February 2024 – OZTHOUGHTS

Xin Jiang….. What awaits us there – Police check points

We were in Zin Jiang, with a bunch of girls and their little brother. We were confronted with armed police for once…. generally policemen in China are unarmed, wearing a smart uniform of green jackets and grey trousers. At least that was our experience with Chinese cops.

These were armed with machine guns, and not only machine guns, but serious heavy machine guns, like the police in Spain. We bumped into them while we were in Spain. A heavy machine gun in a sandbagged emplacement which was in a position to cover all the roads at a junction.

We were confronted with these frightening cops as soon as we were off the beaten track (Tourist didn’t visit these places) and they demanded our passports, which they said they would give back when we left the area. It appeared that we were in a forbidden place for foreigners, so we were obliged to give them our passports. And we were promised that we would be given them back when we left the area.

So, while we went to a river and paddled which is what the girls (we were in the company of a bunch of Chinese girls) wanted. So when we returned, and were given the information that we were under arrest, we were shocked!!!

So begins our journey to our passports….. Which I have described in another post (https://wordpress.com/post/ozthoughtsblog.com/867).

My weird way of thinking……..

The thing is weird the way my thinking is going right now, it is going all over the place, odd eh?

I set out to deny something, and instead I say “yes”, it is all over the place my language.

I look at men my age (that is 82) who apparently have thoughts that are clear, and I compare myself to them, and I despair, my thoughts are so muddling and chaotic. I have real problems talking…. My talk is chaotic and problematic.

I have coffee every week with a mate, and I have real difficulty communicating with him… My talk with him is broken up, and I realise that he wont be meeting me every week soon, as he gets really impatient with my long silences. I have a creative and solid conversation with him in my mind, but not out loud which is trying and not fair to him!

I despair!

Thoughts about living in Australia

We have now lived in Australia for about 11 years so I feel that I can talk about it. The main thought that I have is how lucky we are to live in Australia – it is peaceful and not warlike at all. The rule of law is almost all over the place effectively. There are a few areas were the rule of law doesn’t pertain, but these are exceptions, which is a pity, but is the same all over the world, the only country I have lived were this doesn’t apply, is curiously Botswana, where the cops are totally honest. Mark you, the cops in Angola are as corrupt as you can get!!! We understood that there was a Tariff involved. A motor cyclist cop was given 100 Kwai (the local currency), but a uniformed cop was given $100, and so it went…. Each cop had his price.

Mark you, if you are an indigenous “native”, then you will have it much harder. The way they are treated is shameful, and they figure in the arrest figures ludicrously. Particularly the young.

All in all, living in Australia is an easy thing, generally life is easy, and the government here gives us no end of money (Pensions) after living here for 10 years (regulations) and life is easy. It was well worth the money we paid to live here ($95,000). Having lived in no end of other countries we can confidently say that living in Australia is a doddle. And they speak English, well at least a version of it, so we don’t have to learn another language to communicate which is handy!

Living in Australia is a real doddle, and we are happy to have this as an end to my life (I am now 82), so I have already paid to cremate us when we die.