphalt and the nectar was spraying through a tiny hole, I didn’t want it to go to waste so I opened the can, took a few gulps and poured the rest in a water bottle I just emptied on the sidewalk. Just those few sips were enough to make me a bit buzzed, with my sleep deprivation and empty stomach.

I went through security, made it to the gate, and sat in a massage chair for 20 minutes. I aggressively went through practice tests, getting ready for the driving exam, hopefully my last hurdle before getting that goddamn license. During the one-hour train ride and the taxi trip to the test center, I was glued to my phone, answering those mock tests.

I got to the counter, passing the room with hundreds of poor souls waiting for the practical, and they asked me if I want to do the test in English or in Chinese.

“SAY WHAT?! IT WAS AN OPTION THE WHOLE TIME?!?!?!?!?!?! BUT THOSE INBRED SHIT-SHOVELING FUCKTARDS AT THE DRIVING SCHOOL TOLD ME THE ENGLISH TEST WAS DISCONTINUED!!!”

...is obviously not what I said out loud to the clerk. I hesitated... I studied for the test in Chinese, but what if I bite more than I can chew? Should I just put my ego aside, to maximize my chance of getting it the fuck over with? I told her I’ll do it in Chinese, and if I fail, for the second try I’ll switch.

They led me to the same room I did the first theoretical exam in December, and I sat at the computer. First try: 44/50, barely under the 45/50 passing grade. Motherfucker!!! I had to go back to the counter, and decided, perhaps foolishly, to try in Chinese again.

I got the first 13 questions right, but then had three wrong answers almost in a row. I was despairing at that point, but had no choice but to go forward. Then, blunder of all blunders, I clicked B by mistake on a question where I knew, with absolute certainty, C was the answer. The error margin was now extremely narrow, especially as the last 10 questions have more than one correct answer and I must get them all.

And I won!!! 45/50 bitches!!!!!

I thought I’d have to wait a few days or weeks and go to some other joyless government building, but they printed my driver’s license right here and there. Well, after a few minutes, as I broke their computer with my passport number and my uncommon name with seven Chinese characters as opposed to the usual two or three. Eventually they just called another guy, then another, and then another, and there was the rather too familiar huddle of clerks bunched up around the computer trying to figure out the problem. Eventually one guy found how to change the input from Chinese ID card to passport number, and how to enlarge the box so my name would fit in there, and they handed me my prize. I felt elated as I walked out of that place and went home.

The dog welcomed me, but the girlfriend was at work. In fact, though it was Sunday, it was a workday all across China to make up for the 5-day weekend coming up, which is why the driving testing center was open. I had the day off, and made it home at barely 10 o’clock.

I quickly fired up the UFC, right in time for the triple championship header to begin. Former KGB assassin and flyweight champion Valentina Shevchenko is head, shoulders, torso and hips above the rest of her division, which makes it a bit stale, like can be the case with very dominant champs. Fans were excited at the prospect of Jessica Fucking Andrade moving up from strawweight to challenge Shev, as Andrade has this ridiculous farm girl (pharm girl?!) strength and devastating Brazilian lesbian one-punch KO power that is very rare in the women’s divisions and can turn a fight on its head in a second. Well, she got wrecked, at no moment did she even look to be in the fight, getting pieced up at range and repeatedly taken down. Shevchenko is too good, and only getting better, seems like the only fight that makes sense is a third contest with Amanda Nunes, who’s also ran out of contenders.

Zhang Weili got head kicked to oblivion by Rose Namajunas, losing her belt. Damn it. All this talk about “the Chinese market” is dumb and doesn’t take into account that almost nobody follows MMA in China, but for sure having a reigning champion increased the chance of having an event held here (hopefully in Shanghai!) in the near future. Weili got interviewed right after the fight though she was clearly concussed and in a state of disbelief, and got booed by the retarded and probably racist fans in the audience, not a very good look. Also, while we’re at it, I don't know why they can't find Chinese translators who, y'know, speak English and not broken-ass Chinglursh. The guy who did the cards in Shanghai and Beijing (maybe Shenzhen too, forgot) was good and also had a booming voice but some of the interpretors they had outside China were atrocious. Special mention to that white girl on the New Zealand who must have been on her second semester of Chinese in university.

Then it was the main event, and the UFC brass and commentators tried as hard as they can to hype it and convince us that Jorge Masvidal is not just an upstarted journeyman who has no reasons to be fighting for the title other than for a money grab and a quick easy win by the champ. Usman won easily to the surprise of no one with more than five brain cells, but what was surprising was how he did it, with a Mortal Kombat-style “Finish Him!!!” straight right that sent a big cloud of mist through the air. The common wisdom was that he would rely on his wrestling more, Kamaru Usman is scary good, and seemingly getting better and better.

