Hearing Problem Joke

Seems an elderly gentleman had serious hearing problems for a number of years. He went to the doctor and the doctor was able to have him fitted for a set of hearing aids that allowed the gentleman to hear 100%. The elderly gentleman went back in a month to the doctor and the doctor said, “Your hearing is perfect. Your family must be really pleased you can hear again.” To which the gentleman said, “Oh, I haven’t told my family yet. I just sit around and listen to the conversations. I’ve changed my will five times!”

Pleasant Italian encounter

Today I met an Italian while sitting on a bench at the mall. This old man came to sit on the same bench as me because he liked the bench that leaned against the wall. I offered to switch my seat with him because I had more of the wall behind me but he politely declined. Afterwards, we started an interesting and long conversation.

He started by explaining that he was waiting for his wife to finish shopping and I told him that I was waiting for my late friend. (Haha, we were both waiting for someone.)

Then we talked, mostly him talking actually, about how there’s fewer people at this mall today because of Black Friday. He told me that he comes here every Sunday to walk around with his wife but he gets tired easily because he’s getting old.

Somehow we managed to talk about his family, (how his wife is from the Philippines) and he even showed me a picture of his daughter. (Very beautiful woman I say.) She’s married now and around the same age as my mother. When his daughter travels, he says that he still pays for it because he said that when you die, you can’t take money with you so he might as well split it among his children while he still can. He also has three sons who are taking over his business in Canada.

Then, he went on talking about his almost 50 year old business. He told me that he builds apartment ventilation systems, furnace, and all the nitty gritty mechanisms behind building walls. He currently has over hundreds of men employed in his company and mentions that there are two hard working Chinese men who help build the stuff. He added that many of his Italian workers marry Chinese women because they were found to be ‘compatible.’ (I think he mentions this because I looked Chinese to him. Haha) He said that he almost sold his company once because he wanted to go back to Italy, but he’s now glad he didn’t because he would have been broke today if he did. His company is called ‘York Sheet Metal Ltd” and he tole me to look it up online when I have time. (I had no wifi connection at the moment.) He started his business in 1965 (He remembers dates very well) and came to Canada when he was about 17 years old. His first partner was a Scottish man. The Scottish man couldn’t pronounce his Italian name properly, ‘Vincenzo’, so he nicknamed him Jimmy instead and now everyone calls him Jimmy. Haha, he said that he should have be nicknamed Vincent instead because it’s more similar, but he says he’s fine with Jimmy now because it’s easy for people to remember. (Haha, he was quite funny.)

Our conversation was a bit choppy because we jumped from topic to topic, when filling the pauses in between, but he was nice enough to fill in the gaps with continuous conversation subjects.

He then taught me some basic Italian words such as ‘ciao’ for hi/bye, ‘buon giomo’ for good morning, ‘buon pomeriggio’ for good afternoon, ‘buona sera’ for good night, & ‘grazie’ for thank you. He even gave me some Italian chocolates with the word ‘baci’ on them, meaning ‘kiss’ in Italian. He says he carries them around to distribute to the nice people at the glasses shop he frequents. He had an extra one today so he gave it to me because he finds me nice too. (He’s such a sweet old man.) The chocolate had a quote inside: “Then, what is a kiss? ‘Tis a secret told to the mouth. -E. Rostand- #38” such a romantic. haha

Then we talked about his life in Italy. He said that Italy is shaped like a boot and that he lives right near the tip at the bottom of that boot. His house is by the ocean and he owns a boat there. He’s planning on going back to Italy in two weeks to celebrate Christmas there because the weather’s nicer, he finds.

After this nice long chat, his wife finished shopping for her makeup and came to pick him up. She said that she couldn’t find the foundation she wanted so they’ll have to go somewhere else. She thanked me for chatting with him but I say no need because it was fun talking to him. As he was about to leave, he turned and said jokingly that if we ever meet again then I can say that I have made an Italian boyfriend. (he’s such a flirt. Haha)

All in all, we had a very nice and long conversation going. I found him very sweet, nice and friendly, but a bit of a flirt too. Haha, but I learn a lot today; about Italy, him, his business and life. I find that you can always learn something new from everyone you meet in life. So yea, there you have it; my pleasant and interesting encounter with an Italian old man on a Sunday afternoon.

