A look back at 2008

2008 was the first time I’ve spent a full calendar year outside of the United States. I spent the entire year within greater China, including several short stays in the Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macau.

My Chinese level accelerated considerably, once I got over the steep learning curve due to a handful of extremely difficult sounds in Chinese (the ‘e’ and ‘u’ vowels and the ‘zh,’ ‘q,’ and ‘x’ consonants are unlike any sound in English) and the intimidating characters (there’s thousands of them!). Joining the beginner classes high school in the spring and taking classes during the summer helped a great deal.

I had one of the worst travelling experiences of my life during the winter storm in late January and early February. Unprepared for so much snow and cold weather, I spent a week in several cities frozen and miserable. Then the train that was to get me deep in southern China was delayed over 20 hours, and the trip took 28 hours instead of the scheduled 13 hours. And it was cold and rainy in the first southern city I reached, in addition there were frequent power outages. Then I got the flu and then took a sleeper bus that broke down in the middle of the night and arrived about 14 hours late. So during this winter break I’m staying put and not going anywhere.

A lot happened in the United States during 2008 and several events will have a long-lasting impact. The American model of capitalism – aggressive lending and subprime mortgages, banks taking huge risks and awarding huge bonuses, immense personal debt from credit cards and home equity loans, over-consuming and under-saving – was challenged by the credit crisis that it helped bring about. Trillions of dollars of wealth in equities and real estate disappeared. The fundamentals of our economic system were threatened and some things will likely never be the same.

A 47 year-old man with a white mother from Kansas and black father from Kenya was elected the 44th president of the United States. And I voted for him.

The Olympic Games were held in the world’s most populous country for the first time. And I was there.

I learned roughly one thousand Chinese characters, spent countless hours in class, with tutors, and on my own reading, writing, speaking, and listening to Chinese. I traveled to several Chinese provinces and dozens of cities.

My resolutions for the new year are not so different from last year. One was to study Chinese for at least one hour each day. I missed a few days but simply by living in China I’m learning a little every day. I’ll keep that resolution for 2009 and add a few more topics to study: history, cooking, calligraphy, and brushing up on math and statistics (for graduate school and simply for general knowledge).

My second resolution for 2008 was to run a marathon. Done. In 2009 I want to run another. And this time at least 30 minutes faster.

I guess a new resolution or two for 2009 would be to find some volunteer work here, meet more people, and eat healthier.

Best wishes in 2009 to everyone.