J class any day, esp for a brutal 17+ hr journey... I dunno how old you are, but gathering from you gone backpacking in SE Asia for a year, I'm guessing you're young. still if you've ever flown primo cabins before, its hard to go back to Y esp for longer, intl flights.

not a fan of CI or any other chinese airline (cept CX if that counts) so if I were you, I'd find a way to do this in JL J etc.