The “-ism” conversation with uncle

The ‘-ism’ conversation with my uncle was an enlightening experience which all contributed to expanding my scope of knowledge because I got to learn more about our society, politics, government, and a bunch of stuff that I was too ignorant or uninterested to find out about before. This conversation happened via online messaging, so it was originally disorganized and all over the place. I tried to reorganize it properly so that it seems more user-friendly to read, but it now sounds like a mini interview with a clueless student asking a bunch of ignorant questions to a teacher patiently satisfying the student’s thirst of knowledge, while providing useful and interesting links to engage the student to learn even more. (Haha, that was a mouthful!)

Anyways, let’s cut to the chase so you can be mildly entertained or enlightened too.

Here is how the conversation with my uncle basically went:

(Some background info: I was using a laptop at school to message my uncle.)

(U= Uncle, M= Me)

M: Today, I was asked “what is the opposite of capitalism?” by some Chinese stranger from my campus. Do you know the answer?

U: Communism

M: Why? What is communism? How about socialism?

U: This is a very broad topic that is worthy of many research papers. But I will try to simplify it for you.

Communism says that everyone should receive an equal share of material goods, that the rich should not be many time richer than the poor. So whether you’re a truck driver or a physician, you should basically get paid the same. Capitalism says that a person should be as rich as he or she deserves. So if you work harder, or smarter, or take advantage of better opportunities, then you deserve to be richer than the next guy and have a better lifestyle.

This is why they are essentially opposites

Socialism says that both of these are a bit extreme. We should reward the hard working but still keep the society balanced, as much as possible. Therefore everybody should pay a lot of taxes so that, through the government, the rich can subsidize the poor. This is basically what Canada is.

M: Ohhhhh, so the difference between socialism and communism is that socialism still has the social hierarchy between the rich and the poor?

U: In theory, yes. But in practice, everyone knows that there’s a huge importance placed on hierarchy in supposedly communist countries, such as China and Russia.

M: Is this considered general knowledge?

U: It’s general knowledge for intellectuals. It’s what’s supposed to separate a university graduate from a high school graduate.

M: Oh dear me…I just finished an exam and I was asked that by this stranger as I was walking away…. what a weird encounter… I guess I’m not intellectual enough.

U: It’s okay. You’re still young. You have a lot to learn. There is no shame in that.

M: Thanks, so is china communism or socialism?

U: They call it… Chinese Communism.

M: Oops, hahaha, I get it. So there isn’t a gap between the rich and poor in china then? I thought there was.

U: In China, there is a HUGE HUGE gap between the rich and the poor. That’s the whole problem.

M: But they still insist on communism? Why is there still a gap? Was it there already?

U: They have to. They’ve made a villain out of the US and Capitalism. There’s no going back. There wasn’t much of a gap when Mao was in power. Everyone was poor and many people starved. Now that China is opening up and people actually have a chance at things, the gap has become very large.

M: oh dear… I heard that Mao did horrible things to maintain equality.

U: Mao did terrible things. But at least he kept EVERYONE poor.

M: HAHA. Is there’s no way to make everyone rich then?

U: The only place where everyone is rich is heaven.

M: Is US based on capitalism?

U: Yes, the US is the world’s capital of Capitalism. The US used to have a strong middle class. That’s about as close to ideal as society can get. Now the middle class is basically gone, and the 300 richest Americans are about as rich as the 83 million poorest ones put together. Refer to this 10 minute video on how bad things are now:

http://gawker.com/russell-brand-may-have-started-a-revolution-last-night-1451318185

M: I thought Canada had a strong middle class too.

U: Canada is more Socialist, so it’s not as bad. But it’s certainly not well off either.

M: How about Europe? Is it socialism, communism, or capitalism?

U: I think Europe is in trouble economically. It’s a mixed bag of isms. I cannot say much about Europe with confidence, because I don’t look at Europe much.

M: How many ‘isms’ are there?

U: There are many isms. There is even one that the new China’s founding father, Sun Yat Sen, penned up and tried to put in practice. But Communism and Capitalism are the ones that receive the most attention and public awareness.

With Europe, I can only say that at least it’s basically a free market. People there are not severely limited as they are in China and Russia.

M: I just finished watching the video. Russell Brand makes some interesting points about where we should be focusing on but he doesn’t really say how to deal with it all.

