December 2, 2007

• In less than three weeks, the motherland will be holding elections for president. There are an unprecedented 12 candidates running. Interestingly enough, or should I say sadly enough, the fervor leading up to the elections here makes me view the American politics with far less cynicism than before.

  At the forefront of the dirty dozen, is the former mayor of the capital. He supposedly has the strongest support and many predict that he will win. Seriously, seeing this play out is like watching some sort of Monty Python movie. The raging debate between the two opposition parties is not about healthcare, or education, or such. The opposition party is claiming that the strongest candidate has committed 16 crimes whereas the candidate's party declares that the number of crimes he has committed is no more than 14.

  How on earth can a convicted felon, fourteen times over, run for president?! let alone garner the support of a majority of a country. AND, there's a current scandal going on about how he played with the stocks of his company. He insists that he had no knowledge of what was happening... but honestly, 14 crimes? fool me once; shame on you. fool me twice; shame on me.

  his picture is up on banners all over the city, and I have to say that he looks sleazy. he has beady eyes. there's something so untrustworthy about beady eyes... like richard gere.

  speaking of corruption... one of my students shared his experiences of corporal punishment in high school. he started the story by saying, "some teachers are very perverted." this didn't bode well.

  his physics teacher used to punish his students by having them all face the wall and strip down NAKED! this punishment wasn't just for rulebreakers either. whenever they had a test, all students who didn't achieve a 100% on the test had to take off all their clothes. My student assured me that all the teacher saw was their butts. but, he did go on to say, "sometimes he would have them turn in a circle, and he would see everything, front and back."

  hmmm.... how many years would a teacher, outisde of a confucian/ asian society, spend behind bars for that?

  I hope we never find out.

  • 11:15 am
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