New Year’s Resolutions for the China Expat 2

3) Reconnect with family and friends back home
Living abroad is an amazing, revitalizing experience. It changes your life, and you as a person, more than we realise from day to day. But it can also drive the wedge of distance between you and your family and friends. Resolve not to let long-held relationships fall apart just because you're overseas. Resolve to buy a VPN so you can update your Facebook status and, yes, see who's playing Bejeweled Words with Farmville Friends.  Resolve to start a blog, even if you only update it once a month. Resolve to tweet your photos of funny English translations. Resolve to top off your Skype credit and call home more often. Resolve to actually send one of those postcards you bought on vacation this year. Resolve to remind your friends and family back home that they are still invited to come visit you in China. Maybe this time, they'll get on the plane. Resolve not to miss people's birthdays back home just because of the time difference – that's what they invented e-cards and online shopping for.

4) You're sexy and you know it
One of the most-resolved (and later broken) resolutions is to lose weight. American comedian Jay Leno (who's probably made this resolution a time or two himself) famously quipped, "Now there are more overweight people in America than average-weight people. So overweight people are now average. Which means you've met your New Year's resolution." Even though a lot of your Chinese colleagues may be as thin as their chopsticks, it doesn't mean that eating Chinese food will help you get as skinny as they are (genes are genes after all). For 2012, resolve to have a thicker skin when colleagues come up and tell you you've gained weight. Resolve not to fling a muttered "go to hell" at the sales clerk when she gives you a meiyou answer to your XXL query. Resolve that you will eat more healthy foods – yes it does matter if the jiaozi are fried, not steamed.  Resolve that, while of course you'd never eat at McDonald's in your own country, maybe you should lay off the burgers and fries here too.

Smoking and drinking are two more vices often mentioned in New Year's resolution goal-setting.  With cheap beer and even cheaper cigarettes in China, resolutions to cut down on your consumption of Pandas and Snow might not last through January 2nd.  But, if this is truly your goal, resolve not to be tempted by peer-pressuring colleagues and skeptical friends. Resolve to give the money you'd otherwise spend on smokes and drinks to an orphanage. That way, every time you slip, you're taking food from the mouths of babes (how's that for guilt-tripping?). If that doesn't work, resolve to buy the cheapest kind of tobacco or alcohol. After inevitably becoming ill, perhaps you'll find you don't have such a taste for it after all. this date I will only smoke this many cigarettes, works for some people. The important thing is, if you really want to change yourself, don't give up the first time you slip up. Keep going, because a year is a long time and there's room for mistakes.

Finally, if none of these resolutions seem right for you, resolve not to worry too much. As someone anonymous once said: "A New Year's resolution is something that goes in one year and out the other."

Happy 2012, China.