The New Year is almost upon us which means it’s time for - besides the usual senseless drunken revelry that leads to starting the New Year with regrets and a monster headache - New Year’s resolutions. Drum roll please, but not too loud. Every year enterprising optimistic individuals dutifully crank out a list of resolutions that are usual forgotten long before the first flowers poke their way through thawing ground. Well, I’m joining them this year with my list of resolutions for 2009. I’m also hedging my bets a bit – when Chinese New Year rolls around towards the end of January I’m going to sneak another look at this list and decide which ones I have chance of succeeding on. At that point I’ll edit my list down and create New Year’s Resolutions 2.0 – the Chinese bootleg. 

Read a book in Chinese

My bookshelves are sagging with the weight of Chinese books I’ve bought certain I would soon be able to read them. Despite total of 3 and a half years studying Chinese stateside and here in China, I can’t get through a page of a book in less than an hour because I need to look up every other word. I’ve bought everything from children’s books and bilingual editions of ‘The Little Prince’ to a novel called either Spy, Spies, Informant, or Informers, depending on how I translate it. Most recently I picked up a 5 kuai copy of ‘The Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Vol. 2’ at the giant Panjiayuan flea market. I knew something was wrong with it because I found I could understand it. My tutor broke the bad news to me – the translation was so poor that she wasn’t always certain what they were talking about. I could follow it because the grammar was English and not Chinese. I redistributed the wealth by leaving it on a park bench and picked up a book of short stories. I’m on page 2 which sounds good till you know the first page was mostly title. I’m considering starting this book instead.

Make more Chinese friends

A lot of foreigners find it difficult to make Chinese friends. Chinese our age are still being ground through the education machine and have little time for hobbies. Sadly I’ve had more than one conversation with college students at my university that has gone like this:

“What are your hobbies?” this must be one of the first chapters in every Chinese textbook.
“I like to read and paint and listen to music, what about you?” I counter.
“Me? I like to play basketball.”
“Oh yeah? Do you play often?” I ask.
Head shakes, “No not often.”
I follow up with what seems a reasonable question, “When was the last time you played?”
The head wobbles a bit, “mmmmm, last January,” or some other date over a year ago.
“Well do you watch basketball?” I query, trying to understand how this person considers basketball their hobby.
Head shakes emphatically from side to side, “No, no time.”

I do know quite a few cool Chinese people of all ages. A lot of it is that a) I’m not very social and don’t hang out very often with anyone, and b) it’s a lot of work to communicate for several hours in Chinese and I’m lazy. Though communication is no longer as nerve-wracking as it once was I too seldom make the effort and as a result my Chinese slowly atrophies. But things are changing, in 2009 the atrophying will stop.
 
Go out more

Beijing has a lot of good live music and a lot of good clubs as well. Although it sometimes gets a little pricey, there are plenty of good venues with great sound system and quality acts where you can shake a tailfeather. Beyond the clubs there are a lot of parties, many held at the literally thousands of artist studios that ring Beijing. Getting out and dancing is a great way to shake off the Beijing winter blues and starting early on Dec 31, 2009 is going to be a year I enjoy the Beijing nightlife and show people how it’s done with my dance moves. Get ready to take notes.

See more performances

I saw quite a few good performances in 2008: Martha Graham Dance Company, Paul Taylor Dance Company (that may have been 2007 actually), Hairspray the musical, and couple more that slip the mind now. Even before the Egg plopped down near Tiananmen, Beijing had a couple of good venues. The Poly Theatre and National Grand Theatre are both fine venues for dance and theater and the Egg really is a gorgeous building and lovely theatre. I still haven’t been to see the acrobatic or kungfu performances and as nervous as the former makes me I’d still like to check them out.

Travel More

There are a number of good weekend trips for motivated travelers and this year, seriously, I’m going to have the time and motivation to make a couple of them. I’d like to see the grottoes in Datong, or to Changping to hike around Silver Mountain, or just go run around the Great Wall for a day because I can. And what better excuse to get out of town then a hot spring? Unless you prefer your hot springs to be on the ski slopes.

Be calmer

It is my hope, and the hope of those around me I’m sure, that the previous activities will make me a calmer person in 2009. China turns some people into veritable monks – calm and collected no matter what damage the shoe polisher does when she bleaches the soles of your expensive leather shoes even after you explicitly told her not to or how useless the wuye people are when they come to “fix” your plumbing. Sadly, I have not reached that stage of enlightenment. This year has seen me completely lose it a couple times in foreign restaurants and has put me on permanent bad terms with every maintenance person in my apartment complex including the women that answer the phone at maintenance headquarters.

I hope 2009 is the year where I learn to take things in stride, breath through my nose, bite my tongue until it bleeds, and be like flowing water in the face of “mei banfa” and “zuo buliao” and they’re kissing cousins “bu zhidao” and “ma shang”. I hold no hopes that minimizing the shouting will actually get things done quicker but it will be better for my heart and easier on my friends and loved ones who suffer through these episodes.

2009 is going to be a landmark year for me, I’m going to learn, and travel, and not shout at anybody. At least not very often. I’ll enjoy the nightlife and culture Beijing has to offer and the beautiful historic sites just a day away. Until then I have 2 days to sit at home and get into arguments with restaurants about the state of my delivery order and I plan to make the most of them.

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