I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.
— Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer), Blade Runner (1982), directed by Ridley Scott
I tend to avoid end-of-year celebrations. Aging has its perks: the older you get, the less you care about social norms, etiquette, or pleasing others. After fifteen years of living in China, I no longer celebrate Christmas. The first year (2007) was indeed the most shocking. I spent Christmas Eve alone in my dorm, eating a tin of salmon and trying to connect with my family using a phone card I had bought just for that day.
My mother was still upset about me leaving home, so her response to my desperate call was not what I expected. She gave me the cold shoulder and a passive-aggressive “Merry Christmas.” I then tried calling one of my grandmothers, who needed a few moments to recognise that it was me calling from China.
“From where? Who is this?” she asked.
After that first year, though, things improved significantly, and I no longer felt that it was important.
I had to learn about other celebrations, such as Chinese New Year. In the years that followed, most of my colleagues would ask, “Where are you escaping to for CNY? Are you staying here? It’s absolutely dreadful with all the fireworks and the crowds.” Few foreigners wanted to spend the cold winter in China; instead, most boasted about escaping to exotic islands or taking long trips across Europe. I, of course, felt anxious.
I didn’t have the money to travel that far. I also needed to send money to support my parents, so I wasn’t part of that select group of expats who could travel anywhere in the world. But hey, I come from what some people call a third-world country, so in the end, yes, I adopted that lifestyle—to experience its supposed “coolness” and to avoid being left behind. I was trying to be a global citizen and, most importantly, to convince myself that I had made it.
Living far from home, I slipped into survival mode. Not being fond of celebrations made it easier to distance myself from others and avoid forming close bonds. I adopted a philosophy that helped me stay focused on work and simply getting by. It wasn’t that the environment was hostile. Chinese people are often perceived as cold or narrow-minded, but that perception tends to fade once you learn the language and really start to communicate. The environment was demanding and challenging, constantly forcing me to think, prioritize, and be resourceful. Only a few years before I left did I begin to enjoy Chinese New Year celebrations with my friends, who were all Chinese. Those celebrations became the highlight of my time there.
I have been back in Mexico for three years now, and it has been a rocky return, mostly because I feel I don’t belong. Making friends isn’t easy, and the people I knew before I left 15 years ago no longer have much in common with me. I’ve met many kind people in town, but most are only visiting. I’m used to this, so I never truly expected it to be different.
These first days of the year feel like the beginning of a science fiction movie: an earthquake shakes Mexico, Venezuela is invaded, and a poet is shot—events unfolding live on screen. I have no certainty about how any of this makes me feel.
Social media and the internet are flooding our minds with information, images, podcasts, opinions, and trolling in real time. We now live in a post-truth era where emotions outweigh facts, trust erodes, misinformation spreads, alternative realities emerge, and political manipulation thrives. The message is clear: “If you’re not on our side, then you’re against us.” This false dilemma traps us, yet we’re still coerced into playing along. We’re told we must choose a side; there is no neutral ground. And under the lingering shadow of colonialism, fascism, and authoritarianism, the assumption remains that we cannot think for ourselves and must be treated like children, instructed about what and whom to believe.
We stand at a crossroads: on one side lies the advance of a dystopian future; on the other, the possibility of a more democratic and humane transformation. Can we continue living as we have, pretending that, in the end, everything will be fine? Can parents take their children to school and feel certain they will see them again? And can we, in good conscience, ignore the suffering of others?
I don’t think it’s possible.
Critical thinking is urgently needed today, yet it has been steadily undermined in universities and schools—institutions that should teach us to think for ourselves and to question everything we hear, everything we see, and even ourselves.
Despite the genuinely beautiful moments I am experiencing at the beginning of 2026, I feel sick to my stomach. I can’t imagine a world that continues to exist under such tension and injustice. For a time, I believed that writing about personal anecdotes would satisfy my need for expression, but now that feels trivial.
My mind has been decolonised, or at least it is well on its way. Years of traveling did more than give me the illusion of equality with others; they revealed a deeper truth. I know for a fact that we are not equal in culture, race, or resources, but we should be equal in rights. No race, language, skin tone, or currency is inherently superior. We are shaped by our societies, yet we have the power to reshape ourselves through love, compassion, and awareness.
It is not yet lost, but we must begin taking a stand against evil and lies: speak out about what we refuse to accept, stay critical, and remember that our silence and indifference are also choices—the future will be shaped by what we tolerate today.
“The revolution will not be televised, will not be televised…” (Scott-Heron)
The little Flâneuse journal 