Happy New Year, everyone; at least, those of us on solar calendars. And even then, as our ancestors knew, the real date is March 25, because that’s when the spring starts and we remember the fall of Sauron ( Lord of the Rings anyone?). You can blame the old new year, by the way, on the fact that the British government of 1752 didn’t want to lose 11 days of tax revenue when switching calendars, which is why the fiscal year starts on April 6. Who says you never learn anything from this column? That’ll be a quiz question soon and then you’ll be thankful.
Like many, I made the normal spate of resolutions: lose weight, work harder, speak better Chinese, write more, don’t do that thing with the hamsters, the usual. The odds of keeping any of these are about the same as those of getting a taxi at 6pm on a weekday evening in Beijing, but still, it’s worth a shot.
The world may end this year, after all, and it’d be nice to be in shape for the apocalypse. I’m not certain I’m in a fit state to outrun even a Romero zombie at the moment, let alone the faster variety. Though if the ancient Mayans were really so on the ball about cosmic disaster, you’d think their astrologers would have mentioned something about overpopulation, disease and, oh, the imminent arrival of a bunch of Spanish psychopaths with cannon, horses and war dogs.
Perennial doomsayer and author Gordon Chang has also stated he’s convinced China is going to collapse this year. Again. In fact, he said he’d bet on it. So, Gordon, if you’re reading, 1,000USD right now that the Chinese government is still intact by 31 December, 2012. Actually, tell you what, let’s make it an even 10,000RMB.
Apocalypse aside, this looks like a decent year. For me, anyway; I’m pretty certain a lot of things will be f**ked. Europe’s still wondering if it can get out of paying Fat Tony ‘the vig’, the US is set to choose between an ideologically bankrupt right-wing party and whatever cultish sociopath the Republicans pick, and the Chinese increasingly feel like they’re in the last scenes of Doctor Faustus.
But still, I’m alright, Jack. My annual monthly income in yuan is about ten times the national average – I’ll let you look up the figures yourself; it’ll be educational. I’m excluding here the money I make overseas from book sales (my new book, Heaven Cracks, Earth Shakes: The Tangshan Earthquake and the Death of Mao’s China, is available to buy on Amazon now!), investments, the steady dying of elderly relatives, and my part-ownership of a profitable Glaswegian heroin ring. And, of course, Time Out pays me, like all its contributors, in a mixture of opium and the services of a trained team of Venezuelan erotic contortionists.
But I find it a useful exercise, on occasion, to think about what my spending looks like from an average Chinese perspective. Conveniently, the exchange rate of yuan to pounds sterling (yes, I’m British) is also about ten to one. So that 320RMB hour-long massage because I had a headache becomes a 320GBP one instead, to go with my 30GBP coffee, 500GBP champagne brunch, and the 15GBP cab I took home rather than walking for 40 minutes.
Admittedly, by the standards of some city types I’ve known in the UK and US, that would seem veritably modest. Why, there’s not even a 1,000GBP bottle of champagne in there, nor a 5,000GBP lap-dancing bill (lap-dancing disturbs me; I presume it’s really all about the homoerotic tension between the participants, like rugby, Ultimate Fighting and golf). And I visited Japan just before everything went (to use the technical phrase) ka-flooey in 1997, when the pitch of national self-indulgence was still at its highest squeak, and learned first-hand that gold doesn’t make sake taste any better, just more expensive.
But it still helps to be reminded of how thoroughly most foreigners -- even those, like me, making a living from scribbling -- are encased in the bubble of one-percentness in China. So that’s my real New Year’s resolution: to remember just how good I have it.