20251223 Dear Justus, I remember you.

Close to the end of the semester, December, everything felt like drying and dying, like an ending relationship, breakfast egg omelet on the table for two days, yellow stain on dirty laundry from last week, or everyday news from whatever news outlet, I received this email from a student from the 2025 Spring semester.

Dear Mark,

I don't know if you remember me exactly. I was participating in your IPE classes last semester during my exchange at Wenzao. I am now working for a German public broadcaster and I have to admit - I miss your classes. Is there any way to stay updated on your takes on world politics via X or Mastodon, etc.? Also, I was wondering if your book on Taiwan-China relations was worth a read - if its still timely enough in this constantly changing world. 

Of course, if you happen to be in Germany at some point - let me know! 

Best

This is perhaps the first real email writing to me since the ChatGPT came to the world 2 years ago. Nowadays everything is written by AI. Some people think it’s ok and we shall embrace it. To me, it sounds like eating shit is also ok, as long as we change the definition of shit. The real sad thing is that we no longer try to do better, we just settle with the availability. So this year, I am writing, many things, but I do not care if people read them. Why do I have to serve food when shit is already on all the menu?

I replied to him.

Dear J,

I am very glad to hear from you and hope your new career brings you satisfaction, and enough money and holidays for real life. Of course I remember you, curly hair, big smile, German accent, with shorts and crocs shoes, and always ask interesting questions.

Before, life as a teacher was at best tepid. After AI and internet information came to the world, life as a teacher is plain sad. No matter how hard we try, we still talk to the empty air. We thought we had something special, but most students don’t even care what was special. I told Professor Lee, we are like prostitutes without customers. We used to have at least a thank you smile, now no one wants to f us.

So, having a student like you is not only a gift but an impossible blessing. I appreciated your passion and curiosity in that semester. I felt happy when seeing you in every Tuesday mornings.

Regarding my academic writings, books, articles and comments, I happened to have a blogger with all the links to them. My academic works are mostly in English. I just organized it during the summer vacation. Here it is: https://markjrlai.blogspot.com/2025/07/blog-post.html

And I will start to post my political economic comments on updated issues on the same blog in the future. Hope you like it. And if you need any of my take on specific issues, for example, will Trump dance moves become World Cup opening, or will Putin’s love affairs change his way of war-making (Babe, you want me to nuke whom tonight?), just ask, I am always here, being a teacher to answer your questions.

Mark