New York, New York

When I decided to come to my friend's wedding in Toronto, I thought I'd take the opportunity to drop in a visit to my friend at New York and take the chance to do a mini-vacation there. Frankly, I wasn't actually overly excited about going to NY since I had already been there briefly twice before. But it would be fun to hang out with Eva there plus how often do you have a place to stay in NY to roam around?

I came in not wanting to do a single touristy thing. For the most part I've done some of those, and could happily envision some of the others easily without going. I didn't want to spend too much money or attend too many shows that I knew nothing about. I just wanted to relax a little and experience spending a week there. Plus I still had a lot to study for my up-coming exam.

But slowly, subconsciously, the city sank in. I could see how people could fall in love with a place like this. This city is so much more than the stature of liberty, the Time Square, the Broadway shows, and the many yellow taxi-cabs.

Almost immediately I started to experience a not-so-subtle resemblance to my beloved Hong Kong. Only that everything was in English. I don't know if it was a mixture of the humid heat, the rumbling of the air-conditioners by the neighbors, the busy streets lined with vendors and electronic shops, or the busting lights and signs in the streets that never sleep. I did not wish to make any direct comparisons, but more and more this city felt increasingly familiar to me. It was as if I did not walk its streets as a foreigner, but indeed felt quite at home. The crowdedness, the noise, the crazy traffics and the abundance of sensory stimulation were all too common to me growing up in Hong Kong. It was familiar, it felt close.


But New York is more than a collection of hustling vendors and tourist traps. By avoiding most of the tourist attractions and instead spending my time exploring the various neighborhoods in Manhattan, I started to see how charming this busting metropolis really is. From the sweet cafes in the West Village to the wide and tidy alleys of the Upper East Side, I now see New York as a collection of diverse various neighborhoods rich with cultural diversity and tolerance. From the shops, you recognize that this is a city inhabited by many different settlers. From small Turkish Cafes to Iranian pastry shops to Italian gelato windows to Japanese sake bars, everybody is making a home here, and everybody is waving their culture here. Quite literally, you can do everything in New York, and you can go everywhere in the world without actually leaving the City. When we went to a Japanese film showing at the Japan Society as part of the NY Asian Film Festival, I almost forgot I was in such a busy city when i found myself surrounded by an bamboo garden with a peaceful indoor pond. The people are also colorful, both in ethnicity and in clothing style, and we all stood together in harmony at the bus-stops waiting for the bus that would take us the same direction.

Seeing a city so diverse and so complete made me realize how relatively small Vancouver still is. But I'm not ready to hop on the bigger city band-wagon yet. I still love Vancouver, with is collection of mountains and coastlines and chill urban fare that few other cities could match. But it did remind me of why I subconsciously miss such big cities. The Hong Kongs, the New Yorks of the world. Maybe I will never relocated to one of these, depending on how my career shapes up, but I shall remember their influences on me, and how, occasionally, I do long for a dose of the big city juices. And it make me cherish living in a society with the luxury of having culture diversity. When I go back I shall continue to explore and indulge in my own city and extract as much as I can from its various neighborhoods.

Throughout the streets I see windows bursting with "I love NY" T-shirts. I didn't buy one of those. I don't know if I could declare such love from a city I only got to know for a week. But it was a treat living like a New Yorker for a few days, and to see what a city and grow up to be. Thank you, New York, it was great getting to know you.