There was a pack of ground beef thawing in the sink, I cooked it in the pan with hot peppers and larb seasoning I bought in Thailand, and made burritos with copious amounts of sour cream, and poured myself a big mug of beer. My spirits were quite high, once in a while I’d just grab my new driver’s license and rub it gently. The bane of my existence is gone off my shoulders. I also got an e-mail from my friend whom I helped with a Chinese translation, with good feedback. Things are good.

I looked for music to listen to, and plunged into the discography of a band called Knut, with their mix of hardcore, sludge and technical bits. Not very original was my impression, now that I’m a bit more familiar with that genre, but enjoyable nonetheless as background music while I caught up on my diary. Then I took the dog out, we went to see his friend Doudou, tied up in front on his owner’s shop, and I brought both of them to the park. Then I went home, played a bit of GTA V until I got gunned down by a biker after stealing a Harley-Davidson and killing his pal with my sawed-off shotgun, then I napped for two hours.

I put on more Top 500 music, entry number 320 being a rockabilly band named X. It was very unmemorable. The girlfriend came in from work, we hung out for a bit talking about our respective weekends, and watched cooking videos together. Then I watched a Bojack Horseman episode and went to bed.

Chapter 114

I slept in, and leisurely made my way through the city on a rent-a-bike. When I decided I’d go to Shanghai for the weekend, I told myself I’d make the most out of the trip, and try to do something semi-productive during the daytime, between the two rock concerts that brought me there. I asked some of my jiu-jitsu pals if they know the contact info for Shanghai gyms and got in touch with one, they invited me to their class at noon. I found the office space on the 15^th floor of a tower in the Jing’An district, all padded up and turned into a tiny gym, in fact I wasn’t even sure I was in the right place, it was just an unmarked door, I gingerly knocked and opened, there was a white dude and a Chinese girl entangled in leg locks. The girl said “Oh it’s you?! The guy who sent me a message? I thought you were a Chinese person!” That confusion is pretty common, my WeChat profile picture is not my face, and I only talked to her in Chinese.

The American instructor welcomed me, and soon after the others came and class started. It was no-gi, not what I’m used to as we train mostly with the gi back home, but it was all useful stuff about guard passing from knee cut or straight hamstring positions. The class was given in Chinese, which the American guy spoke quite well, funnily enough the Chinese guys were fine with English but there was a Russian dude who speaks much better Chinese than English so the language was catered to him!

We had a few rolls, and there was no wiping the smile on my face. Holy shit BJJ is fun. Nogi is a different game and I still had the habit of going to grab my own belt in defense and without the grips, I had to adjust, but I did OK I guess.

I walked a few blocks to a French rôtisserie and had half a roast chicken with broccoli on the side and a strong Belgian beer called Paix Dieu. Then I went to one of the hundreds of imported stores in the French Concession and filled my backpack with beer and goodies, and rode back to the hotel where I took a shower and sat in my bunk doing practice driving exams. I was scheduled for the exam the next day, and still needed to review.

I eventually fell asleep, and woke up in a half-coma. It was raining slightly, but I rode a rent-a-bike anyway. I stopped at a pizza place to get slices, I had the Hawaiian and the pizza of the day, an Indonesian-inspired one with marinated spicy chicken, peanuts and raw onions, interesting stuff. The Brazilian restaurant from last week was just next door, so I also went to get some pão de queijo to go, for the girlfriend.

I got to the same venue I went to yesterday, in time for the first set, by a duet called Shift Ctrl. A burly Russian played the bass, with a British drummer, the guitar track was recorded. Not sure if it’s because their guitarist couldn’t make it or if it’s pre-recorded by themselves, but for sure something was missing to the live performance, and also it was all instrumental until the last track, when a skinny Chinese dude joined them. Still, a pretty good show, some good heavy and groovy rock n’ roll.

They were followed by a four-piece with the cool name of Hey Lily!, and then Theory Of Convergence, both solid rock bands with energetic female singers. The last band was one I was very familiar with, The White Monkeys, from the central Chinese city of Hefei where I lived for two years. The band was on hiatus for a bit due to half the members leaving China, but the British frontman and the Italian drummer recruited some new guys. One is from Brasilia, so we sat drinking beer and chatting in Portuguese (my favorite foreign language) together, I gave him one pão de queijo and abstained from eating one myself, if I eat one I’ll eat two, then three, then I’ll finish the whole damn thing. The other guitarist is a fellow Quebecer, and from my hometown, no less. Small world!

The Monkeys gave a pretty good show, their first in 15 months, in front of a spread-out audience. It would have been better if they were in the line-up before Theory of Convergence, I never understand why the promoters sometimes put a band after the headliner, unless it’s a big festival. Still, good stuff, I sang along their classics and tapped my feet to their cover of Folsom Prison Blues.

