Hey, Happy New Year to you!

Hey, Happy New Year 2026.

At this very moment,

ten thousand meters above the earth,

I gather the lessons of a year

while, exactly one year ago, I wrote my New-Year words aboard a speeding train.

Countless minds have argued

whether Time truly exists,

whether it is a woven axis of the cosmos.

I think:

Time is the most stubborn teacher of cause and effect.

Suddenly, the Himalayas appear off the left wing

8848 metres of height

born of hundreds of millions of years of collision, compression, congealment, accumulation,

a continuity that has grown for eons.

The cloud-sea that sets off the peaks

is the court of night tides and morning dews;

a single day-and-night is an entire lifetime,

drifting is its only direction.

And as another year slips past,

those arguments that came straight from the heart,

those hand-to-hand clashes of mind and will,

those bewildered, frightened moments before hardship

were they not also collision and compression?

The parallel steps we took,

the figures who have left,

the fresh new palms that have arrived,

the companions who stay year after year

are they not also congealment and accumulation?

We stand between wind and moon,

gazing once more at the starry vault;

behind us, warm arms open wide.

I think:

Time is the most stubborn teacher of cause and effect.

Time flies like a pale kite,

chasing the herd you pasture;

let us cast away hesitation,

let us lay down self-doubt,

let what soars soar more joyfully,

let what goes forward go with greater force.

We run between wind and moon,

we look into each other’s eyes,

and we think:

Time is the most stubborn teacher of cause and effect.

Mark Zhang

TKG