Tag New Years

Happy New Year! With the new year comes a barrage of newly affirmed goals and resolutions. Living in China isn’t always easy, there are sundry problems, including the fact that our landlord refuses to fix anything broken in our hutong apartment, which is basically everything.  I resolved to deal with the problems of living abroad in a new way in 2011. It can be frustrating and down right infuriating to deal with some people, and our landlord is definitely one of them.  Trying to understand what makes some people tick is like trying to figure out that annoying multi-colored cube puzzle. In short, in the new year I resolved to deal with these messes in a more mature way. This is a tall order since throwing internal mental tantrums was somewhat therapeutic.

Changing how you deal with something that bothers you isn’t an easy feat. Going about doing something like that doesn’t really have a how-to guide. In short, this might be a long year.

In mush happier news– 2011 brought an important new addition. We now have a Beijing stray cat living in our house. We went to the local vet and asked if they had any news about cats who needed a good home. In fact, they’d keep their eye out, they informed us. A few days later they called with news of a kitten. We went in to see her, she wasn’t exactly a kitten, but a 6-month old, fully grown cat. She stayed at the vet a week while her shots took effect and her de-worming and flea medication kicked in. We brought her home a few days ago and although nearly everything in the apartment is broken we hardly notice as frequently because we’re so happy to have the cat. We named her Tolkuchka.

Dear Friends, Family, Fellow Travelers, and Random Readers,

Merry Christmas from Beijing, China!

We’re thrilled to be celebrating Christmas from the Middle Kingdom this year. Its a different experience than Christmas back home. For starters, Santa is only featured in a few select Western shopping centers, and his presence isn’t really felt in Beijing. There are no lights on the houses, or little Christmas trees or candles in our neighbor’s windows. Christmas carols are not heard in shops or homes. There are no sales on egg nog. There is no egg nog.

Despite all this, Beijing is in a festive mood. The weather has changed and its suddenly freezing (literally). Hou Hai Lake already has its first firm layer of ice, and people will be skating on it soon. The wildlife (what little there was in the city) has receded into nooks and crannies, and people walk around with scarves pulled up to their eyes and hats pulled down to their noses. I imagine they are all smiling under their winter wear and wishing me Merry Christmas with their desperate, freezing eyes.

There are some holiday events going on in Beijing this year, but mostly they are centered around food and wine, and have little to do with the actual holiday. Luckily for us, family will be visiting our little hutong home and bringing the holiday spirit with them. We have a mini Christmas tree that we’ll be stringing up popcorn on, and we’ve purchased a copy of It’s a Wonderful Life. We’re making our own Christmas fun this year!

The Chinese don’t celebrate the New Year on the 1st. Chinese New Year is coming up (Feb 3rd) and everything will be festive and lively then. It is the single most exciting and celebrated holiday in Asia (and thus, on the planet probably). Fireworks explode from everywhere for several days on end. Two years ago in Shanghai, there were so many fireworks people were throwing them out high-rise windows and one bounced off our taxi, skidding to a stop outside the window and exploded with a shower over the entire car. Its something you can only understand by experiencing, and we’re looking forward to it with fire extinguishers at the ready.

For now, we’re signing off for the remainder of 2010 and wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! We’ll resume updating Abandon the Cube with the dawn of the new year. All our best wishes to you and yours and a happy start to 2011!

Sincerely,

Abandon the Cube