Airspacemag last June did a piece on jet lag, searching for the author who, in the mid-sixties, coined the term.
It’s a form of fatigue from crossing too fast multiple time zones.
I’m not sure about that definition: I contract jet lag whenever I remain too long in the same time zone, but feel revigorated if I circle the planet. It’s everything related to airports that’s a killer.
You probably wonder why you were born in China.
Not so complicated.
One day, I looked at the map of the world, took a ruler. And measured.
I was in Montreal and happened to be searching for the point that would be the farthest away, the point which, if one tries to get even farther, brings that traveler closer, back to the place of departure. After careful calculations, I ended up in Beijing. And stayed. The rest is a story for another time.
China was always part of my personal mythology. In the 1950’s nuns from catholic schools made us buy for a dollar each many Chinese so to save them in a precise order: from atheism first, then starvation. Of course I bought many. They were mine. I had paid for them. Nuns don’t lie.
A little more than 10 years ago, as I walked for the first time through the dusty streets of the Chinese capital, I suddenly remembered the nuns and wondered if among these waves of cyclists passing me by, I would get to finally see these Chinese that had been my firm property half a century earlier…
My first year in school was a real mess. Having acquired quite a collection of Chinese sufferers from the nuns, it gave me the idea of surreptitiously joining my new subjects as an opportunity to restart my life on different grounds.
Since I had spent all my pocket money on purchasing human beings, I knew I didn’t have enough funds left to buy a plane ticket.
Digging my way in a straight line to China had sounded a good travel substitute at the time. Eventually, as I planned my escape, hiding shovels and buckets in the garage, I realized I would arrive in a country where people lived their feet up and their heads down (since geographically they were at the other extremity of the globe, my tunnel being the diameter). In shock, I was forced to abandon my plan.
Perhaps the very nature of the Chinese, had I concluded, allowed them to live upside down, but I wasn’t sure my own biological stature would adapt to such acrobatics. I imagined myself rejected by gravity, crawling out of my hole head first, unable to hang on to the grass, the trees, the buildings, progressively drifting into space forever and ever. All the Chinese that I owned waving goodbye.
A large mall held an exhibition in the 60’s on the theme of China. It was a disappointment. They had put on sale lots of junk made in Taiwan. But I had found a small delicate mobile made of hand-painted glass that I managed to keep for years. I still remember as a tragic moment the day it broke.
I’ve been in Beijing for a long time. It’s home now. Yes, honey, there are mornings when I strongly feel the jet lag.
Mingtian jian, Laolao
It’s a form of fatigue from crossing too fast multiple time zones.
I’m not sure about that definition: I contract jet lag whenever I remain too long in the same time zone, but feel revigorated if I circle the planet. It’s everything related to airports that’s a killer.
You probably wonder why you were born in China.
Not so complicated.
One day, I looked at the map of the world, took a ruler. And measured.
I was in Montreal and happened to be searching for the point that would be the farthest away, the point which, if one tries to get even farther, brings that traveler closer, back to the place of departure. After careful calculations, I ended up in Beijing. And stayed. The rest is a story for another time.
China was always part of my personal mythology. In the 1950’s nuns from catholic schools made us buy for a dollar each many Chinese so to save them in a precise order: from atheism first, then starvation. Of course I bought many. They were mine. I had paid for them. Nuns don’t lie.
A little more than 10 years ago, as I walked for the first time through the dusty streets of the Chinese capital, I suddenly remembered the nuns and wondered if among these waves of cyclists passing me by, I would get to finally see these Chinese that had been my firm property half a century earlier…
My first year in school was a real mess. Having acquired quite a collection of Chinese sufferers from the nuns, it gave me the idea of surreptitiously joining my new subjects as an opportunity to restart my life on different grounds.
Since I had spent all my pocket money on purchasing human beings, I knew I didn’t have enough funds left to buy a plane ticket.
Digging my way in a straight line to China had sounded a good travel substitute at the time. Eventually, as I planned my escape, hiding shovels and buckets in the garage, I realized I would arrive in a country where people lived their feet up and their heads down (since geographically they were at the other extremity of the globe, my tunnel being the diameter). In shock, I was forced to abandon my plan.
Perhaps the very nature of the Chinese, had I concluded, allowed them to live upside down, but I wasn’t sure my own biological stature would adapt to such acrobatics. I imagined myself rejected by gravity, crawling out of my hole head first, unable to hang on to the grass, the trees, the buildings, progressively drifting into space forever and ever. All the Chinese that I owned waving goodbye.
I’ve been in Beijing for a long time. It’s home now. Yes, honey, there are mornings when I strongly feel the jet lag.
Mingtian jian, Laolao
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