About an hour into long international flights, the flight attendants begin to move down the aisles serving drinks. If you're interested in getting some sleep, it's often helpful to have an adult beverage, and soon enough you're nodding off. But occasionally the cart comes by too often, or the turbulence prevents you from sleeping and upon arrival your head feels like the plane just landed on it. Flight hangovers are no fun.
For some of us, we're in the middle of a slightly longer hangover. In this case, we'll call it a "China Hangover" and it has less to do with a headache and more to do with a comparison. The comparison between the freedom and pace that we experienced over the past two weeks in China, and the pace that our world moves here in the United States. Having never experienced this before after international travel, I'm not sure how long it will last. My sleep is constantly interrupted by thoughts of China. I sit at work frustrated by the unnecessary barriers we put up to get things done. My thoughts during my morning and evening commute are filled with concepts for new businesses that either involved China, or adopt their strategies and attitudes towards business.
China is an amazing place. The past two weeks were incredibly eye-opening. This is a hangover that I'm not sure that I want to end anytime soon, because it's forcing me to look at the world in a completely different way. What I do with this new viewpoint will be the most interesting activity I undertake in 2009 (and possibly 2010). Getting back there is now high on my priority list, and probably needs to become an annual event (in some manner) to build my knowledge and contacts.
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