Days Three and Four!

10 Aug (Friday) 8am.

I think I think a lot. Mostly useless stuff, but my mind is either churning or just stoning, in silent and standby mode. The problem is that most of the stuff that I churn out happens to be completely useless and random (i.e. unconnected to my other thoughts, and sometimes even disconnected from reality) I guess, from the accumulation of all these random thoughts, desires and opinions about life, one develops a self, a personality. It’s like a montage of sorts, that all these seemingly unconnected and random thoughts combine to form ‘the consciousness of jon kwok’. Similarly, I guess, the entire being of a person is cumulated from all aspects of his life: his thought processes, his relationships, his spirituality, his past experiences, his sexuality, his physical make-up, his emotional make-up, etc. All these combine, in a rojak way, to create the person of me, and the person of you. Maybe that’s why they say that everyone’s unique in his own way, because there is gotta be some part of this rojak that distinguishes you from your neighbour. Say, a deviant sexuality. Or, a unique religious viewpoint. Or, a painful family background. Or, a weird sense of humour. You get what I mean.

Anyway, this musing was so random and out of point. See my point? The problem is that most of the stuff that I churn out happens to be completely useless and random.

Anyway, there is sometimes this stupid narcissistic desire to record everything I observe and think, for my own (and the world’s) reference. Like it even matters! But it’s such a desire that sits me in front of my laptop daily, re-looking my pictures and typing out the previous day’s events, rather than going out and doing more exploring. I want to remember, that’s why I record. And I want to be heard, that’s why I blog.

Everyone wants to be heard, that’s why we all need a friend.

Ok my mind is doing freaking cartwheels. I could go on and on, about the way everyone needs a friend. Today is a good day, where I can just go on and on and talk. Normally I cannot, I need someone to engage me. But today I’m in rambling mode. I’m like, talking to myself only.

Anyway shoosh. I need to get to the point, i.e. more about my life in the USA.

I got to sleep in my room last night, fortunately. Eisen went back first while I went about exploring Time Square and Broadway and he fell asleep, and I was outside, and no amount of knocking and calling his mobile phone could wake that sleeping log. I was irate, to say the least, and was almost resigned to sleeping in the lobby when I heard a low drowsy voice calling my name. Ah, salvation had come.

Come to think of it, sleeping in the lobby would have been an experience. And it would have been what I’ve been looking for on this trip, experiences. But having said that I was pretty glad to have my bed last night.

I think I like traveling. I think I’m adventurous, curious, and I like to see new things and explore new cultures. (actually half of the world has these characteristics, but never mind). The problem is that I’m frigging lazy, too lazy to check out places to explore beforehand, which is actually quite important for backpackers. But never mind, I think I’ll like to try more of this backpacking stuff.

Anyway I almost got locked out last night cos I was out exploring Time Square and Broadway, alone. (I said that already before, right. But never mind la, just say again. What the heck.) Got back to hostel around 0030 hours. Dead beat but I loved it. The freedom, the liberation, to wander and explore and talk to people and see things and buy things and take photos and observe the sights sounds and smells. But I guess I should either do it alone, or find someone who really is a lot like me in terms of interests and pace of movement and stuff, or else I’ll feel stifled and restricted and so will my travel partner – cos we’ll have to pander to each other’s wants and needs… i.e. the travel partner must be just the correct person, a lot like me, or I’ll rather go alone, which isn’t that bad, when you think about it. Why does it sound like marriage?

But I loved NY at night, alone. The sights and sounds, the feeling that I could go anywhere and do anything and explore any part I wanted. Small things like finding the elusive Bank of America ATMs, being dazzled by the bright lights (of Time Square-Broadway) like a small child all over again, helping an elderly lady flag down a cab, checking out hot Chinese babes that’d just walked out of the Mama Mia theatre, to trying to figure my own way back to the hostel via the trusty (ok, not-so-trusty) subway. All these things that make my New York trip uniquely mine, an experience only I had, not some commercialised uniform experience that some smart-ass travel agent somewhere designed for the masses. As far as possible I’ve tried to own my travel experiences, to make it Jon’s NY trip.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Day 4 -- 9 Aug Thursday

Anyway Day 4 started innocuously enough. Late lunch at the Radio City Music Centre near Rockafella, of Macdonald’s. As Eisen cleverly put it, in New York fast food joints there’re normally four big metal containers dispensing a variety of sauces: ketchup, ketchup, ketchup and ketchup. Whatever happened to chili sauce? Damn.

After that we passed by the Museum of Sex. Aha! Interesting, considering we Singaporeans are considered some of the more sexually deprived people by Durex. So, given my character, do you think I entered the museum? Would it have made any difference if I had entered? Would entering it mean that I’m somehow sexually immoral, any more than not entering it mean that I’m a celibate monk from the Eastern Orthodox Church? (ok, like you care whether I entered. So, maybe I entered and saw all there was to see about sex. Maybe I went to the next street and had a bagel, from the Arab-looking street vendor over there.)

Ah, Arab-looking. One thing about New York is that there seems to be someone from everywhere here, and not just visitors, but residents from all over the globe. Other than the basic Whites, Blacks, Hispanics, Orientals (I MISS CHINESE BABES!!!), there’s like, a smattering of people from everywhere. The Jewish men are ubiquitous, in their unmistakable Jewish gowns. I ran into this shopkeeper who hails from Nepal. Bloody from all over the world. And a little boy from Senegal. It’s a more “global” city than Singapore, though Singapore is fast catching up with many bloody immigrants, unfortunately. It’s not that I’m racist, or what, but Singapore is like crowded all over, we need to ship people out of that tiny rock. Actually NY is crowded too, but somehow the subway seems less crowded than the always-full MRT.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

People. Ah, I ran into two interesting individuals on Thursday. First was this old Caucasian lady, standing outside Starbucks, holding a sign saying “Boycott Starbucks. They do illegal and immoral things.” Eisen asked if she could be photographed, but she refused. Refused to give a name, refused to let us photograph her. Said you don’t know what people could do with a name or a photograph.

