Haiku for the week

Energy stifled;

Succession of holidays;

Breakwater tames the sea.

Sometimes, when Chunjie comes late in the year, in early or mid-February, there is a chance of the Chinese economy - or my own modest little corner of it - reviving briefly in January.

But this year, the big holiday is coming relatively early: Chinese New Year's Eve will be January 22nd.

So, most foreign executives quit the country for a holiday a week or two before Christmas; a week after Christmas, we get the Western New Year (which has recently become a mandated day off work - two days off work - in China also); and less than three weeks after that, we get the week (or two, or three) of revelry for the Chinese New Year, and all of the massive disruption that causes (with half the population attempting to travel somewhere, and billions of dollars worth of ordnance being exploded on the streets every day).

So, I'm barely a third of the way into what is likely to be a two or three-month spell of having no work at all. And I'm going a little stir crazy already.

I ought to get back in marathon training, write my novel, learn Spanish, take a trip to Cambodia... but something is keeping me chained to my sofa. Ho hum.