It's been a while since I've written. I don't feel great about it, because writing is one of my sources of happiness. The last five days reminded me why.

Monday night I got to Ho Chi Minh City from Kunming. Friday night I got back around 11:30. The last family trip I took was to Laos, and Laos sits on the Mekong. Ho Chi Minh City sits on the Saigon River, just north of the Mekong Delta. It's not on the Mekong itself, but it's close to that same water world. If you follow the Mekong, it eventually reaches the sea. It's the lifeline of six countries, and I believe it starts in Tibet. It's an interesting story, and I'd love to learn more about it.

I watched a YouTube video about Ho Chi Minh and his struggle to free Vietnam — a largely peasant country that supported him — and how he became who he finally became. What I found especially daring was that, as a young man, he left and made it all the way to Paris, where the rich, colonial, powerful people were meeting. He didn't get on the podium, but he submitted a petition — the Eight-Point Petition — to the Versailles Conference. He made his voice heard.

It made me want to start the brand we had blazing again: short pieces, maybe 30-second clips, on people who made a difference, like Ho Chi Minh and Nelson Mandela. People who fought against all odds, worked hard, and are recognized for it.

I spent two days with a friend, too. Honestly, he dropped a couple of bombshells, and I'm still trying to figure all of it out. Have I become different? I do enjoy hanging out late, but I also like my schedule and my simple life. So we had our differences on that. I cherish my sleep a lot now, after my emotional breakdown. I really just want to make sure I always sleep.

When you get out of China, you feel like the world is exactly how you left it. White people are revered again, more or less. The world order feels like business as usual. Vietnam has independence, and so does Pakistan — but is it really independent? That's the question. They don't want to share that technology with China. Lucky for them, maybe, they don't have that old friendship — because occupying their land for a thousand years is about half the story. Different people have different perspectives. A lot of the Vietnamese perspective has to have been written by the people who ruled Vietnam after China, because that's the only way it makes sense. Still, Vietnam has gotten a lot from China, and it's in its language. Eventually it was romanized, and a Portuguese Jesuit named Francisco de Pina is credited with creating the first Latinized script for Vietnamese. All those things are there.

But it's weird. The inequality is so visible, and I don't know how people live with it. How do you live as a person of power, see so much inequality, and be okay with it? I'm not saying China is different in every way, but at least my impression of China is that it has made an effort to lift all its people in a very inclusive manner. China has lifted 800 million people out of extreme poverty, meeting the UN's 2030 target a decade early. If this is possible — and it seems possible, because everything is made in China, the fix is there — why can't other countries learn from this model? Why do they keep giving in to the only other way, which seems easier: officials getting kickbacks and buying bigger houses in London, Paris, and all these other colonial hubs? It baffles me.

China has lifted 800 million people out of extreme poverty, meeting the UN's 2030 target a decade early. If this is possible, why can't other countries learn from this model?

There's a lot going on in my life now. Before this, I was working on a book I have to do a final read-through on before I publish it. It's called Economics of Fear, and it's something I feel really close to. I wanted to do a PhD. Yeah, I could do that. Or I could write a book and put my theology, my learnings from experience, and whatever I've done into something that can be used. Hopefully it'll come out. I'm kind of excited about it.

Other than that, life is back to regular. Being in China — coming back to China — is the happiest feeling, because there is order, safety, and security. No offense to other places, but out there you have what feels like a trillion cockroaches. Not that I didn't see rats or cockroaches in China — I have — but there haven't been as many as I thought. I guess it's also the weather. The drainage system is weaker, so when rain pours, it doesn't drain fast enough.

I had some good food. Thai food the first day, Korean food the second. The Turkish people I met were really nice. Overall, I don't know how their government system works. The police seem very strict, and a lot of people seem pretty scared of them. And yeah, the jet lag has been one of the worst ever. I was up at 2:00, 3:00, 4:00. Coming from North America, it's a 12-hour difference, and it takes a while to adjust. He had a horrible flight coming here, but we had fun and good bonding. Now our countdown has started as he heads back, and things are already getting a little different.

I'm going to miss the sense of agency and the people, even though my language skills are pretty basic. I have a lot of room to improve. I started holding myself accountable, even making a little video series of training for a half marathon. That kind of fell off the grid when I went to Ho Chi Minh. I need to get back into it, most likely tomorrow morning. I'll go for a run.

I'm glad to be back. I'm glad to be back in this place where I honestly started. I had another blog post saying China is one of the few places I think I'm going to enjoy spending time.

So, over and out.