after around twenty years living in China, i find that the new years in China starts to have as much of an impact on the new year as the western year has on me. it feels as if it matters. before it did not, nor did it really enter into my existence. but now, it is something that i am not only aware of but partake in. i have drank the kool-aid of chinese holidays.

when i am in china, the people that i interact with that are chinese always comment about the fluency of my language. i always reply to them that i am practically one of their own now. i go on to say that i have been drinking their water, breathing their air and eating their food for half of my life. i use this analogy to bring home the point that when you are emerged among a person or people, you become them in a way. of course, my tall white figure physically shows the difference, but if their eyes were too close the differences are not that many.

alan watts once said that the world peoples, that the earth sprouts people:

i agree with this idea. i look at the yellow river of china, the dust and the color of their skin. the scorched earth of the african continent and the dark colored skin of their people. the dark, cold white plains of russia and the nordic region, with their pasty white, blue-eyed people.

i also think that we adapt to our surroundings and become from that place. when a korean girl grows up snowboarding all her life in Colorado she is more american then korean. it happens as we blend into a certain type of surrounding or are with certain type of people.

so in a way, i am half chinese. i wake up in the new years, light the candles to our buddha and eat tang yuan i think of today as a new year, not just a random day in mid-february, and i wish you all a happy new years and to enjoy the year of the playful dog.

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i want to adopt a dog but am not sure how long i can keep them for as we travel quite alot, perhaps foster care is the way too go?