i need to wash my face...

while i was in china, after a long day on the ride back to the hotel, there was only one thing spinning around my head

"I NEED TO WASH MY FACE"

***

developing countries give me a hard on. the moment i land into an environment of unkempt pedestrians, raucous cell phone users, spitters, cracked sidewalks, moldy walls, urine smelling elevators, and the overall dusty blanket of life, i sigh the relief of "opportunity". it's chaos but it's invigorating and really makes me feel alive. current location: CHINA (replacing jakarta/bangkok/malaysia/vietnam)

i haven't been in china for over a year...and it's gray skies of industrial buzz brought me back into a daze. it's routine for me to sit in the car, stay quiet for the first 3 days just soaking up the surroundings. i stare at the sheer size of the country, what its land mass correlates to in terms of natural resources, i ask basic questions of population, infrastructure, telecom, transit, standard of living to map out the borders of it's cultural necessities. it's not that im some wannabe financial analyst, but it's these basic functions of a society that give me a better understanding when conversing with locals and foreigners in that region whether for business or for business ktv. hahaa.

i'll always jump at the chance to see raw industries. to see the source of how modern civilization has come to be, to see how such a technologically advanced world still sits on a very primitive, very labor intensive foundation is always fascinating. when i was in energy, it amazed me to see how the basics of refining and shipping still remained heavily labor intensive even though computers had heavily upgraded a lot of their systems. this time in china, when studying assembly lines of manufacturing, the amount of hand crafted detail into everyday essentials will make anyone spend a few moments at awe of how much manpower still remains to keep the world running like it is today.

anyways, im back in china next week.