Editor's Note

Happy New Year! As we return from our festivities and travels, we welcome 2023 with new hopes and dreams. Did you know that the earliest recorded festivities to celebrate new year’s arrival date back some 4,000 years to ancient Babylon? 

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For many centuries, civilizations around the world have been celebrating the start of each new year from December 31 into the early hours of January 1. In Asia, the most celebrated is the Lunar New Year and on January 22, 2023 we say goodbye to the fierce and ferocious tiger and wave hello to the cautious and peace-loving rabbit, more specifically, Water Rabbit (Jan. 22nd, 2023-Feb. 9th, 2024).  

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When Emperor Julius Caesar introduced the Julian calendar, which most resembles our modern calendar, he instituted January 1 as the first day of the year to honor the month’s namesake: Janus, the Roman god of beginnings, whose two faces allowed him to look back into the past and forward into the future. 

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Like Janus, many of us reflect on the past year while looking forward with new dreams and hopes for our future. For me, the practice of eating twelve grapes as the clock strikes midnight is a Spanish tradition meant to make wishes in the new year, has always been one of the many things we do for fun to start a new year.  

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If you have been in Asia long enough, you may be familiar with the many preparations they do for Chinese New Year, from cleaning the house, to decorating doors with couplets, to the preparation of special foods among others.  For me, I have learned to appreciate the traditional FU LU SHOU home statues (representing Fortune, Prosperity, and Longevity). 

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This year of the Water Rabbit is said to be a year of changes and movements, which means we will need to be grounded and remain calm for the changes that may come. This could not be truer when you live an expat life as our changes can happen fast! 

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For this issue we start the year by saying "Rabbit, Rabbit” which is a superstition found in Britain and North America where a person says or repeats the words "rabbit" aloud upon waking on the first day of the year to ensure good luck for the rest of it.

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We hope you enjoy these wonderful new articles that explore this theme of looking ahead to New year, finding balance and discovering new local adventures. 

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Enjoy,

Andrea Perez, Editor-in-Chief