As I’ve been saying recently, it is very humid in Wuxi, so I have little desire to go out and about, and see things one last time. I just want to get going to Canada.
I don’t see many foreigners these days. When I do, they seem like pale barbarians.
The locals are just the other. They have been affected by modernity. They don’t seem “Chinese” in a romantic travelers’ sense.
I don’t know how to put links into my substack entries, I go to the dashboard above and click on the link icon and get returned to the place in the text I want to put the link, but no interactive popups appear to allow me to put in a text link; so I will just have to show you the raw link;
https://foundingquestions.wordpress.com/2025/07/01/you-are-not-normal/
This is a great tribute to the blogger/podcaster Zman. It mentions Canada, and how a Canadian has to be almost abnormal to have true self-awareness of how strange Canadian culture is; and it points out to Zman readers how abnormal they are. Zman had a talent for making his readers feel they were ordinary joes looking at the world. I always thought of myself as a fly on the wall.
Anywho, the point is: as crazy as I think I am, I am not crazy enough to see the world as normal people see it.
It all comes down to the paradox of existence.