So, this past week or so I started hearing people talk about Chinese New Year and naturally I assumed it was a band. Imagine my embarrassment when I told someone at Starbucks that I had seen them live a couple of years ago. They gave me a puzzled look and I had to cover quickly by telling them I was thinking of Japanese Solstice, a different band that they surely hadn’t heard of (because I made it up.)

The truth is, in fact, much worse.

Apparently Chinese people actually think it’s New Years. They’re an entire month late. Aren’t these people supposed to be good at math? They keep saying it’s the year of the horse which I guess is code for doing a shit-ton of smack and being a whole month off on the ball drop. By now, most people have already broken all their resolutions and resigned to another abysmal year as they patiently await death – not the Chinese, they’re just now sleeping off their “last hangovers” and googling gym memberships. Swearing off dog and gluten at least until Chinese Super Bowl (Chinese Super Bowl is next month.)

My question is, should we tell them? Is that racist? I understand that you’re supposed to respect other people’s cultures but this shit could cause some serious problems. Remember Y2K? Millions of computer systems around the world failed because of incorrect dating on older COBOL based banking systems. If we’ve got a billion people that all look exactly the same writing the wrong dates on checks, you’re looking a global financial collapse that no eyes have ever seen – round or slanted. It’ll be like Y2K times a million, and who is going to do that math if not the Chinese?

This date discrepancy hurts them just as much as it hurts us. That’s when white culture needs to step in, and say, hey, whoa. You need to be on your p’s and q’s here, Chineses. This isn’t pissing in some folks Coca-Cola here, we’re talking about a global financial meltdown. This is not a drill, and even if it were, we need to have a conversation about that as well – you’re not supposed to go back into the car. Anyhow, what I’m saying is, you can trust one group of people to build the railroads, but it takes good honest folks to come by and make the trains run on time.

Personally, I feel like we should say something.

I mean, isn’t that what social justice is about? Speaking up in the best interest of others? I almost feel as if it’s my duty as a progressive young woman to stop every Chinese person I see and let them know that they are literally on the wrong page of the calendar. That’s the progressive move here. How can we work past our cultural differences if we can’t even agree on what time it is? Dates are the first step. After we fix that we can address the fact that they murder baby girls and have abhorrent worker’s rights policies. Hell, maybe they just can’t afford calendars. If you’re lucky enough to be born a man in China you can look forward to a minimum wage of a skinned rabbit per hour.

It’s time to speak up, America. It’s time for us to be the change we want in the world – and that time is February 1st, 2014 – not January 1st, HORSE A.D.