We can always make a fresh start

I’d like to wish you all a very happy new year - at least according to the internationally used solar calendar.

In many parts of Asia, the new year starts later - Chinese new year for those in lunar calendar, and is celebrated in January or February. In parts of India and Southeast Asia, there’s also lunar (0:20) new year celebrated in April.

The start of a new year is traditionally seen as the time for new beginnings and hope, accompanied by good wishes and serious personal resolutions. It is good to remind ourselves that things need not stay the same, that bad times will some day be over, that we can always make a fresh start. 

When we look around the region and the world, there is much that we may be worried about, yet we would all do well to remember how much has changed for the better in the last decades - with millions escaping poverty, growing literacy, increasing female empowerment, and with the internet giving us an interconnectedness around the world that no previous generation could have envisaged. 

So my wish for 2018 is that we continue to work together - to trade ideas, goods and services, as well as jokes and memes; that we build more bridges instead of barriers; and that more people may live their lives in freedom and peace.