U: Sadly, he’s just a comedian, so he doesn’t have everything figured out. But he admits that there are people far more qualified for figuring out a way, and he points out that those people are not the ones who are currently in office. The important thing is, his heart is in the right place.

M: Who invented Communism and Capitalism?

U: Karl Marx invented Communism. You can borrow the original work, “Communist Manifesto”, from your local library.

M: I’ve heard of that name before…

U: It’s a very famous name. For a good reason. He invented Communism. He never got to do much with it. But his works stirred the imagination of many people, some of whom gone on to acquire great political power. Like Mao.

And if you really wanted to know… he has a big beard, too.

Here’s his biography: http://www.biography.com/people/karl-marx-9401219

M: Oh, so Karl Marx got the ‘communism’ idea and published it, but people with political power, like Mao, got more into it and did something with it?

U: He wrote it up because he was sick of seeing rich people having it all… without having to do anything! It was a good treatise, and by most accounts, a real communist society would be akin to utopia.

Unfortunately, the ugly side of human nature always comes into play when power and money is involved, and so no one has ever made Communism work the way it should.

M: The way communism is supposed to work… is it to make everyone rich or at least middle class?

U: It’s not to make everyone filthy rich. It is to make everyone have what they need and able to put themselves to good use in society. If you look at Star Trek, it’s kind of like that.

M: Ideally yes… but then we first need to define what is “necessary” and the ‘basic’ of what everyone needs.

U: Like I said, this is a very broad topic that is worthy of many essays. Wouldn’t you agree?

M: Hahaha yes, it is an interesting topic of our society. What about star trek though?

U: Star Trek is a TV show and movie franchise. It is a SciFi show that touches on many things, including politics, science and human nature. That’s why it has such a cult following.

M: Wow, I heard that it has many stories. But I only know the Borg.

U: The Borg is like the ultimate version of how bad communism can get.

M: The Borg deletes individualism, right? We did an English assignment about relating the Borg to the internet once.

U: Your prof is creative.

M: So in Star Trek, they made communism look bad by using the Borg huh?

U: Not really. The humans were basically in communism as well. And they are, by and large, quite happy.

In Star Trek, everyone can eat whatever they want, everyone gets an education, everyone has a place to live and everyone gets a job. And no one seems excessively richer than others. That’s what communism says should happen.

M: I think they need to invent another word for the ‘extreme communism’ in the Borg then. Because communism sounds like it still has some discrepancies between people.

U: No one called the Borg extreme communism. I decided that.

M: oops, hahaha, but it’s similar, no?

U: I decided that because I see the similarity.

M: But similarity does not mean equivalence?

U: One can only find similarities in this case, because there is no human equivalence. At least, not so far.

M: Hmm, nicely said.

U: I encourage you to read the book “Communist Manifesto”. It’s short. You can decide if it’s sweet.

M: Is that book in English? Or Latin?

U: It’s been translated to many languages. English certainly is included.

M: What’s the original language?

U: “At the beginning of 1846, Marx founded a Communist Correspondence Committee in an attempt to link socialists from around Europe. Inspired by his ideas, socialists in England held a conference and formed the Communist League, and in 1847 at a Central Committee meeting in London, the organization asked Marx and Engels to write Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei (Manifesto of the Communist Party).

The Communist Manifesto, as this work is commonly known, was published in 1848, and shortly after, in 1849, Marx was expelled from Belgium. He went to France, anticipating a socialist revolution, but was deported from there as well. Prussia refused to renaturalize him, so Marx moved to London. Although Britain denied him citizenship, he remained in London until his death.”

Judging from this, they were in London. But I’m not sure the original work was in English.

M: I’ll try to find it in the library then. I hope my school library has it.

U: It’s an iconic book. It wouldn’t be much of a school library if they didn’t have it.

http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/communist/summary.html

This isn’t the real thing. But it might save you some time.

M: Thanks for the sparknotes summary but I just got the book. It’s around 100 pages. Not too bad.

U: Fast move!

M: Hehe, the library was right beside me…This is my first time borrowing a book from my university library though.

U: Well, you can say to your grandchildren, “When grandma used to be in university, the first book I borrowed was the Communist Manifesto! So what is that you’re reading?”

M: HAHAHA! Anyways, I’ll read it on the bus home. Bye now.

U: Bye!