She did agree, however, to talk to us. She’d been a New Yorker for over 40 years, and was supposedly doing some fund-raising for charity on the sidewalk outside Starbucks when the manager basically took her stuff and junked it, claiming that the sidewalk was Starbucks’. Now the lady conceeded that Starbucks pays rent for half the sidewalk, but she was raising funds on the other side, closer to the road, that was public property. And then she went on and on about how the Black female manager of the Starhub joint was uneducated about NY laws, and how she’ll raise a lawsuit against Starbucks, and how NY was becoming unbearable to live in because the “Blacks were taking over the whole place, even the Chief of Police is black”, and how they were cocky and stupid and brainless. And the Hispanics were useless too, and they and the Blacks were just thinking about sex all the time, wolf-whistling at any person in a skirt, even at an old grandma like her. Ah, but the whites were ok, NY was a better place when the whites were running it. (Of course she’d say that, she was a White!!) And the Orientals like me and Eisen were ok too cos we were hardworking and intelligent. Wow I was so flattered to get her approval of my ethnic background.

Talk about racial stereotypes man. But everyone is entitled to his own opinion.

Hey, I’m hardworking and intelligent cos I’m Oriental. Beat that.

So this lady wanted to move to Carolina, where the Blacks were less cocky. Still as stupid, she said, but less cocky and thus more tolerable. She wanted to move away from NY, where she’d lived in a rented apartment for the longest time. Apparently if you’ve lived in a rented apartment for a long time the government would give you rent protection, and you paid cheap rent man. No wonder she didn’t want to buy property and invest in it: her rent was dirt cheap. (I’m talking so much about rent cos of Rent, the DVD I watched before coming over here about renting apartments in NY) But again I digress.

Towards the end of the conversation Eisen asked if it was illegal to demonstrate like she was demonstrating, waving a placard in front of a business. Her response? “Of course, we have rights in this country”.

Me and Eisen, born and bred Singaporeans, just rolled our eyes.

Protest Outside Starbucks!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The second guy, I talked to for almost 2 hours outside Times Square Church. His name was David Wolfe, and he was a pastor at a nearby church. Times Square Church is gargantuan, mega, probably City-Harvest-Sized, and “interdenominational”. I love churches that are “interdenominational” and “ecumenical”: why look at differences when there are so many similarities? But I digress.

Me and David, we just talked about Christianity. At first we talked about the Charismatic movement (he believes in signs and wonders, but believes that more importantly we need to focus on Bible teaching and moral living, and having love in our lives. He said that many people nowadays live terrible lives, but just seek to demonstrate, or chase after, the “powers of the Holy Spirit”. Thus as a preacher he doesn’t like to talk about spiritual gifts, but rather preach more on Biblical exposition. Talk about being reactionary.) Then I told him about my two major problems and doubts about the Christian faith: the vast dis-unity of Christianity in today’s world (despite Jesus praying for Church unity in the High Priestly Prayer), and the blatant denial of evolution (evolution, to me, is supported by the vast body of scientific data) by the Bible.

David opines that all the differing denominations have much in common, so there exists a spiritual unity. Regarding cults, he just opined that anyone who does not believe in the Bible, and draw the majority of his religious beliefs from the Bible, is following a Christian cult. He called the Roman Catholics the “biggest cult in the world”.

Of course, I disagree. We should know that even the doctrine of Sola Scriptura, dependency on only scripture for matters of faith, was a man-made doctrine, created by the Reformers. And Catholics. For the longest time in history they were the only Christians on earth. Don’t tell me that our God, who’s alive and who works through history, would allow a cultic church, and only a cultic church, to represent Him on earth. So, since they were a cult, all Christians/Catholics died and went to burn in eternal hell during those years? Would God allow that?

Later David told me about the doctrines of Transubstantiation (the bread and wine turning into the literal blood of Christ during the Holy Eucharist), and about how the original Greek version of the scripture Matthew 16:18 (“and I tell you that you are Peter, and on this Rock I shall build by Church, and the gates of Hades shall not overcome it”) actually refers to Jesus as the rock, thus disproving claims to the Papacy and Papal infallibility. He convinced me somewhat, thus making me doubt some aspects of Catholic belief. But to call them a cult? I’m sure some aspects of Evangelical belief need to be tweaked as well.

And on evolution he was, of course (like most Christian pastors), of the opinion that everything was spontaneously created. He doesn’t know much science, and credit to him, he admitted it, and told me to research more on my own.

Now, this David guy can talk on-and-on. He engaged me (i.e. he talked to me) for around two hours. This man has the gift of preaching.

David agreed to take a picture with me :)

Pastor David!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The previous day, day three (Wednesday 8 Aug) was marked by a subway failure in the morning. The early morning had seen heavy, torrential rain, and the subway tracks became flooded. Freak. So eisen and me took the M1 bus to the Empire State, and freak it (both the bus and the Empire State) was so so crowded.

The Empire State!

View from the top!

Went to NY Public Library there. There’s a copy of the Gutenberg Bible there! And then we went to the Grand Central, with so many people thronging the grounds daily. Met this student from Hong Kong Uni (Franis Soh Zhan Fai), who was in the USA on a work-and-travel programme. Haha he was getting underpaid - $7 an hour, which seems to be the minimum wage in that state – somewhere near the East Coast.

I love opportunities to speak Cantonese. :)

Funky Friend from Hong Kong

Grand Central!