Most people want to see New York at least once in their lives. When I talk to people who either moved here from somewhere else or visit, I always find that most of us have a sort of mystical picture painted in our minds of the city. I am no different. Before I moved here, I always thought of NYC as very different from other cities and as having some special vibe that makes it so magical. After 3 years of being here, I have gotten used to the idea but still, every once in a while - this usually happens either while I am running through Central Park with the skyline in front of me, or when I am on a crosstown bus at night, looking out the window at the park with all the lights of the city in the background - I get the overwhelming sense that I am somehow in the middle of the world, in a very special place. In those moments, I really appreciate life and my living in this city.
To get back to my original thought though, so many people come to New York. Even if they don't like the crowds and craziness, I think most people want to experience it at least once. Recently I have been meeting more people who are either visiting or have moved here from somewhere else, and they are always such interesting encounters. This week, I have 2 visitors from Germany staying at my apartment - they are friends of a really good friend, and I agreed to put them up for their visit, since I know how difficult and expensive it is to find accommodation in the city. They've both been loving the experience so far, but it's interesting that one of them is very into visiting all the usual hot spots - take the ferry to the Statue of Liberty, walking across the Brooklyn bridge, going to the famous Grimaldi's pizzeria in Brooklyn - the other one thinks it's silly to stand in line outside in the cold for hours just to be able to walk on the same island as the statue stands on, or to just taste a slice of the pizza that everyone raves about.
I also met a couple who are visiting NYC for the first time from Hungary. They made a list of things they wanted to see, based on movies that were filmed here and had typical "New York moments" - such as kissing on new year's eve on Times Sq. as the ball drops, waving from the Staten Island ferry, ice skating in front of Rockefeller Center, walking across a bridge in Central Park, and the list goes on forever, considering that NY is probably one of the most frequent locations for movies.
When I think about encounters in New York, I also think about the amazing diversity of people who live here. It must be the most diverse city in the world. (I think the most diverse block in the world is in Astoria, Queens.) Even though a lot of groups retain their own cultural identities partly by living in neighborhoods like Chinatown, Koreatown, Little Italy, and so on; inevitably, our paths will cross and every time that happens, we learn something and become a little richer and hopefully a little more open.
Last weekend my fencing coach from Northwestern invited me to dinner with his wife's Chinese family. They are from New Jersey - her parents moved here from China, so they are still pretty traditional, don't speak much English and always eat in Chinese restaurants in Chinatown. It was a very interesting experience: not that I'd never eaten in Chinatown before, but never with a huge Chinese family. My coach is actually Japanese and doesn't speak Chinese either, but it was interesting to see the dynamics in their family. They were so friendly and welcoming to me, someone who's just an ex-student of one of their in-laws. The head of the family, it seemed to me, was the Mom, and she told her daughter to take care of me, as the newcomer. This included showing me how to eat snails (you need a toothpick to get the creatures out of their shells, and while they do not look at all appetizing, they taste quite good), keep pouring me wine, etc. At the end of dinner, she came up to me and held my hand and told me in her broken English how glad she was that I joined them for dinner. I was very moved.
I have been having such heartwarming experiences and encounters with people lately, it's starting to restore my faith in humanity and in New York a little bit. Maybe it's not as unfriendly a city as it sometimes seems; even if you have to go to Chinatown or New Jersey sometimes, there are plenty of warm and open people if you look hard enough.
No comments:
Post a Comment