New York Journals

New York, New York, U.S.A.
July 25, 2001

Just flew into New York City. It was a really interesting flight coming from Seoul to New York. (The Jakarta-Seoul was quite impressionless). Oh, before I go into the flight, I had the opportunity of hanging around Seoul's Inchon airport for five hours. Kind of fun, I walked around to different waiting rooms for different cities that I've always wanted to go too. For some reason, its always interesting to see who is going to Shanghai or Saigon or some place that I really want to go. Also, I enjoy hearing the language of Mandarin or Vietnamase or wherever it is they are going, just storing the sounds in my head for future reference. Anyhow, as I was hanging out in the Ho Chi Mihn Vietnam terminal, I saw the airlines stewardesses walk by in the tradional Vietnamese national dress - the Ao Dai (i think that is the spelling?) Anyhow, whenever I've seen Vietnamese airline stewardesses they always kind of make me heart skip a few beats! Definetely some of the most beautiful airline stewardesses in the world.. (sigh)..

Anyhow, strangely enough, when I was later on my flight from Seoul to New York, I happened to sit next to a Vietnamese woman. We talked for quite awhile, and she taught me all kinds of cool Vietnamese words and helped me with some pronounciation. I showed her a Vietnamese language book that I happened to be carrying on the plane - by coincidence. Anyhow, it was cool to be learning all this Vietnamese stuff, and I told her about my month in Vietnam and how much I really loved her country, etc., etc. Then at one point, she asked me how old I was, we were talking about zodiac Chinese signs, and I told her I was born in 1970. She was really surprised, she thought I might have been born around 1980 or so. Then I asked her what year she was born and she told me 1987! I was even more in shock! So it turns out this Vietnamese woman was actually a 14-year-old girl with the maturity and intelligence level that quite impressed me. Wow, shocking!

Anyhow, got off the plane, called my friend Carl, and I was in New York City!! My taxi driver was from Senegal, we talked the entire hour taxi ride, he was surprised I knew Senegalese speak French, and that the country of Gambia was surrounded by Senegal, because Britain use to shoot cannonballs up and down that river declaring that 'French' territory as 'British', so anything as far as a cannonball could be shot, was considered British, and anything outside of its range was considered Senegal. Anyhow, it was fun talking to him, and we talked more about that 'perceived wealth' that I had encountered in Indonesia. He told me that he had always perceived that too in Senegal - if I can just get to America, I'll be rich beyond my wildest dreams - now he is here, and he works 12-15 hours a day everyday driving a cab - but he's happy - but man you have to work hard just to survive in this land of plenty.

I saw Carl and Sophie at their house! Its been a year. Carl and I both taught in Pusan in 1996-1997, and stangely enough we never knew each other throughout that time, although I thought (as did he), that we knew the faces of each and every expat from that small community teaching in Pusan, Korea at that time. Apparently, we were both wrong. But strangely enough, when I came to New York City (1998-2000), I worked at a place creating graphic presentations on computer. A new guy came in, and somehow Korean food came up in conversation, and we both kind of seemed to know alot more than we should have about the conversation topic. He overheard, came up to me and said some stuff in the Korean language, and basically we formed a pretty strong friendship from that day forward and have tons of similarities. The Korean thing, both of us are really into writing, he has graciously proofed my 280-page novel, and he is very strongly in the process of editing his own novel even as I'm visiting him. He has a target date of September. So the writing thing, the Korean thing, and he's from Maine and I'm from Michigan, which when you've been in New York City, you'd find alot of similaries there - lots of boats, lots of woods, lots of rural places - i'm actually from small town Michigan, and all that comes from that.

Anyhow, Carl and Sophie (also a writer, a poet, a French poet nontheless, wow, that sounds good, but she actually is from France, so it sounds good, and it is true too). Anyhow, they gave me a bed to sleep in their railroad apartment. They live in a predominately Puerto Rican neighborhood in Brooklyn, and, well, a changing neighborhood. As Manhattan rents are so absurdly expensive, its pushing working Manhattan people further and further away into Brooklyn, Washington Heights, Queens, and just about everywhere into all kinds of strong ethnic neighborhoods and changing the places completely. Oh, before i forget, I just read this in the newspaper, Bill Clinton just moved into his Harlem office on 125th Street. So as you can see everything is kind of shifting around throughout New York. Oh, and Harlem isn't really anywhere near as bad as people imagine. Actually to me it seems there is even some kind of pride to be from there, and the community is trying to reinvent itself as well in a strong positive image. And why not, there is a rich culture there, so many clubs and jazz bars and ethnic African restaurants, its equally as exciting, and remains predominately African with strong African culture and pride which actually attracts many foreigners - especially Japanese, who have become quite fascinated with all things American, and particularly they seem quite fascinated in African-American music and culture moreso than all the other previous waves of interest in American cowboys or American punks or American whatever other kind of subcultures that exist throughout this country, and there are many.

Anyhow, as my friend Carl went to work, I wandered throughout Manhattan exploring all of my many favorite bookstores and many of my favorite neighborhoods. I tried to surprise one of my friends by just knocking on his door, and tried over a couple hours, but perhaps I shouldn't have planned on a surprise, because he wasn't home at all at that time.

Overall, good to be in New York. I love walking these streets, and seeing the full-covered Muslim walking across the path of the Hip-Hop guy, who passes the path of a little old Korean woman collecting bottles, and the young punk hipsters stroll by, and its all one big collection of a mosaic mess of people coming from every corner of the planet, and meanwhile a wift of music comes by from some corner musician, and a great feeling of awe overtakes you taking it all in. Then suddenly you turn the corner, and everything changes again, the collection of people, the neighborhood of buildings, the sounds of the next musician, and on and on again.