I guess it was in the last year or so that I read a story about someone in China driving a car with a dog tied to the bumper. To the credit of other Chinese, witnesses were angry at the driver for his mistreatment of the animal.
Tony & I witnessed a similar mistreatment of a dog as we were walking back to Stately Kaulins Manor. An e-bike driven by an old man approached us. Behind it was a dog making great effort to keep pace. The dog seemed to be very loyal with its effort. But when the e-bike got close enough, we were aghast to see that the dog's neck was being pulled by a rope attached to the rear end of the bike. What had seemed like dogged effort on the part of the animal to keep up, was really it trying desperately not to be choked by the rope. I could only shake my head.
"Make a sentence with poverty." I asked a student.
The student didn't know the word. I decided to ask the student a question using the word.
"Do you want to live in poverty?" I asked.
"Yes. I want to live in poverty." said the student.
As if any Chinese person, even a faux Buddhist monk, would want to live in poverty.
I have been reading some books by George Grant, a Canadian philosopher.
Lament for a Nation is his most famous work. I was able to e-borrow a copy of it from the archive.org site. Grant wrote the book in the 1960s after PM Diefenbaker's failed attempt to stop Canada from possessing American nuclear weapons. For Grant, it was the end of the Canadian nation. What he meant was the end of a Canadian nationalism born of the fact of that it chose to stay loyal to the British Crown. This nationalism was a very conservative sort, not at all in keeping with liberal-progessivism which he saw as being American.
Coming upon this observation in 2019, where Canada is seen as being the harbinger of all things liberal-progressive, I have to lament as well. Canada went off the rails in the 1960s.
I was also struck by Grant's depiction of Diefenbaker. I couldn't help but think that Diefenbaker had a strong resemblance to Donald Trump. Diefenbaker came to power with an astonishing victory, winning support from portions of the populace that had been thought to be closely off from his party. The elites at the time of Diefenbaker's premiership, liked to mock him for his bumpkin ways and his provincial loyalty to his country. Similarly, Trump experiences the same abuse from the establishment. Diefenbaker's attempts to defeat the elites failed, because of his personal flaws and some bad decisions. The Trump story is not finished yet, but there is a last ditch look about it.
Grant's Canadian Nationalism is the sort I would have supported if I had known more about it.
I had been contemptuous of the Canadian Nationalism I had grown up with which was full of quotas, full of Canadian content regulations and seemed to want to produce a Canada that was self-absorbed as America. The Canadian Nationalism I saw had to discard Canadian history before the 1960s. It didn't seem proud of its British roots. It wanted to be more modern than the USA. It couldn't tolerate its quiet stolid provincialism.
Following Mother Angelica's injunction to pray at least an hour a day, I have been praying the rosary and consulting religious apps that I have installed on my Iphone.
It seems that the world will be entering interesting times and I will need to keep up my spirts.
I don't talk to many people these days.
There has been a huge turnover of Chinese colleagues at work and I can't be bothered to get to know the new ones. So many things have happened in the last year that have soured my view of mainland Chinese. I even, I have to admit, can't stand the sight of them.
I stay aloof from the local laowei. From my few attempts to talk with them, I see that I am not at all on the same wavelength with them. While I do share their contempt and bafflement with the ways of the locals, I share no interests or visions with them.
Despite my carping about Wuxi, the local girls are nice to behold. Many of the local girls are slim and pretty, and dress in ways that attract my eye. But other than exchanging smiles or glances with them, there is not much I can do with them. They think like Chinese women.
The unattractive ones are fearsome. These ones control their households and have their husbands under their thumbs.
Chinese men don't strike me as being virile. They have lithe bodies. Their faces are ugly and many give off impression of brain-washed fanaticism. The ones with friendly faces, that is the likeable ones, are nerds and socially awkward. And they rarely dress in style.
Many of the teenage boys I see at our school border on being androgynous. They are slim and not muscular. They spend their time sitting at desks or hunched over on their smart phones. A few of them may get exercise playing sports, but clearly none of them has ever done any physical labour.
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