Their frontman, Richie, even gave me a vinyl copy of their full-length album. What an awesome gift! Too bad I don’t have anything to play vinyls. I stuck around for a bit, chatting with the guys, but left early, as I had to wake up at 6:30 the next day. I made it to my bunk a bit before 1 and crashed.

Chapter 113

I drank tea and did yoga. While I was deep in a spinal twist, the girlfriend was brewing coffee and asked me “Why are you doing so much yoga now? Didn’t you use to say yoga is gay?” “I never said that! ...OK, I probably said that at some point” Only fools don’t change their minds.  

We went outside together with the dog. He ran into another little friend of his, a white poodle with a perfectly spherical hairdo named Pengpeng (“Fatty”). Pengpeng is also a common Chinese dog name, along with Xiaobai, Xiaohei, Doudou and of course Qiuqiu.

I rode to work, listening to a Jocko Willink podcast about the Korean War. He read excerpts from a book written by an American officer, there was a particularly harrowing passage about friendly fire, two Marines went to retrieve a rope the platoon used to climb a steep frozen slope and got gunned down by one of their own sentinels. The guy then went to the frozen bodies as they were about to be carried by “the gook train” (an hilariously politically incorrect way to refer to the Korean auxiliaries who supplied the front line) and was about to shoot himself with a pistol but got talked against it by an officer, who showed incredible leadership, restraint and psychological acumen.

I had three classes with eleventh-graders, and they went well. The weak class has students who are struggling hard but some of them asked me questions during the break, they’re really trying and I’ll do my best to help them.

I rode home, packed my bag for this upcoming weekend trip, and had a quick lunch of a tomato and bacon sandwich and a toast with cream cheese. I watched the UFC 261 press conference, the event will be held in Florida in front of a crowd, for the first time in over a year. Hearing all the derps heckling and yelling nonsensical shit made me miss those more intimate no-crowd days, especially with Jorge Masvidal present, carrying his pure cringe “BMF” belt and spouting dumb one-liners to his sycophantic fanbase. That fight is stupid, a money grab for Usman and not much more, and the attempts by the UFC at hyping it up as a competitive match-up are very far-fetched.

I went back to school, had a double with Attitude Class, promptly rode back home, changed, and took a taxi to the train station. I walked to the ticket window and it was closed for the day, I was very scared for a second. Filthy foreign scum can’t use the ticket selling machine, as it requires a Chinese ID card. Thankfully, the information counter also sells tickets, so I got a seat on the Shanghai-bound train that left a few minutes later, and could also purchase a return ticket there and then, something I can’t do with buses. So yeah, add that to the fact that trains are much more frequent and take half the journey time, and now I’m on Team Train. It’s just a bit annoying to be in a carriage with about 80 people, 76 of whom are watching shit on their phones with the volume on, but nothing a pair of earbuds and some loud music can’t fix. I listened to Nasum’s Shift, probably my least favorite of their full-lengths, but still one hell of a slab of grindcore.

I hopped on a rent-a-bike and went to my hostel. The one I stayed at the last few times was full, so I went to one in the artsy district where I stayed ages ago. It’s in a pretty cool heritage building with wooden furniture and a garden where Chinese hipsters with ponytails hang out drinking tea or cheap beer. They made me fill out a detailed form asking where I’d been, where I’m going and all that, anti-pandemic measures, the receptionist said. More like anti-drop-my-bag-quickly-and-go-drink-beer measures, if you ask me. I wasted a few minutes on that shit and then got given my keycard and shown to my bunk.

I got back into the traffic of the enormous and sinister metropolis. I took about an hour to make it to Lofas, a recently opened live music venue in the southern part of the city, where I saw a show for the last time about six months ago. Five metal bands were scheduled and I was pretty excited. The entrance was free, which sweetened the pot even more, so I grabbed a Brooklyn Defender IPA from the fridge and the festivities started soon after, with a newly formed hardcore band named Rat King, composed of four Shanghai-based expats. 

After their energetic set, I went to the snack bar next door, had onion rings and a kimchi hot dog (it was delicious), and came back as the melodic death metal band Blood Of Life was on stage. I wasn’t impressed, it was pretty generic stuff, but still somewhat competently played and their singer was a cute girl in a long dress. Warshaped took the stage, a furious thrash metal fivepiece. I saw them about a year ago, their drummer was extremely drunk and missed the beat, which got an attendee to laugh and ask if it’s math rock. Tonight he was on point though, and so was the rest of the band and their Italian frontman pouring Jim Beam into the mouths of people in the front row. 

