6-7 Aug 2007 in New York!

Greetings from New York! I’m here at last. It’s summer (and hot), and the jetlag on the first day was murderous, and I had to endure an extremely long day, literally. For me, 6th August had three sunrises (which I caught on the plane), and lasted 36 hours. It’s crazy.

Anyway! Initial adjustments include having to escape being run over by speeding cars because I looked right instead of left when I crossed the roads. The best part is that for roads with traffic going both ways, I’d look right instead of left when I cross the first half. If I survive my indiscretion, I’d get to the middle of the road, and look left instead of right when crossing the second half. Two chances to get killed. Anyway, thank God, I survived, and I’m alive. For now.

Also opened a bank account with Bank of America, which supposedly has a branch in UNC-CH. The atm card they gave me for travelling only lasts 30 days L gotta apply for a new one when I reach UNC. And, more importantly, gotta remember to close the accout when I leave the country, if not it’s “bye bye happiness” (it’s a song from somewhere right?) ok.. bye bye money. Whatever.

Characters in new york: Part of the reason why I chose to backpack anyway was to (hopefully) run into some cool characters. And I did, thought the number of cool characters was somewhat not as high as I’d hope it’ll be. Most people seemed relatively normal, though infinitely more interesting than the majority of Singaporeans, who I (harshly) judge as “humourless”.

Having said that, there’s nothing to boast about American humour. There was comedy stuff, and madtv on the cable tv (in the tv room in my hostel, bowery’s whitehouse hotel of new york), and all the televised american humour succeeded in achieving was to give me constipation. Severe constipation.

American humour can best be described as “coming from another planet”, or, more simply, “retarded”

Anyway, me and eisen ran into this cool guy in East Village (the self-declared “home of bohemia”). He called himself Slappi the Prophet, and approached the both of us asking for money to buy himself a burger. In exchange he’d orientate us around East Village’s Alphabet City J. So we both gave him a dollar.

You see, Slappi the Prophet had some fingers missing from his left hand, and thus he claimed that he could not work. Cheerily he informed us that he was from new jersey, and his wife caught him playing with “another woman’s boobies.” In his sleep she chopped off his fingers.

What a fascinating life story.

Eisen asked Slappi for a prophecy for both of us. He told us with some confidence that we’d both have a great night in East Village, and that God would bless us. (if he believed in God, what was he doing playing with another woman’s boobies? Ok never mind. Maybe God is cool with free love. God is love, anyway. Or, as eisen cynically put it, God’s prophets are always infallible :P)

Slappi also said that he could tell that I’m a boobies person. Boobies and titties, he said we’d love them. And he told us to get some titties that night.

Beat that. One dollar for directions around alphabet city, Slappi’s life history, and a prophecy into my sex life and bedroom fantasies. America’s prophets are amazing. Talk about getting a bang for the buck.

Ok that was wicked. Hope you got it J

Just to reassure you all, we just walked around East Village that night. We did not pick anyone up, and neither did we get any titties.

But the enclave of bohemia, perhaps, exists for its own residents rather than for visitors. There were many apartment blocks, bars, restaurants, clubs, theatres, shops, etc. , but nothing that a couple of visitors could enter, to immerse in the culture, without feeling like fish out of water. We’d have stuck out like sore thumbs, so we just looked around the neighbourhood, and walked home after that. Maybe we’ll go there again, when we’re less jet-lagged.

Above all I’ll hope for chances to talk to some local East Villagers, and New Yorkers in general. To learn about their lives, their loves, their stories. Given my first impressions, I’d love to live in NY for an extended period of time. It’s rustic, bohemian, messy, a bit edgy, and not sanitised like a mental hospital. Singapore has its own culture too, like New York does. But I guess, for now, I’m drawn to the instability, charm, and edginess of American life. Take, for instance, the subway system., which can only be described as confusing. The stations are grimy, unmaintained. Most interestingly there are no safety measures to prevent people from falling onto the tracks and becoming roadkill. Or trainkill. You get the idea. There are no “please stand behind the yellow line/ harap berdiri di belakang barisan kuning” announcements. People stand so close to the train tracks. “Isn’t it dangerous?” I wondered when I first saw the scene. And yes it probably is, the NYPD or whatever department it is probably removes corpses from the subway system on a regular basis. But the city does not “mother”, does not mollycuddle its citizens. And that’s beautiful, cos they trust their people to have to common sense to not fall onto tracks in front of 300 km/h subway trains. I never thought much about SMRT’s safety announcements, but hey does it not say much about what our authorities think about us? It appears as if some people up there think we’re either demented or absolutely unable to take commonsense measures to prevent ourselves from being trainkill. Come to think about it, it’s pretty insulting. I wish the country would trust us.

old, grimy, undermaintained and "dangerous" subway stations.

