Up in the Air

People have been telling me to check that movie out, and I'll probably do so this week. While I've never been a fan of George Clooney the person, I'm a fan of some of the stuff he's been in, and this movie looks kind of cool.

Anyway, I've been putting off a post for a while, and continued efforts to sound smart, have a well thought out post, and generally avoid all my usual syntactical pitfalls have fallen short. I will thus rage blindly forward, write as I go, and post without any regard for life, rules, or proofreading.

I am by no means a well traveled person compared to the friends I have back in the states, and the unbelievable characters I have met out here. Many have lived out in Asia since I was watching Animaniacs after school with a fervor that bordered on the religious. And while that may have only been a couple years ago, they permanently set up shop over here. Olivier and I do not consider ourselves to be of that variety of expat, we both have lives firmly rooted in the States, and plan on a swift return at some point in the foreseeable future.

While the foreigners living out here are content with staying out here, we are not. They do not regard trips home the way I do. I will leave OPJ out of this since I am not keen on his take about this, and will not put words into his mouth. It has come to be that I have two lives, separated completely with the exception of two friends and a plane ticket. If I was lucky enough to have lucid dreams I would imagine it to be something like being awake, and then being lucid. Two things that help these two worlds remain separate: The flight, and separate cultures/languages.

The Flight
It is not the longest flight anyone has taken, and it is not the most harrowing/dangerous, or even very interesting, but done enough times it transforms into something else. I am not fortunate enough to have a body/mind that sleeps well on planes, and as a result, I spend 14 out of the 15+ hours awake. I laud Continental for their phenomenal movie collection, and the occasional cartoon or 30 Rock episode doesn't hurt either. But watching these 4 times a year for that many hours, I've seen several movies on more than one occasion. I'm rambling. The flight takes a ton out of you, and the travel time door to door measures somewhere between 22-28 hours depending on how other legs of the journey play out. You exist in a fog for much of it, albeit a pleasant, un-obstructive, "good passenger" fog. You do not make yourself a point of contention because you'll either be stuck with them for 15 hours in a small space, or pulled aside for "special screening".

This fog I speak of makes the whole journey seem like a bit of a dream, enhanced by a full 12-13 hour time difference, and exacerbated by the 4 days it takes to fully adjust to your new location.

The Culture
I'll be frank [thank God right?] China and the US are very different. The language, the climate, the smells, the sights, everything really. Yes yes, I've gone on about similarities, but outside of the apartment, you know you're in China.

Other elements that add to the double life are the separate groups of friends, watering holes, and daily routines. I am without family in China, but there is a familial network here of close friends fills the gap to a degree.

Anyway, it was something that I had mentioned to a few close friends, and I have never heard anyone else mention it. While I am far from unique in my experiences, I thought it was odd to have never heard it from someone else. It's an odd world where one lives out two lives, separated by a dream. I will ultimately have to decide which life to chose, and am confident that I will return stateside, but I was always awful at Chose Your Own Adventure books.