Scare The Children was the most awaited band of the night, Beijing-based expat guys wearing long black robes and horror movie masks. Their performance was cool, very theatrical, with music that borrowed from different extreme music genres. Then the last band was Chimera Cult, a sludgy project born from the ashes of a few laowai metal acts that disbanded recently. Another sick show. It had been a while since I saw a good proper metal gig and it felt awesome, a fun evening complete with good beer and seeing some old pals.

Chapter 112

Most of my dreams feel like a mixure of a terrifying psychedelic trip and a dystopian movie, but last night I had a wholesome dream about camping with friends and barbecuing. No idea what that was about, perhaps the endorphins coursing through my veins after all the exercising and traveling I’ve been doing.

I fucked around on the internet while listening to a vaporwave playlist (I like vaporwave), did a bit of tai chi, then went out with the dog. For the second day in a row he ran into Qiuqiu, a nasty little poodle who seems to hate him. I’d estimate about 25% of Chinese dogs are named Qiuqiu (“Little Ball”), and that figure is even higher among poodles.

I supervised a lab, then had a double with the twelfth-graders. They’re supposed to erase the board and keep the classroom clean, but when I walked in, the board was covered with math equations, though they had half an hour to clear it. I promptly walked out and sat back at my desk. Tired of this shit. Ten minutes later, one student came to apologize, it was her duty but she was busy and babadee babada, excuses excuses excuses. She’s literally The Nicest Girl In The World so I couldn’t stay angry but I still told her that her excuses aren’t valid, it takes less than 30 seconds to erase the whole board, it’s just basic respect, and it’s not the first time. She looked like she was on the verge of tears, and I told her to go back to the classroom and I’d be there in a few minutes.

I went home for lunch after a detour to the noodle shop. There was some mangled Chinglish on the menu, it read “The construction of new soclalist countryside”, no idea where that came from, as the Chinese characters above it just mean “Chinese traditional cuisine”. Chinglish signs are the domain of Level-1 Tim Budong Fresh-Off-The-Boat expats and of course as an Old Asia Hand I’m way past that, but still, the phenomenon continues puzzling me to this day. Why do they add superfluous English if nobody will read it? And why don’t they get someone to proofread it? I got my shrimp noodles (no mushrooms, on the first try!) and also bought a box of jackfruit from a lady who set up her table on the sidewalk. Jackfruit has a very strange rubbery texture, a smooth pit and a smell that can’t be described as pleasant, but I like it, I’d even say it’s one of my favorite fruits. I ate while watching a documentary about Mike Perry, the, ahem, mentally unstable UFC fighter.

I got back to the office in the pissing rain, so I sat there with soaked trousers for a while. I had fuckall to do all afternoon, so I wrote my diary and listened to the new Cannibal Corpse album. It got very positive reviews from what I’ve seen, but I found it extremely boring. Not bad, not sloppily played, not even stale, just nothing that excited me. Am I getting bored of death metal?! I sure hope not. Then I put on a compilation of tracks by or featuring Celph Titled, who has got to be one of my favorite rappers, with his bizarre metaphors, prolific output, instantly recognizable deep voice and intricate wordplay. I also put on an album by Cloud Rat, recommended by a friend, some powerful and evocative grindcore that reminded me of Fuck The Facts in more than one way, and then the new release by Spectral Wound, a black metal project from Montreal. I like atmospheric or ambient or shoegazy new-school black metal, but Spectral Wound just throws some straight-up second-wave Norwegian-style sound at you, that will definitely be a re-listen. So perhaps I’m not bored of extreme music after all.

I went home and had a snack of tortilla chips, a carrot cut in sticks, and Italian cold cuts. I watched MMA news, one of these pieces made me a bit angry. Rose Namajunas, the strawweight title contender, is of Lithuanian descent and her grandfather emigrated to the USA to flee the Soviet Union. So, she doesn’t like communism, and made some comments about the Chinese champ Zhang Weili that were unnecessary political. A journalist asked the champ “Hey Zhang Weili, what do you think about this pathetic attempt to start shit?” and she replied something along the lines of “I'm literally the sweetest person in the world and all of that trash talk bullshit is puzzling to me. We're all athletes of different nationalities, races, and religions. One day I'd like to invite Rose to come to China, we'll train together and I'll show her around, it will be a cultural exchange” So, basically the type of Chinese hospitality that have been shown to me thousands of times, mixed with her professionalism. But internet fucktards all went “OMG DIDUSEETHAT sHe tHrEaTeNeD rOsE iF rOsE gOeS tO cHiNa sHe'LL bE ThRoWn iN a cOnCeNtRaTiOn cAmP” People are very, but very disconnected from what life in China is, and I often myself get asked questions about how it is to live in a dystopian fascist authoritarian country. From reading this diary, you should know at this point that it’s not much more than going to work, eating, sleeping, indulging in hobbies, except that I’m surrounded by Chinese people and propaganda banners.

