Dawn of a New Asia
Taking Full Advantage of a Short Night's Sleep
Confidentiality Note & Disclaimer: This former top secret file of the Travel Superlight Agency is now unclassified. However, the Agency takes no responsibility for any harm that results from the release of this information and denies that the work of Agent J, or that of any other field agent it employs in its mission to perfect the art of ultralight minimalist traveling, will actually help anyone at all.
K - Hello again from Taiwan. It’s now nearing the three week mark and I still haven’t completely adjusted. You know I’m an early riser back home but this is ridiculous. I’ve been crashing out by 9:00 and waking up around 3:00. Six hours is only barely enough to keep up this pace.
Throughout the island, most Taiwanese seem to like to start their evenings right about the time I’m winding down. The net effect is that a couple important mission objectives have already fallen by the wayside. On the flip side, those early mornings tasks? Got em nailed, K! Especially today. Starting a Monday morning at 2:30 is one for the record books so long as you don’t count alpine starts and early efforts as a consulting engineer.
I’d love to blame it on a rock hard mattress but I can’t. Just like the reviews said, that’s gotta be the firmest bed I’ve ever slept on. Hands down. But you also know my opinions on that front, K. With all that training under my belt, you’d think I’d have slept like a rock! Nope. Fully awake before the night was even half over.
“When in Rome,” K. As unsolicited this may be, I thought I’d take a chunk of this newfound free time in the darkest half of the night to write up a Technique Memo on fully leveraging jet lag overseas. You know, taking a good look at what may be first perceived as a negative, and flipping it on its head. I was thinking Agent W might be able to use this for his AWT 256 class, Sleeping in Distress, especially if coupled with the sleep challenge down in Basic Needs Reduction (I forget the exact drill number, K. Should be seared somewhere here in the back of my head. Was it BNR 81??).
BTW, in a few hours, I’ll likely be putting the finishing touches on this TM from what I believe is the only coffee shop in Keelung to open at the “early hour” of 7:00 AM. Wouldn’t that be almost time for some lunch? Why do all the local cafes open only at 11:00? Good grief, that’s way too late in the day. Some of us need to get to sleep shortly after the sun goes down. Finishing up my morning cup of joe at noon would be a complete disaster…
*****
Tracking
MISSION: J35785-2025K
DCN: 7390252
TDY: KEELUNG, TAIWAN
DATE: 2025-11-17
TIME: 7:14 AM (GMT+8)
TO: AGENT K
FROM: AGENT J
CC: AGENTS R,W
SUBJECT: TECHNIQUE MEMO 249 - LEVERAGING PRE-DAWN JET LAGRelevant Class
SEMINAR: BASIC NEEDS REDUCTION
INSTRUCTOR: AGENT W
CLASS NO: AWT-256
CLASS: SLEEPING IN DISTRESSBackground
Whether it be for work or play, field agents are often tasked with flying to distant lands in completely different time zones than what they’ve grown accustomed to. Due to the miracles of jet travel, one may be quickly flung far across the globe to a strange new culture located in an altogether different time and place. Quite abruptly, the world will have been massively upended and one’s biological clock will have had hardly the chance to adequately respond in any respectable form or fashion. New hours of operation could easily be 8 to 12 hours ahead or behind.
The difficulty of radically changing one’s daylight hours is particularly acute when working on assignment. Should the hardest tasks in the new time zone be scheduled for 2 A.M. in the old, typically all that can be said is “good luck” before leaving someone to their work. It’s for this very reason that supervisors in some of the more far reaching field stations give a little slack to newly transplanted agents as they attempt to complete their first rounds of duties overseas. Production standards are lowered as a matter of course until agents are fully adjusted to new cultural norms.
Challenges
During spells of heavy jet lag, in addition to common complaints of feeling weak, tired, crabby, and exhausted, one may also find themselves feeling disoriented, puzzled, confused, dazed, and in the worst cases, profoundly befuddled. The data show that even the most hardened field agents are prone to sudden cat naps at inopportune moments throughout their days such as while riding the bus or subway, resting their feet at the local cafe, or upon succumbing to the alluring temptation to “just lie down for a minute” whenever a flat surface conveniently presents itself.
Quickly recovering from these fuzzy states makes for a much more productive mission. Seasoned agents know this, and it’s precisely why they’re apt to take up a number of sensible practices that’ll keep them from spiraling dismally downward into fruitless spellbound states. Agents are much more effective on the ground when they can think clearly on their feet so that they may properly assess and respond to quickly changing needs.
Observations
For a field agent that calls North America their home, when heading back east over the Atlantic Ocean to Europe, Africa, or the Mediterranean, the tendency will be to stay up late in the new time zone. When the clock springs forward, it’s likely that an operative won’t feel sleepy until the wee hours of the newly rescheduled night, and they may find themselves sleeping far past what would normally be considered a reasonable waking hour. Why? Because this is the pattern that’ll most closely match the firmly entrenched biological clock that they’ve carried with them from home.
As luck would have it, this pattern pairs up well with many trans-Atlantic cultures where the fun doesn’t start until an hour when so many of us are already in bed. As aspiring TSA agents will learn at the Academy, one may find it an effective strategy to never change their biological clock when sent out on a European mission. Surprisingly, some agents may find that they’re still able to successfully complete all their tasks without ever having to adjust to a more conventional sleep-at-night schedule.
So long as one can successfully ignore the color of the sky, come equipped with a functional nighttime wardrobe, and deploy a few handy tools when in time of need (such as an eye mask and a set of earplugs), it’s quite possible that an agent won’t ever need to veer away from their long established sleep schedule. Case in point, one senior TSA operative has successfully mastered this technique and can happily stay up all night long and sleep his days away while visiting some of the Continent’s most vibrant destinations.
