I Feel, the Deal, it's Real, I'm in New York City

And so I've made it. Half the world alone by plane and shared cab--hardly an achievement for many, but a personal milestone, having led a sheltered life with well-meaning but protective parents.

The feeling is simply unreal. America, to me, is a country of television images. I can't believe I'm here; it feels more like I'm in a movie. Everything nuance I've internalised from years of American TV--from the figures of speech (even the way they say "thank you" or "alright") to the street signs to the bins on the sidewalk--is playing out before my eyes. The clincher, of course, is the city itself. JFK international airport is in Queens, so it took a fair amount of driving past quaint little suburban houses before the majestic Manhattan skyline rose dramatically into view. At that moment, I couldn't resist listening to U2's "City of Blinding Lights" on my MP3 player. There couldn't have been a better soundtrack to the experience.

Besides being my first timezone-warping experience, it's also my first time in the West, so I'm also getting some of that well-documented feeling of becoming the minority and experiencing one's ethnicity in a different way. A Chinese girl on the Super Shuttle I was on turned to ask me when we were the only two left, "zhong guo de?"



First night in NYC: waiting up for my friend at his apartment, watching the finale of Survivor Palau; eating Chinese takeaway (General Tso's chicken--a charming, if orientalist American invention very close to Kung Pow chicken); heading out for drinks with my friend and his coursemates. On the subway, I got my biggest culture shock yet when beggars started coming on at various stations, delivering polite and rehearsed spiels or simply staggering from passenger to passenger asking for "money" or "change". Everyone just ignored them, but it did make me think: this would never go down in Singapore. If anyone tried that on a MRT train in Singapore they'd get reported to the police in no time; in that way the homeless are treated like a destabilising force in the country's social fabric, even if they aren't. Is the fact that New Yorkers are comfortable with vagrants in their midst the sign of the city's embracing maturity, or is it the highest form of apathy? I can't say for now. All I know is that travel truly broadens one's horizons, and it's something I think I'm going to be doing a lot more of from now on.

Now to head with my friend down a few blocks to Columbia where we'll catch a screening of some of his coursemates' Masters projects, attend a yearbook launch for his class and boogie at the after party.

P.S. The time-stamp for this post, and alll my subsequent posts while I'm here is in Eastern Standard Time.