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Culture Connection

First there was the mind-numbing techno remix of "Auld Lang Syne;" then came a serious hangover and the disturbing realization that 2008 had snuck up on me already. I guess if I had been in my first flush of youth such an event wouldn't be so upsetting, but when you’re nearer 40 than 20, you can no longer handle back-to-back all-nighters. Your perspective on life begins to change when parts of your body choose to sag in a distinctly unflattering way.

When you think of people in their 30s, especially expats in China, you realize what a diverse group we are. Some of us are married with kids and reliable jobs. Some of us are out having adventures or still trying to find ourselves. Some of us are somewhere in between. Of course there’s no right way to be thirty-something, but it’s easy to forget how fast time flies and how we should be really putting our lives to use, whether this means raising a family, kicking back with friends, or travelling to the wildest reaches of the Middle Kingdom. 

It’s a stark irony of the western calendar that the odometer turns over smack dab in the middle of winter—the one time of the year when most people can’t rouse themselves to clean their bathrooms, much less make an ambitious, life-changing, behavioural U-turn.A New Year's resolution is something that goes in one year and out the other.

But then there’s the Chinese Lunar New Year. In other traditions, by this time in the year, most resolutions made on December 31 have been nimbly forgotten and placed in a cupboard marked "maybe next year." But the celebration of Chinese New Year on February 12th gives you another chance to think again...

Happy New Year!