Shot this time-lapse from a university lecture room in Chiang Mai in northern Thailand. The Qigong course I attended last September held a few classes there. I arrived early (via Grab) and the chairs in a circle got me thinking about all the different roles people have in their lives. For example, I’m a father, a husband, a filmmaker, a graphic designer, a writer, a cook, a Qigong trainer, and a professional travel photographer.

We all play different roles in our lives. Some are interconnected while others are diametrical opposites. We are simultaneously cohesive and at times, like it or not, sanctimonious.

I had a discussion with a friend the other day about whether or not it was important to determine if China intentionally or involuntarily spread the Covid-19 virus. I argue that it’s irrelevant at this stage but that it might become a key query in a future investigation – an inquiry that could hypothetically lead to massive financial retribution.

My friend also pointed out that the world should really be more cognizant, concerned and wary of how the Chinese government is manipulatively taking advantage of the generous freedoms democratic nations (naively) provide them with and forcefully establishing a significant presence all over the world – all the while concurrently acting intolerantly towards foreign citizens (journalists in particular), and more importantly, its own people. Yes, the United States has been busy with its own flavor of imperialism for many, many years. The difference is that the US has been a comparatively open society. Especially if you’re a white, Anglo-Saxon male.

I don’t think to call Covid-19 the China Virus is solving the pandemic and I don’t think the US is in a place to criticize any other country’s way of doing business. But there are no two ways about it, the Chinese government really is despicable. If the recently enforced, extremely prohibitive laws in Hong Kong in the far east wasn’t enough, how about the Chinese government’s oppression of the Uighur population in the far west. So authoritatively Orwellian, blatantly disregarding all aspects of human rights and democracy and we just keep ordering more stuff from there. We shouldn’t do business with them at all. Apple, Nike, Walmart, Amazon, and the others should shun China until Xi Jinping & Co soften their grip and drop their whip.

When I think about Xi Jinping’s dictatorial, iron-fisted, anti-democratic tenure – as well as those preceding him (for about 5000 years) and how much of the world indirectly support the Chinese regime, the level of hypocrisy is shameful. And yet though most will agree that we shouldn’t tolerate this, we just do. We just move from one chair to the next and hope the music never stops.