Happy New Year! 新年快乐!

                            by David Parmer / Tokyo

We at RG21 would like to wish you a Happy Year of the Dog 2018! May you have a happy, prosperous and healthy year.

In 1859, the British writer Charles Dickens started one of his most famous works, A Tale of Two Cities, with these lines:

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us,”

And those conditions mentioned above really seem to apply to all of us in 2018. So many wonderful things are happening in the fields of science, space and IT, and people around the world are becoming even more connected as information flows everywhere. On the other hand, we are faced with the threat of terrorism, the prospects of world war and the very real effects of global warming. The rise of ignorance, injustice and bigotry also confront us.

Let us all work together to bring about the peace, harmony and prosperity that we all want and that are the right of every human being. Let us each do our part to make 2018 “the best of times.”

Photo: Yokohama Chinatown, D.Parmer