Relearning New York

My Facebook “interests” read like this: theater, politics, New York. Like most students here, I feel a strong attachment to New York.

I fell in love with the bright lights and big city on my first Manhattan-bound drive across a bridge. I know I am not alone in my sentiments—I can almost recite in my head all of the submissions I’ve edited detailing the same fascination with this city. Upon that first walk down Broadway, most find a romance and an ironic beauty in the grimy facades of these buildings.

But a strange thing happened somewhere along my two years here. For as long as I can remember, I’ve considered moving to New York to be the pinnacle of my life. Yet now that I am in the core of this bustling town, I’ve started to feel a quiet discontent growing inside. The novelty that first attracted me to the city is not as invigorating as I’d thought—restaurants come and go as predictably as the seasons, and passersby are always the same unfamiliar faces.

In this way, China completely counters life in Manhattan. So much is the same that the first few days there always exhaust me. But not physically—having taken the 6,000 mile trip three times in the past three summers, I’ve adjusted to the flight. It is the mental adjustment that leaves me sore and off-balance for days.

One summer afternoon in China feels like a three day weekend in New York time. As a student adjusted to the regimented starts and stops of school life, I always found it hard to slow myself down. I would nap for unhealthy lengths, read the few English books I had on hand, and daydream of more exciting things back home. When I was particularly lucky, my cousins would accompany me on a trip down the street for some delicious green tea popsicles. We would stand under a shaded tree and enjoy our cold treats, silently watching the neighborhood toddlers playing in the dirt.

The hush of afternoons was always interrupted by fifteen relatives huddled around ten dishes at mealtimes. In the countryside of Szechuan, one learns the true meaning of “locally grown” and “seasonal cuisine.” It would be a foodie’s dream, if my grandfather’s farm were Blue Hill. Unfortunately, the monoculture method of most real farms actually meant my eating corn almost exclusively for three weeks. On the holidays, relatives and distant friends would congregate in our front yard and chatter away in their gibberish dialect, eagerly anticipating their version of the Times Square Ball drop. My dad would always try to give me the censored version of the celebration—live hog slaughterings were not suitable for little girls’ eyes. All I’d see was the aftermath. Platters of sticky rice pork roast changing hands. Bold red splotches pooled above an old timestamp carved into the yard floor: Jan. 1, 1991.

For me, real China lies in that little pocket of monotony and simple living. As we young Americans cope with the looming fear of China’s rise and America’s demise, I find myself questioning the validity of those categorizations. In my Chinese language class, we easily comment on how quickly China’s economy is developing, but then I remember the sound of my grandfather smacking his lips as he sadly commented on never having seen an airplane. In political science courses, Mao Zedong often takes the role of dictator, harsh and merciless in his pursuit of his foolish communism. That image of him becomes almost comical when I think of his portrait hanging in my grandparents’ living room, placed above the family photo frames to be worshipped like a Chinese Jesus.

I cannot speak for other places in the world that I have not been to, but I know that my homeland defies typical expectations. I am sometimes perplexed by its cultural lifestyle and troubled by its national shortcomings, but I mostly revel in its contradictions. With this in mind, I hope to relearn New York outside of my first impressions. It may not match the romance of that first drive across the bridge, but that shortcoming only adds to its unique allure.

The author is a Columbia College sophomore. She is the editorial page editor.

Tags: Opinion, Sheri Pan, China, New York