In stark contrast, the collective experience of TSA agents heading over to Asian field stations has been the exact opposite. Travelers flying far to the west of their native time zones are far more likely to crash out at a time that could easily pass as “early evening” and rise at an early morning hour that would make most people cry.
For these “early birds,” it’ll be the first half of the day that’ll be the most enjoyable and rewarding. It’s often during the pre-dawn hours of a new culture when the productivity of these field agents will spike. Sprinting right out of the starting blocks will feel natural to these folks and will often lead to the some of the most exciting discoveries of the day. Conversely, for a “night owl,” who only comes to life at the tail end of a long afternoon, it’ll be far easier to get their work done at night only after humming along for hours at low idle.
As such, the Travel Superlight Agency prefers to send certain members of its team back east while it sends the others out west. A keen observer of TSA practices will notice that morning people are usually sent to Asian destinations whereas those who prefer to burn the midnight oil are most often assigned to European, Mediterranean, or African field stations.
This particular technique memo’s been written for early birds who will be sent out west to work over in Asia. Agent Y will be writing up a companion TM under separate cover on best practices for field agents heading back east. Recommended best practices will dramatically differ between the two.
Solutions
Asian-bound morning people who travel far to the west of their normal time zones will find that their energies begin to tail off in the late afternoon, dropping sharply after sunset. Doing any kind of productive work in these early evening hours of darkness may be especially challenging.
As such, whenever possible, it’ll usually be best for North American field agents to “front load” their work activities. Taking care of the most important business items first, early in the morning, will often be the best plan as there’ll be a high likelihood that the quality of work tasks conducted after dinner will be sub-par. Being slow to adapt to a radically different time zone will mean that the hours that they’ll feel at their best will be while everyone else is still fast asleep.
The best way to tackle this problem is to fully leverage what at first may be perceived as a fully disadvantageous situation. For example, should a field agent find themselves desperately looking for some peace, solitude, and a bit of elbow room in a giant congested world city like Tokyo, Taipei, or Saigon, they may need to look no further than to wander out the door before the break of day to find that extra space. For full fledged introverts, this may be a dream come true. But won’t most places be closed, you ask? Why, yes. Of course. However, that’s nothing that a little out-of-the-box thinking can’t fix.
A careful study of destinations will likely reveal that some of the things on one’s to-do list may never actually close. Hours of operation will be around the clock. This mostly applies to places like famous landmarks, religious sites, pocket parks, public art installations, scenic view points, and other outdoor attractions. But there may be other unexpected locations too.
Delightfully, what one may find is that the character of their chosen destination will take on an entirely different quality over the pre-dawn hours, many times for the better. Stark contrasts can often be drawn between a place’s appearance, presentation, and overall feel over the course of a single day or night, possibly leading one to believe that they were seeing two completely different places. Top tourist sites that are densely packed in the late hours of the day are often completely deserted in the early morning hours, allowing one to see them in refreshingly unobstructed states, often with incredible lighting in the foreground, background, or if one’s lucky, both.
Between other important tasks, a field agent who takes full advantage of a sleepless situation may be able to visit some massively popular tourist sites with hardly a soul in sight. This would include hugely impacted top tier world famous tourist destinations located in the world’s biggest cities. An agent may find that early morning outings become the major highlights of their trip, thereby providing a wonderful feedback loop for starting almost everyday overseas before dawn.
If you can somehow will yourself into believing that there may be no better choice than to drag yourself out of bed at a super early morning hour to head out and see a glorious must-see tourist site, you may just find yourself freshly immersed in a beautiful, awe-inspiring new world that’s uncrowded, well-lit, and free of the horrible distractions of pushy vendors, glaring sunlight, stifling heat, and endless waves of Fakebook InstaChatbots that would otherwise be marching along that narrow strip of tired pavement up ahead on their way to see what’s supposed to be an incredibly enchanting jaw-dropping hot spot but ends up being a giant, intolerable, $#!* show flustercluck that they can’t wait to leave despite having spent so much time, money, and energy just getting there.
I can safely say that the vast majority of the “most beautiful moments” I’ve witnessed working as a TSA travel agent have been in the early morning hours of the day. Setting aside some of the more productive and extremely rewarding tasks that a field agent may be assigned to as they work directly with the local people in a fascinating new culture, it’s so often during these early moments of solitude and reflection when life shines at its best in high resolution and full fidelity.
So as you find yourself tossing and turning sleeplessly on a firmer than firm mattress, just take a moment to think about the possibility of seeing your destination cast in an entirely different light. It may take only but a few steps down a dark hallway to slip out the back door and experience something new in an exciting unexpected way.
Or perhaps the better call will be to flip over the pillow to the cold side and hope that sleep takes you away again. You decide. It’s your journey, your bed, your time, and your experience.
*****
K - Phew. Made it to the cafe. First customer! Saw that coming hours ago.
I’ll send this off to you for a quick read thru once I get back to the station. Can’t trust the WIFI here for such sensitive matters. Just imagine the chaos that would ensue if this memo were to be intercepted unencrypted…yikes.
What else to do with my day? I’m sure you won’t be surprised to hear that I’ve already ticked off a few things out pounding the pavement earlier this morn. Nonetheless, the To-Do list is only growing, K. Always more than meets the eye when it comes to these assignments! I’m sure the schedule will be jam packed right up to the very end.
BTW, since I know you’re a fan, this morning’s sunrise was off the charts. Rained heavily overnight. Fully wetted out the docks. Gotta say “Red skies in the morning, sailors warning” makes for a beautiful start despite what it portends.
Hey! Wait-just-a-minute! Didn’t I see somewhere that the Keelung “night” market runs 24 hours? Street food at this hour?! Come on. You gotta be kidding me. That’d be spot on! See ya.
J