My Podcasting Listening Habits; James Delingpole Interviews an Old China Hand; Scott Arthur and Me; My Being Amongst the Chinese Conceit; Can the Chinese Take a Step Back?; What about the Lowest of the Low?

• My podcasting listening habits have changed in a slight way. I still listen to them but there aren't any podcasts I listen to on a daily basis. The ones I am loyal to don't put out so many episodes, and at best, they put them out once a week. I like listening to those that have views that challenge my previously held neo-liberal views but aren't progressive. (More than ever, I hate progressivism.) But be that as it may, I listen to all of James Delingpole's podcasts. He certainly is a conservative libertarian type and sometimes when he rants in those ways, I just to think myself that I have heard this all before. Not that he is wrong in what he says, but he is flawed in his degree of emphasis when he talks about how great Capitalism is and how bad government is, and doesn't say much about Logos. Still, I listen to him because he is like comfort food for the ears. And he does have interesting guests.

• Just this past week, Delingpole put out a podcast with a man who has been living in Mainland China since 2001: Scott Arthur (maybe an alias). Arthur reported that horrors had taken place in Wuhan, that he suspected that virus did come from a Wuhan lab in a mishap that could be attributed to the Chinese habit of being lax and cutting corners on necessary procedures, and that the powers to be in Mainland China have sinister intentions.

• What I found personally interesting about the Scott Arthur podcast was what he had to say about why he had been in China so long. Most foreigners don't last in China, he said, very long. Eighty percent of them don't stay in China for more than a year. (I took it that people, like me and him, who have spent a long time in China, are in the 99^th percentile.) China he said was a very tough place to live in, because it is the most alien place on Earth. It is so alien that you might as well be living on another planet, he added. He then attributed his having been there so long in China to having had a upbringing where he was often alone. This struck a chord with me because I have been alone for many long stretches in my life. I remember that in my middle school (or junior high days as I would have said then) that I had no friends and much as well have been an untouchable with my age-cohorts. As well, I moved a lot and never stayed in any community for long. (In China, I was loosely part of the local expat community, but now can say I am part of no community. My wife Jenny complains that I live in my own world.) So, it made sense to me, for Arthur to say what he did, as well as satisfying my conceit about being strong. (However, he did talk about having an 8 year old son in the public school system of China, and I wonder if he is still in China because he is married to it, and can't get away from it, which I would have by now if I hadn't been married.)

• What else can I say to satisfy my conceit about being in China? In China, I can be a misanthrope. That is someone for whom Misanthropy is a sort of ideology that can satisfy one by coming upon examples of it being true and thus making one feel clever for holding its views. There is so much going on in China to convince oneself of the wickedness and weakness of human nature. In China, Ias well, I can literally not care what everyone else thinks. The Chinese are not my people, and it doesn't phase me that I can't conform to them. Thousands of them I see everyday and I have no desire to be like them.

• Are the Chinese capable of taking a step back from a situation? When I wait for an elevator, they will all be impatient to get on it. When I wait for an elevator, I always take a step back to avoid colliding with the person trying to get off the lift. When the Chinese are driving, they are so reactive to any traffic situations. When a car slows down, they immediately start to weave to get around it even when it would be impractical to do so because they have other cars beside them. When a Chinese parent gets angry about yet another poor test result from their child, I don't think any of them think that in the future, none of this will matter in the least. The Chinese, as an author of a book called What is Wrong with China, says, and I can confirm from observation, go through their day focused solely on what they are doing without regard for others.

• Nothing gets my wife angrier than when I say, on the topic of Tony's poor school performance, that someone has to be last, and that not everyone can be above average. She says that Tony's poor performance is bad for her "face." When I ask her if the family with the last place kid should kill themselves, she says that she didn't care and that that family probably had at least one parent who wasn't focused enough on their child's schooling. Because of my wife's anger, I don't ask the next question: But what if every parent was focused the proper amount on schooling? There would still be the last place student. Either my wife is being illogical or very un-Christian. This Chinese logic is materialistic and cruel.