At 18:30, I rode my bicycle for half an hour to the climbing facility. My two Mexicanos were there, playing hacky sack, I kicked it around with them and then we put our harnesses and climbing shoes on. I did pretty piss-poorly, I couldn’t complete the route I finally managed to unlock last time, and it didn’t take long for my forearm and finger strength to be completely depleted. I had been working out two days in a row prior, and haven’t climbed for three weeks, maybe that’s why. I had fun though.

There’s a petting zoo and an aquarium in the shopping mall where the climbing wall is. At some point, we heard a bit of a commotion, as two women were walking goats and some of those fluffy South American animals (llama? alpaca?) and one of them escaped their grasp, jumping around until it got caught. It was pretty comical.

On the way home I stopped at the bar and had beef tacos and a Goose Island IPA. Two friends were there, guys with an immense general culture, fans of pub quizzes. One of them read us some questions from when he was quizmaster a few months ago, one was “What do Ayn Rand, Richard Sterling, Donnie Yen and Rocky Balboa have in common?”, it took me a while but I got it. Props to you, dear reader, if you know the answer! We had a very nice conversation about teaching, linguistics and culture then we parted ways, it’s a weeknight after all. I got home, poured a negroni, and sat in bed doing a practice driving test.

Chapter 111

I got up at 6, drank green tea, listened to a DMX compilation, read the news and did yoga. This session focused on the upper body, which felt particularly nice after yesterday’s calisthenics. The videos I use are from an old friend I was in the army with a long time ago, I sent a link to other army pals and they found it hilarious, let’s just say that guy had a very different personality back then compared to the serene exterior he has in his YouTube videos.

I rode to school and supervised a lab. It involved some sulfurous compounds so at the end when they dumped the contents of their beakers in the waste barrel the whole room had a pungent smell. I asked who farted, and everyone laughed. Flatulences are funny in every culture, whether we talk about the sound, the smell, the awkwardness, the admiration given to the lucky few who can rip impressive ones, the humiliation of being blamed.

I gave a lesson to the eleventh-graders about infrared spectroscopy. For whatever reason, the head honchos decided that this analytical method would be on the curriculum. I’m sometimes wondering how they decide what is and what isn’t, I used to teach American AP (Advanced Placement) and though there were obviously lots of overlap, a lot of the topics were different or with different depth than the British A-levels. I’m just a foot soldier, applying the orders from up there in the hierarchical chain.

I got home, ate a big plate of scrambled eggs, sausages, coleslaw and two slices of bread, and watched the news. Derek Chauvin was found guilty of the murder of George Floyd. I was a bit surprised, I thought he’d get manslaughter or criminal negligence charges, but not murder. Apparently the defense called foul, citing political interference and jury intimidation, so there will likely be an appeal. For sure I can imagine the prospect of their city burning to ashes if Chauvin were acquitted played a role in the jury’s decision process.

In the afternoon I did more practice theoretical tests. The passing grade is 45/50, and I manage to do it about half the time, so I need to practice more. My exam is scheduled for Sunday, and when I saw that there are rock concerts in Shanghai this weekend, I looked up train and bus schedules, thinking that if I come back early enough on Sunday I could make the exam. I looked online for the test center’s number and called them. It’s always a bit nerve-wracking to make a phone call in China, I speak Chinese well enough but without the obvious visual cue that I’m a stinking bumbling foreigner, I imagine I cause confusion at the other end of the line sometimes. Either way I got the info I wanted, I can turn up for the test any time between 8:30 and 10:30, with an early departure from Shanghai I’ll make it back.

I summoned the courage to keep diving in the Rolling Stone’s Top 500 and... it was a pretty good Elvis Presley album, I was surprised to hear something way more like country than shitty proto-rock n’ roll. Next up was some boring shit by Lana Del Rey. It had the edgy name of Norman Fucking Rockwell but was blander than unseasoned microwaveable mashed potatoes. What kind of boomer would listen to that quasi-non-music and go “Hell yeah, this is the 321^st best album of all time”?

My last class was with the twelfth-graders, one read 20^oC as “twenty du” and when I asked him how to say ^oC in English he didn’t know. He knew the word “twenty” at least, little victories, I guess. Universities all over the USA, UK, Canada and especially Australia are now flooded with Chinese rich kids who don’t speak English, cheapening the education given there, as if academia and post-secondary education wasn’t already a bad joke. I’m a cog in that whole conveyor belt and have been for almost a decade now, but hey, as I said a few paragraphs ago I’m just a foot soldier, if it wasn’t me it would be some other mercenary wielding the halberd. I’m losing my patience at times, re-explaining the same concepts for the 830^th time to students too lazy to take notes, and I find myself throwing snarky comments at them like “No, stare in space with an open mouth isn’t the answer to the question. So what is it then?” It’s about time the school year ends.

