I was amused to come across a Web site called 'Sleeping Chinese'. It consists of hundreds of photographs captured by a Chinese photographer of his countrymen and -women sleeping in all sorts of odd places and positions. Apparently that's more acceptable in that society than it is in the Western world. Here are a few examples from his collection.
There are many more at the link, including some positions that seem so excruciatingly uncomfortable that I've no idea how anyone could fall asleep in them! Entertaining viewing.
Peter
Heh. That reminds me of my younger years, when between work, other work, and play, I often went days without "sleep," and never could tell for sure when next I actually *could* rest. So I ended up learning to nap at the drop of a hat, anywhere, anytime, in nearly any position, including standing up on more than one occasion.
ReplyDeleteWhen you're dead tired and low on sleep, comfort comes second and actually stopping somewhere comes first. Just about any place will do, but sleeping in the rain while still damp sucks. Definitely not recommended.
I have lived as a missionary in Taiwan for 12 years. The same is true here. People sleep anywhere and in any posture. McDonalds is considered a good nap place. Starbucks is assumed to find patrons napping.
ReplyDeleteI went for corporate technical training in Germany, and they were highly offended by the recent Chinese trainees (we used to have a large development site in China, until so many security and quality concerns became apparent that most were let go (as were the previous Indian outsourcers, and the ones from an unnamed country before that... (think corporate memory of failure(?) vs greed and the possibility of a quick free buck).
ReplyDeleteThe Chinese were constantly taking naps on the job (during training). Maybe it was jet lag, as the Germans themselves admitted, and yet it seemed highly unprofessional to them to nap on the job. Myself, I'd only care if it was excessive. Tired software developers are poor software developers, even young, highly-caffeinated ones.
Managers are often the truly clueless ones, if they've been separated from development/sustaining by more than 2 years and an MBA. Then they're mostly hopeless except for spouting feel-good pap until the layoffs. No, I'm not at all cynical.