Living in East Asia as a foreigner always made the local holidays feel a bit distant. Even so, I could tell there was something special about the lunar new year in China and Korea. Everything goes quiet and yet feels explosively powerful at the same time, like the sun rising on a snowy morning. There’s the promise of new life, there’s hope, and there’s a deep sense of joy. Not too unlike Christmas eve… except warmer somehow.

One new year in China in the early 2000s found me on a bus to a friend’s home. Their flat bustled with first cousins (she had no siblings like so many of her generation) and with the aroma of frying garlic, ginger, and leeks. The whole family dove in to help wrap the dumplings, and everyone was laughing. The cousins went for a walk together, reminiscing – I tagged along. They played games with dad. We ate (and ate and ate!). Maybe it sounds too surreal, but that’s what I experienced, and no one was faking. On the bus ride home, I looked out over the empty streets of Tianjin. It looked like a war zone with all the yellow smoke from firecrackers meant to scare away anything evil from the new year. It sounded like one too – Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! – not far from the bus and also far away, the sounds lit up the night. They were everywhere. 

The food, the hustle, the togetherness – and yet it wasn’t my holiday. I was an observer, thankful to be let in for a glimpse of that togetherness. 

This year, as I stand on the brink of the Year of the Ox, it is my holiday in a way that it never has been before. I sit alone in my house in Michigan. No family, no hustle, no bustle. But this year, the lunar new year has never meant more to me. I spent my day battling clerks to get scraps of information out of nurses caring for my husband’s recovery after open heart surgery. In this COVID year, I can only take the bits and pieces that they give me, hoping that he is going to live, hoping his pain will go away. This year, on the eve of the new year, I eat alone, but I eat homemade 素鸭（vegetarian duck）made by my dear friend who brought me homemade dishes to help relieve stress. The love in her cooking is palpable in every bite. Tonight, more than ever before, I hope the demons of last year will be left behind. For my husband and our blended family, for our Spartans around the world, for those who have lost because of COVID.

I welcome the Year of the Ox with open arms. I hope for the Ox’s strength, and that we will see fruits from the labor of our hard work. I hope this year will be brighter, that there will be fewer demons, that we will see change. I feel the sun rising, and there is a warmth of hope in tomorrow.

Spartans, let’s come together in the Year of the Ox and be better. Let us “be the change” we want to see in this world, because I know that TOGETHER WE WILL.

Thank you to Wang Huan who opened her family’s home to me and who struggles as she spends this year away from them due to COVID, to Katharina Ehni who fed my soul tonight, and to my lifelong friends, Dr. Li Peijun and Wang Huiyun who taught me to make the most delicious dumplings in the world.