It happened again. I hardly managed to blink and the year has already passed. Someone told me that time flies like this when one is really happy. It's my third Christmas and New Year in Beijing. But it's still new and I can honestly say that it's one of the most thrilling global experiences I've ever had.
New Year holidays have always been intertwined in my mind with family gatherings, smiles on the faces of my dear ones, a great family dinner with enormous amounts of salads and caviar, meter-high banks of snow and firecrackers that kids try to throw right under your feet (Russia is that severe), as well as a 10-day holiday that gives you enough time to visit even your second cousin's grandfather's aunt But all that excitement stayed back in Saint Petersburg the day I packed my bags to move to Beijing.
In the beginning it was hard for me to incorporate Christmas trees and decorations into the traditional Chinese environment. Hutong and Jingle Bells make a rather strange combination. In the West, New Year celebrations really are like every person's birthday. People are expected to party, to radiate joy, excitement and energy. In China, although people do gather together for a festive dinner, they end up spending the rest of the evening calmly playing mahjong.
An expat Christmas is different. My family is far away and probably that's why a Beijing winter seems to be a million times colder than the worst Russian one. But here I feel myself a member of a greater international community, especially around this time of year when everyone becomes even closer, more supportive and attentive.
In Beijing you can end up having the most multicultural New Year of your life. For example, dinner in an Arabic restaurant with belly dancers and smoke from shisha pipes can be suddenly followed by countless Happy New Year, Ein Gutes Neues Jahr, Buon Anno, S Novim Godom in one of the bars followed by Latin salsa rhythms for dessert. And all that will happen on a traditional Chinese street with red lanterns and with one's firm belief that the Great Wall must be somewhere just around the corner. This kaleidoscope makes your head spin.
New York must be ready as its position as the world's capital might be soon taken over by a new melting pot called Beijing.
It must be a little hard for Chinese people to understand the spirit of New Year holidays and how people from Western countries feel about it, just as hard as it is for us to fully share the joy of celebrating Spring Festival. At the same time, it seems these holidays have much in common - bringing people together.
China was not left out of the process of globalization. Chinese people are "trying on" Western festivals and starting to enjoy them. Look around and you will see countless ads telling you where all the best parties in town are.
No one ever treated Jan 1 with indifference. New Year celebrations have always been about hope and a new start in life. Probably that's why everyone waits for it.
We always believe that the future holds something much better for us, that it will be full of surprises and that all our wishes will come true. We expect that with the first seconds of Jan 1 everything will miraculously reorganize itself and, like in a fairy tale, all the problems will stay in the year that has just ended. It's like Mondays as the start of a new week, but on a bigger scale.
I guess most of us will remember 2011 as a tough year. On the world scene it was the year of unrest in the Middle East, a disastrous earthquake and nuclear crisis in Japan, war in Libya, economic insecurity and the year when they killed Osama Bin Laden. Sadly, it's much easier to recall difficult moments than happy ones.
The year was not so easy for China either. But although tragic accidents did take place, this year has also become the year of great progress and positive changes for the country and its citizens. The government reduced taxes and increased the poverty line so that more people can benefit from State assistance, new technologies were tested and an unmanned craft was sent into space.
With the spirit of New Year in the air, let's believe that all the bad things are going to stay in 2011 and let's hope that the coming year will bring us more happiness, smiles and good luck.
The author is a foreign editor at m4.cn, a Beijing-based news portal.
(China Daily 01/02/2012 page5)