I got home, took a nap, went to roll jiu-jitsu, and then ate noodles at a Muslim restaurant with the girlfriend and the dog. Some of those Lanzhou Lamian eateries don’t let dogs in because they’re haram but our regular spot is fine with Triangle Face sitting there begging for chunks of beef.

We walked home, I drank a gin-tonic while watching some UFC Embedded videos, showing the fighters’ daily lives as they get closer to this weekend’s big PPV. Usman vs Masvidal II is a dumb joke, but the two female championships are extremely compelling.

As I was about to go to bed and watch The Office with the girlfriend, we saw that the retarded little animal peed there. I rubbed his face in, yelling NO! NO! NO! and then we changed the sheets. The dog was relegated to his own bed, and the girlfriend said perhaps he should always be sleeping there, but of course after ten minutes she changed her mind and let him back in. He’s just too cute, especially when he’s all sheepish like that after he did something stupid and feels sorry.

Chapter 110

This time I did my tai chi outside, in a square in the middle of my apartment complex. The dog was either chilling by my side or chasing birds.

I rode to work and relaxed in the office for a bit, browsing the internet. I stumbled upon a Facebook page called “Organisation structurelle coconstruite de lo praticienxe réflexixe”, which is pure gibberish, likely in reference to the unscrutable jargon present in so many professions. The anonymous author(s) of the page managed to get a pretty strong following with a collection of pretty funny memes about the lives of healthcare practitioners, poking fun at all the shit they have to go through in their difficult and ungrateful field or work. I liked the dark humor and somewhat self-deprecating nature of the memes, but one thing that kept hitting me is how they constantly shit on the idea of “self-care”, for instance, they would take a screenshot from a government publication suggesting to eat healthy and exercise in order to alleviate depression, and add a very sarcastic image macro with the caption “OH WOW IF ONLY IT WAS THAT SIMPLE, THANKS CAPTAIN OBVIOUS”. That is something that’s been on my mind for quite a while now, and the topic of one conversation I had with a capoeirista in Shanghai a few days ago, who teaches "holistic healing" courses, whatever this is. On one hand I think it’s very nice that mental illnesses are getting destigmatized and approached from different angles, and I’m never going to suggest that “just man up” or “stop being a bitch” is the solution to end all. But it’s also undeniable that the epidemic of depression and apathy and all sorts of mental problems experienced by people from my generation has a serious correlation with shitty life habits, narcissism, poor work ethic and lack of a sense of perspective. Some people are clinically depressed, with a very bad chemical imbalance in their brain, and yeah, I get it, telling them to go take a walk in the forest might sound condescending. But if someone is depressed and eats like a hippo, smokes tremendous amounts of weed, surrounds himself with toxic shitheads, has a “woe is me, the government/my family/systemic racism/patriarchy/Godzilla causes all my problems” defeatist attitude and lives in apathetic squalor, well, maybe a bit of life hygiene is in order, or even a good kick in the ass.

I had a review period with the twelfth-graders, I went over electrochemistry questions, a subject I hadn’t taught for a while so I had to prep a bit beforehand. I got home, ate the leftover R. n’ S., a handful of strawberries, and a mango. Then my afternoon was quite uneventful, a lab and then a review period with Attitude Class. I was running a bit late, and went to refill my tea bottle after the bell rang, as the students were copying some info I put on the projector. But then I saw that many of my colleagues were not even in class yet, and were slowly walking there. The level of give-a-shit is pretty low now for everyone involved, most of us finished the curriculum a long time ago and are just killing time now, even all the reviewing we’re doing is unlikely to change the outcome, capable students would do well on the exam if it was tomorrow, and some of the weak or lazy one would flunk even if they had a million hours to prepare. I still do my thing, slowly going over past paper questions and explaining some points that need further exploration.

I went home and put myself through a pretty comprehensive calisthenics workout: L-hangs, tucked planches (I suck terribly at those), chin-ups with two liter-bottles of beer in a backpack, pike push-ups, step-ups holding a big kettlebell, calf raises, asymmetric push-ups, rows holding straps hanging from the pull-up bar, curls with a kettlebell, bodyweight triceps extensions, hollow body holds, and reverse hypers. Only two or three more of those workouts and I’ll look like a Calvin Klein model. The soundtrack to this was a succession of mixtapes by Canibus, Army Of The Pharaohs and Immortal Technique, all excellent underground rappers. I put it at low volume because the girlfriend was in the bedroom, teaching an online class.