Perhaps it’s just a preference for the “other”, where one projects one’s own impressions and desires on a separate entity and situation from one’s own, creating a faked artificial construct that doesn’t actually exist. Simply put, “the grass is always greener on the other side”.

Ok so therefore I shall rant less. I’m sure Singapore trashes NY in so many aspects. And it’s stupid to compare two cities that are so vastly different in so many ways. I shall just try to learn and see as much as I can these few days, and I’m already trying as best as I can.

On the second day I got to talk to a couple of Chinese ladies in a Chinatown Buddhist temple in Cantonese, but their life stories were much less gripping. I just realised that New York is teeming with Chinese, most of them from mainland china. Chinatown is like a village in itself, covering many streets and blocks. In comparison, little italy is just one straight street, and looks absolutely pathetic next to chinatown. We Chinese are really taking over the world, one city at a time. And Cantonese. Ah, the beautiful language, I get so happy whenever I get to speak it. To my delight most chinese in NY are cantonese. I’ve always felt that Cantonese was the most underspoken yet most beautiful language in Singapore. So I’m now taking the opportunity to fire away with gusto.

The funky Buddhist temple, supposedly the largest in NY's Chinatown. Of course the funkiest thing is that the people there are from Guangdong and speak Cantonese.


Anyway for Tuesday’s dinner we had some food at a Chinese restaurant. They had Chinese tea, which I happily drank two cups of. Then after we paid up, one of the ladies running the shop brazenly approached me and told me that tipping was part of American culture. I was quite flabbergasted actually, she was so frank and upfront about it. So I tipped her a dollar. The whole idea is, I’m pretty sure it had something to do with the Chinese tea (which she gave us at no extra charge – we only paid for our chicken rice), but like, what the heck you’re so calculative and money-minded nobody would believe you if you said you weren’t chinese. I guess racial stereotypes have some truth in them afterall.

Tuesday was a good day. We saw Brooklyn Bridge, the Brooklyn War Memorial, and all the stuff around Wall Street (i.e. Federal Reserve, NYSE, American Stock Exhange, Ground Zero). It’s frigging cool, I’ll be a multi-millionaire if I snag a job on Wall Street. There was this cool church as well, at the end of the street. Trinity Church – St. Paul’s Chapel, supposedly the oldest in New York. It’s “episcopal”. What the heck is that? Catholic? Anglican? Neither? But it referred to the Communion as the “Holy Eucharist”, so it’s Catholic right? But the Bibles in the church had no Apocrypha, so it’s not Catholic right? Could it be Anglican? Ok I really don’t know. But it’s all the same God, I guess it doesn’t matter. Still, it’d be cool to know. The design and décor for this Church is amazing man, just amazing. It’s so grand, the church could probably rival St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome in terms of aesthetic beauty. It could rival the Vatican church, but probably lose. But at least it does come close. Really, one can see just how much God inspires man to produce amazing works of art and architecture to glorify Him. God (and religion as a whole) really brings out the best in humanity, I guess nobody can dispute that. Ok, ok, just try to ignore all those religious wars for a moment J

Ok, the church is Anglican, I think. I read a brochure on the Anglican faith. I like it, it’s very liberal and accepting of other denominations. Maybe I’ll reflect more on it later.

Alter of Trinity Church

WTC Ground Zero - "Lest We Forget"

Today, Ground Zero is of course a massive construction site.

Brooklyn Bridge. Lucky me caught a chiobu in the foreground. Your guess on whether it was intentional :P

Anyway yep this' day 1-2 of Jon's NY adventure. Will try to include more pics, and to post on day 3 onwards soon.

Take care, everyone who happens to read this. You're probably a friend of mine, so you must take care. (Ok, what's the logic in this? whatever. never mind. just take care.)

jon