Every few months, on a whim, I Google myself. There are a few other Philip Holdens who join me on the first page of my search results: the writer of hunting books from New Zealand, the managerial expert, the spirit medium who has been unmasked as a charlatan. But I’m always also present: I am not so very difficult to find. There was a time when most of the first

I’m making a briefer blog post this month than usual, partly because I’m in the last two weeks of a very intensive summer class, and also because I’m aware that what I should write about – something about Vancouver and Singapore, systemic racism and racial privilege, and Singapore, brought up by the recent worldwide protests after George Floyd’s death, and the perceptible uptick in anti-Asian racism here — still remains