I took a cold shower and then took the dog out. I sat on the plaza with a Czech pilsner I picked up at the craft beer bar, enjoying the post-workout glow, the pleasant spring weather and the enhanced beer buzz. The girlfriend asked me to buy strawberries, so I went to the front gate to get some, then I got home and fixed myself dinner, a pulled pork sandwich, coleslaw and hash browns. I watched the first episode of a BBC series called The Serpent, about the life and crimes of Charles Sobhraj, a Frenchman who killed a bunch of hippies in the 1970s while living in Bangkok. So far it’s pretty good. I also watched a documentary about the Hundred Years War, it started pretty damn dismally for the French but now they were getting a second wind, thanks notably to a badass Breton knight and commander named Bertrand Du Guesclin.

Chapter 109

I got up early as per my weekday routine, read the Clown World news, and did yoga. The dog was particularly annoying, poking me with his triangle face as I was getting into those strange positions he didn’t understand. He has a huge underbite and his lower teeth are often coming out of his mouth like a wild boar’s tusks, and at some point he caught me in a nostril as if I got a fish hook stuck in there. Ouch.

I had a full morning and did my thing like the consumate professional I am. At lunch I ate leftovers from last week, pulled pork and coleslaw, and made a quesadilla with the pieces of tortilla bread that Triangle Face didn’t eat. I watched some random YouTube videos about MMA or current events, one thing that got people talking is the Blacklivesmatter founder who just bought her fourth expensive house, with the donations she got. How marxist. It’s hard not to be cynical, with all those politicians and activists lying through their teeth, scamming, saying something and then doing the opposite, and generally being dishonest sacks of shit. I can only nod in admiration at her successful hustle, like Al Sharpton and his private jet. Race grifting and victimhood manufacturing is very lucrative, hell, the biggest race grifter of them all, Shawn King, is as white as the background of the MS Word software I’m writing this diary on  but still makes a living as an African-American activist.

I rode to work, listening to Ingrowing. I went through their back catalog during bus and train rides over the weekend, truly some of the best grindcore ever recorded. There are big rose bushes by the place I park my bicycle and I always stop to sniff the flowers, it never fails to improve my mood. Grindcore and fragrant flowers make me happy.

I had a bit of time in the office, that I used to read, write, and listen to music. I listened to an east coast hip-hop mix and then some old tracks by French rapper Oxmo Puccino, then a few news clips. A coworker was stapling papers, she had a huge pile in front of her, so I offered to help. That took me about an hour, but I could do it at my desk with my headphones on.

I had one more period, with Attitude Class, then I went home. A friend of mine asked me to translate a document from English to Chinese, that task occupied the first half of my evening. I put on music a bit randomly, British dubstep and drum n’ bass, artists by the names of Silkie, Mensah, Goldie, good beats to put in the background while I work.

So absorbed in the translation, I forgot to make dinner, there were leftovers in the fridge but not enough rice. So I took the dog out and walked to a neighborhood restaurant, where I asked for a container of rice. The nice lady didn’t even charge me. Then I went home and mixed the spicy, sour, salty and sweet leftovers into a nice flavorful bowl that I topped with two fried eggs and crushed cashews.

The girlfriend came back from overtime and checked my translation, some sentences needed small corrections or had to be rewritten entirely, Chinese grammar is not super complicated and follows the subject-verb-object structure for the most part, but as much as I can read, I must write like an 8-year-old. I made myself a bourbon-creme de cassis-lemon victory cocktail and it was too delicious not to sip slowly, so I stayed up a bit later than I should have.

Chapter 108

Up at 9:58, just in time to miss the hotel breakfast. Ah well. It was probably bland anyway, and I have enough money to buy my own. The plan for today was an outdoor roda, by the river somewhere south of downtown. My roommate and I rode our rent-a-bikes there, a quite pleasant 8-km trip broken in half with a quick detour to an eatery where we wolfed down fried noodles and won tons.

We arrived a good 45 minutes early, and I wanted to buy beverages but there wasn’t a convenience store in sight. In the packed streets of the city, you sometimes have three at the same intersection, even at times two from the same franchise chain, but over there by the lighthouse there was fuckall except a Starbucks and a vending machine. I wonder why Lawsons didn’t set up a shop there for the numerous weekend daytrippers walking or biking or rollerblading past, but then again it’s a multi-billion-dollar company and I’m sure they know what the hell they’re doing. So I rode one extra kilometer and bought a few beers and a jumbo bottle of water. I cracked open a beer right away, to start the day right.

