China...
What can I say? I could ramble on for pages, recounting my experiences from the past year and you wouldn't get any closer to understanding what China is like unless you had actually been here yourself. Then you would knowingly smile as you empathised.
China is like an exotic fruit: you can stand from a distance and look at it and describe it superficially, but until you've actually taken a bite you don't know what it tastes like. And it's just beginning to ripen...
Oddly enough, my life synched up with the Chinese calendar before I even got here. I saw the year of the rat in (2008 for those who aren't aware) being held up at an ATM in Soho, London. Year of the rat, indeed. The other traumatic, rat-like related incidents to follow included: discovering I'd lost my passport AS I was boarding my flight back to London from Dublin airport, severely injuring my ankle in an embarrassing jogging accident, eviction in a foreign country which was theft and deception inclusive, losing years worth of valuable notes after a computer crash, a knife attack, a break-up, and a freakish mice plague that destroyed my car and all the sentimental possessions I had been storing inside it.
There's more, but it's already too late not to sound like I'm whining. Besides, it was undoubtedly 'Year of the Rat' on a global scale, and many suffered much more than I. And after all, I did see the controversial Bjork concert in Hong Kong, which exceeded all hopes I ever had of seeing Bjork in concert. I traveled to two new countries I had never been to, driving a car for the first time in 3 years in one of them. And nearing ever closer to 30 years, it has been a very successful year of self-growth and inching closer to deciphering the riddle of who I am. Being one of those 'blowing whichever way the wind blows' types, I have lived a vague existence somewhere in the in-between.
But now it is the year of the ox. Consciously in synch with the Chinese calendar this time, I could FEEL 2009 begin as I stood laughing on a hutong house roof-top, surrounded by a deafening and joyfully chaotic skyline of exploding pyrotechnic mayhem. It made absolutely everything I had endured in the previous year worthwhile, that one cacophonic, sparkling and completely unforgettable moment. It wasn't the regular, run-of-the-mill clicking over of numbers that happens each time one year ends and another begins. This year I know I will find myself yet again asking 'How the hell did I get here? WHAT the hell am I doing here?' And it's life-affirming not to know the answers. It's also a hell of a lot of fun.
So I raise a toast to charging forward. Not necessarily without heed, but boldly and bravely. Here's to finishing the things we start, and perhaps breaking one or two of them along the way and only temporarily looking back to say 'Oops! Sorry!'
What can I say? I could ramble on for pages, recounting my experiences from the past year and you wouldn't get any closer to understanding what China is like unless you had actually been here yourself. Then you would knowingly smile as you empathised.
China is like an exotic fruit: you can stand from a distance and look at it and describe it superficially, but until you've actually taken a bite you don't know what it tastes like. And it's just beginning to ripen...
Oddly enough, my life synched up with the Chinese calendar before I even got here. I saw the year of the rat in (2008 for those who aren't aware) being held up at an ATM in Soho, London. Year of the rat, indeed. The other traumatic, rat-like related incidents to follow included: discovering I'd lost my passport AS I was boarding my flight back to London from Dublin airport, severely injuring my ankle in an embarrassing jogging accident, eviction in a foreign country which was theft and deception inclusive, losing years worth of valuable notes after a computer crash, a knife attack, a break-up, and a freakish mice plague that destroyed my car and all the sentimental possessions I had been storing inside it.
There's more, but it's already too late not to sound like I'm whining. Besides, it was undoubtedly 'Year of the Rat' on a global scale, and many suffered much more than I. And after all, I did see the controversial Bjork concert in Hong Kong, which exceeded all hopes I ever had of seeing Bjork in concert. I traveled to two new countries I had never been to, driving a car for the first time in 3 years in one of them. And nearing ever closer to 30 years, it has been a very successful year of self-growth and inching closer to deciphering the riddle of who I am. Being one of those 'blowing whichever way the wind blows' types, I have lived a vague existence somewhere in the in-between.
But now it is the year of the ox. Consciously in synch with the Chinese calendar this time, I could FEEL 2009 begin as I stood laughing on a hutong house roof-top, surrounded by a deafening and joyfully chaotic skyline of exploding pyrotechnic mayhem. It made absolutely everything I had endured in the previous year worthwhile, that one cacophonic, sparkling and completely unforgettable moment. It wasn't the regular, run-of-the-mill clicking over of numbers that happens each time one year ends and another begins. This year I know I will find myself yet again asking 'How the hell did I get here? WHAT the hell am I doing here?' And it's life-affirming not to know the answers. It's also a hell of a lot of fun.
So I raise a toast to charging forward. Not necessarily without heed, but boldly and bravely. Here's to finishing the things we start, and perhaps breaking one or two of them along the way and only temporarily looking back to say 'Oops! Sorry!'
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