Chapter 103

I did my tai chi, walked the dog, read the news. A black guy got killed by a police officer, in Minneapolis of all places. The bodycam footage shows him being told to exit his car, and as he’s being handcuffed, he spins around and gets behind the wheel, ready to bolt out of there. The female cop with the bodycam yells “Comply or I’m going to tase you! Taser taser taser!” but then shoots him point blank with a real gun. I’m no expert on tasers (though I’ve been hit by one before, a story for later) but it seems to me like police tasers are brightly colored and not black, and I imagine they don’t weigh the same at all, and also any half-competent cop would know which is which. So, what kind of blunder is that?!

Of course that sparked “fiery but mostly peaceful” riots, and of course the media was quick to whitewash the story, talking about how he was unarmed and not resisting arrest, nothing new there. The USA truly is a mess now.

I listened to The Who’s live album from 1970, it was some pretty good rock n’ roll. Up next in the Rolling Stone’s Top 500 was Prince, with some kind of synth-heavy pop music that sounds way too much like a cheesy 80s movie to me. I stopped after a few tracks and put on some Black Mass Pervertor instead, the old-school black metal band from some Finnish dude I know, that was some nice ear cleanser.

I had a double with the twelfth graders, I went over some old exam problems and then gave them free time to work on more of them. Some are showing serious cases of senioritis, and I can’t blame them, they’ve been in the joyless Chinese schooling system 350 days a year, 12 hours a day, since they were barely able to walk.

At lunch I went home, dropped my computer, and took the dog out. I had an errand to run downtown and rode my skateboard there, with my four-legged companion running along. I took a shortcut through “the ghetto”, one of those hidden alleys with old crumbling buildings that haven’t been destroyed yet, and as I passed a walled compound, a volleyball came flying over and landed in front of me. From a school, or from a minimum security prison, not sure, as it was a high concrete wall with electrified wire on top. Once could argue they’re almost the same thing anyway. I stopped and tossed it back, to cries of joy from the other side. My good action of the day.

There was a small park in the ghetto, I stopped and did five sets of dips before continuing. I went to the ATM and transfered money from my main bank account to the old one, which is linked to my phone, and then sent the girlfriend 1000 yuan for the electricity bill. That got me thinking, my main account is at Bank Of Communications, yet I can withdraw at Industrial And Commercial Bank Of China ATMs with no added fees. Chinese ATMs are pretty nice and have been ever since I arrived in the country, they usually have no fees or if they do, it’s negligible, like 2 yuan. Compare that to Canada or all the foreign countries I’ve been to, with at-times extortionate fees, especially Argentina’s scumfuck banks (may they all burn to the ground, and may the cunt who decided that fees of 263 pesos on maximum withdrawals of 4000 is not pure banditry die in the fire).

I went to eat a bowl of spicy, oily noodles at a Chongqing eatery. There were five other customers present, and all were watching videos on their phones with the sound on. Even the two guys sitting together were watching two different videos. The whole thing was pure cacophony. I don’t mind lively, loud conversations, but who the fuck can take a look around and not see how this is a shitty thing to do?! People, man... I didn’t confront anyone, I just put my earbuds in and tried to drown the noise of five shitty TV shows playing all at once. The little restaurant is mostly patronized by wage slaves from the neighboring shops, offices and construction sites, so I feel like it’s fair to let them enjoy some mindless entertainment on their short lunch break.

I went back to school after a short detour home to drop off the dog, and supervised a lab. I told them to do it in silence, part of it was to simulate exam conditions, but also I didn’t want to hear their constant chattering. I warned a few of them, and eventually expelled one. When I gave him a last warning, he had on this dipshit “trying not to laugh” face and about 0.2 seconds later he was piat-piat-piating again so I kicked him out. I tend to be the laid-back teacher who doesn’t enforce strict rules, but there are times I need to put my foot down.

There was no meeting, so I sat in the office practicing theoretical driving exam questions on my phone. Some are very easy, but some are hard as hell. I remember taking the Quebec driving exam and getting 25/25 without preparation, like anyone with an IQ above room temperature, but the one I’m studying for now has questions like “Driver Wang is operating a medium-caliber passenger transportation vehicle with 32 people in it, he’s been behind the wheel since 19:00 until the first hour of dawn, and got a collision on Provincial Road 307 with Driver Liu, who was driving at 54 km/h. 21 people died, 9 got injured. What are the factors that contributed to the accident?” and then there are four choices, you need to tick all those that apply, not more. So on top of having to decipher that Chinese mumbo-jumbo, I have to be familiar with speed limits on different roads and the passenger capacities of vehicle classes. Fucking hell. And some questions are a bit ambiguous, for instance “If you get a flat tire, you should immediately stop on the side of the road. True or False?” and the answer is “False, you don’t stop immediately, you stop after you made sure it’s safe to do so!”

I passed the first theoretical exam back in December, in fact I was the only one in the room who passed on the first try, which led to the lady poking fun at all the people there who failed while the laowai got 91%. I hope I pass that one first try as well. Which means perhaps I shouldn’t spend so much time writing this stupid diary and study more.

First I need to pass the practical. The car was already out there at the practice circuit so I rode the 6 km there on my bicycle. I had to force myself to go, there are millions things I’d rather be doing but it wasn’t that bad in the end, the ride was pleasant and I was listening to Jocko Willink along the way, dropping nuggets of wisdom and motivation. I didn’t have to wait much, I did my two circumnavigations and left right after. The cunty little instructor was even cuntier than usual, barking nitpicky or even totally nonsensical comments. At some point, I had to turn left at a green light, and there was another driving school car coming the other way. “What are you waiting for?!?! Just go!” “What kind of bullshit is that? There’s a car coming” “But he’s letting you!” “No, he isn’t! He’s just slow! I have to wait!” And then I sat there, white-knuckling the wheel, trying to not talk back and escalate while I was being berated and insulted by an ugly man three quarters my size. Can’t wait for this shit to be over.

I got back home, opened a beer, put a steak and Guinness pie in the over, steamed some asparagus and watched the beginning of Wrestlemania. It was held in an open air stadium in Tampa Bay, before it even began there was a rain delay, so it was mostly promos, which were pretty cool and got me interested in the matches to come. First up was Bobby Lashley and Drew McIntyre, a good big man match with a sweet front flip over the ropes from the Scotsman. Then I went to bed and practiced the driving test questions a bit more.