People slowly came in and we had a music class. One of the local instructors, a Frenchman, taught us about pitch and rhythm and it was seriously useful and interesting. Then the roda started and lasted all afternoon, alternating between quick regional-style games and more intricate Angola ones. I had to leave around 3:30 to slowly make my way to the central station, it was about 10 km away but I felt like riding a rent-a-bike, enjoying the beautiful weather and soothing my sore legs. Plus, I have to admit I was a bit capoeiraed out by that point, capoeira is awesome and will always be a part of me, but three long rodas in as many days is enough to saturate me.

I stopped at one of those imported food stores that are on every street in the French Concession (Shanghai expats are so spoiled), filled my backpack with beer and snacks, and made it to the train station. There was a Taco Bell across the street, a new arrival in Shanghai, and I thought about going but eventually decided against it, mostly because I would have had to cross at a further intersection and wasted time. Instead I went to a Subway shop and got a cold cuts  footlong to go.

My city didn’t have a train station until a few months ago, though it was well-connected by bus. The thing is the new train station is about 15 km away from the city, so it almost balances out. The bus takes a bit over two hours, the bus station is very central, fifteen minutes from my home by bicycle, but the bus can get stuck in traffic in a way that the train obviously can’t. Meanwhile, the train takes an hour, but you need to go from the middle of nowhere to the city by taxi or by city bus. I’d say overall the bus still takes my vote, mostly because the train was packed with peasants yelling at each other from one side of the car to the other and playing dogshit Douyin videos on their phones, while the Friday afternoon bus was nearly empty. But then again I’ve also been on hellishly noisy bus rides, so I guess it’s just luck of the draw.

The taxi dropped me at the bus station where my bicycle was parked and I rode home. I was looking forward to just kick back a bit but had a nasty surprise waiting for me when I got in, the girlfriend forgot to close the kitchen door, and the dog went ham on a box of couscous, spreading cardboard shreds and tiny yellow grains all over the apartment. He also ate nearly a whole package of tortillas, Jesus, no wonder he’s getting so big. He was lounging on the couch in a food coma, his round empty eyes full of fear and the realization, somewhere in his peanut-sized brain, that he did something he’s not supposed to.

I instantly got filled with boiling anger but told myself I need to calm down, and especially not lash out at the culprits. The dog is, well, just a silly dog, of course he’ll forage for food when we’re absent, and that’s why we childproof the place. And the girlfriend is a loving companion who is always there for me, respects my boundaries and my need to get out of town sometimes, puts up with my own small misdeeds without giving me excessive amounts of shit or the passive-aggressive silent treatment, and she has had a busy weekend working overtime. She is also a teacher, but as the end of the school year comes closer and I have a much more relaxed schedule, hers intensifies, with final projects to supervise. So what if she got distracted and forgot to close the kitchen door to keep Triangle Face out, and didn’t take the organic garbage bag out and now there’s a faint reek of rotten mango peels? Hardly worth starting a yelling match over. I changed the garbage bag and started sweeping the floor.

She came in just as I started, apologized for the mess, and took over. No harm done. We then went to walk the dog and get the mail, talking about our respective weekends.

I threw my clothes in the laundry and did a bit of cleaning. I put on the next Top 500 entry, an album by The Clash. It was boring as fuck and at no point did I remotely go “Yeah! Yeah! That’s what I’m talking about!”, it was just some bland-ass old punk rock. There are still 322 albums to go and I’m starting to wonder if I’ll keep it up. Most albums I liked in there were albums I was already listening to, or by artists I had heard of, and there’s been tons of overrated boomer trash to plough through. The next one is by Elvis Presley, and I’m not excited at all for it. I’ll give myself a few days.

I finished watching Wrestlemania. Some Latino popstar named Bad Bunny had a celebrity match, apparently he is extremely famous but I had never heard of him or his bland mumble rap. Well, he was pretty good, and definitely took it seriously. Then it was a women’s championship between two swaggy black chicks, one with pink hair, and one with a super long braid she twirls around. It was also a good match, especially from Long Braid, who performed feats of strength like catching Pink Hair when she jumped out of the ring, pressing her over her shoulders, and carrying her back over the steps before dumping her. She won and was all emotional. I remember watching wrassling when I was young and the women’s matches were gimmicky, low-level and mostly if not solely relying on sex appeal, but now there are some seriously good female wrestlers.

I also saw a link to the Jake Paul vs Ben Askren boxing match, and it was a short video. Askren got knocked out in a minute, hard to imagine he was an undefeated MMA champion for so long and there were even people wondering how he’d do if he left the B-leagues and fought GSP or Johny Hendricks. It seems like he was just there for the payday, while the YouTube star trained seriously. Either way it was a total shitshow, and now there are talks of other established fighters going that route for the big $$$. The only silver lining to that sad, sad masquerade is that it might shine some light on how poorly MMA fighters are paid, but I ain’t holding my breath.