Now, I am in a country, where the biggest Chinese New Year celebration outside Asia is staged each year. Yes, it is a fact…London celebrates Chinese New Year more enthusiastically than any other place outside Asia apparently.

So, as you all know, this is the year of the Monkey, which will not come again until 2028. So, England and Chinese New Year got me thinking. China and UK are having this start to a special relationship. I was born in the year of the Pig, but that's another story. I was thinking, what are the characteristics of the year of the monkey? It is versatility and adaptability. How interesting it is that China and UK are embarking on what economists and policy makers are calling a new direction.

Imagine, China, the biggest and highest populated country on the world, with the largest labor mobility, and manufacturing infrastructure, and the UK, motherland of innovation and a cultural and economic center in Europe, working together to find new solutions to global geopolitics and economics.

There are so many options and opportunities, between both the countries, and so much each other can offer in win-win cooperation.

As I prepare to celebrate in Nottingham, I look forward to the parades I will attend and the special food I will eat. My neighbors are a small Chinese family, with their son speaking in a classic Northern English accent, who own a small takeaway shop.

I am invited, and I will honor their invitation of course. Any idea what I should buy?

However, New Year is a time for reflection. It brings new hopes, and as I see the intermixing of cultures, of talents, of people, I am will be happy if our worst and most cynical predictions go wrong. Sometimes there should be just hope.

As a man spending Chinese New Year on a third continent - Europe following Asia and Oceania - I hope it brings prosperity. And of course, glorious Chinese food will be there to unite us all.

Sumantra Maitra is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:

http://www.h5a3.com/opinion/SumantraMaitra.htm

Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors only, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.