I don’t know if it’s the summer heat or just general lassitude, but I can’t get excited about anything beyond the next Uber delivery and new Netflix series. As hobbies go, having a weekly blog resembles a job. I’ve been lazy, but to tide you over I offer this short observation.

Recently an expat friend was discussing feeling very old. He’s in his mid-thirties, hardly decrepit, but when he looks around all he sees is people younger than him. [Just wait, it gets worse, is what I say]. But, he does have a point.

If he were living in his home country he probably wouldn’t feel the aging process so profoundly. Though the population of Taiwan is aging, just as it is in most of the world, the expat population never grows old. Each year a new batch arrives. They are usually young (recent graduates), excited, energetic—full of piss and vinegar—and having a grand adventure. They stay for a few months or a few years and then they’re gone. It can make you feel middle aged by your early thirties. I feel positively ancient. Every year I get older; but they just stay the same.

I think that’s why so many old hands seem to be in a state of arrested adolescence.  You act like the people around you. I feel old here, and young in Canada.

I’ll be back with something more substantial soon.