The Villager Goes to
New York: Anonymity, Hurricanes and the City
So much has happened since I said
goodbye to Cambodia and dragged 90 kilogrammes of bags through four cities to
start a new life in New York. Hurricane Sandy, US elections, being locked out of my blog, Nor’easter, navigating
my way around leasing an apartment without credit history, getting lost on the
subway etc, have all been part of my new affair with the Big Apple. New York is
very different from Chantulo Village but I suspect that the people here are
just as crazy. The first culture shock came when my request for a porter to
ferry the 90 kilos to my hotel room only drew blank looks. Apparently they are
called bellmen here. I am slowly but surely being assimilated into a New
Yorker. I now ask for a check- spelt with ck and not que -instead
of a bill and I have to tip regardless the quality of the service –frankly, I
think Americans should find another word for‘tip’;
something along the lines of legal thieving. I am resigned to the fact I will
be living in a most expansive closet I have ever resided and will not be able
to control the pressure on my shower, which, for me, defeats the whole point of
a shower. I have had to accept the fact that as much as I hate the subway,
there is just no way getting round it. I am trying not to go crazy choosing a
bed among a million other options- you need to buy a bed, which is just a frame
with a hole in the middle, then buy a spring box to fill in the gap, and then a
mattress to put on top of the box, then a mattress cover, all of which makes
the bed so high that you actually need a ladder to climb it. I ditched my
ancient mobile phone for a smart one so I can find my way around Manhattan
easier, only I can’t figure out the navigation applications. I am beginning to
understand that organic food in USA is anything BUT organic and that Americans
are so averse to calling a spade a spade that they prefer to call sugar
‘evaporated cane juice’! The brainwashing from TV ads on drugs has been so
effective that I am absolutely convinced that I urgently need a prescription of
Cymbalta. And yes, I am now able to understand black people’s English, only now
I wish I didn’t: ‘Uhmmm nice aaass’. ‘Hey peaches, Am takin y’ home with me;
y’comin with me peaches….?’
Despite the assimilation, I will never
get used to the cold and dry air. The combination of cold and grayness makes me
miss the muggy and steamy Phnom Penh. I miss using my secret but indigenous
knowledge of measuring humidity; the pleasure of picking my nose, rolling the
harvest into a ball, and depositing it in a strategic place where it could not
easily be found by the maid. Then coming home after work to see how humid the
day has been. Snot harvested in the morning would still be moist and doughy
like putty 12 hours later. The longest record was four days. De-boogering in
icy and wintery NY is risky business. So crusted and super-glued are the dry
mucus silvers that removing them without humidifying in a shower first, risks
taking with them strips of tender nasal lining along with the hair.
Since my arrival, I have hauled my 90
kilosto different dwellings three times - they probably now weigh close to
150kilos and yes, I still can’t get my head around pounds, ounces and
Fahrenheit degrees- from Roosevelt Hotel, to Clinton neighbourhood, to my
current sub-let on Roosevelt Island, and one last move to Brooklyn is planned
for December.
The last apartment change was a day
before Hurricane Sandy. I was always a bit disappointed that Cambodia is so
well-insulated from typhoons -or hurricanes as they are called in this part of
the world- and I never had a chance to experience the fury of one. When news
came through that Sir Hurricane Sandy was coming to visit, I was beside myself
with excitement and hoping for a big one. I didn’t heed any of the frenzied
preparation warnings on TV- to stock up on water, food, torches etc. After all,
I lived all my formative years in Chantulo groping around like a blind person at
night trying not to scream at things that scuttled in the dark. But so severe
and repetitive were the warnings that by Monday mid-morning I had a change of
heart and decided to go shopping. I came back with a can of tomatoes and a
bottle of water. The locals had wiped the shelves clean during the hysteria.
When the storm finally made land fall and the windows started to whistle like a
thousand kettles going off at once, I donned on my coat and gleefully went
outside to experience the HURRICANE. The wind was howling and screeching like
jet engines at times. Horizontal rains lashed my face. I either could hardly
walk against the wind, or my legs were practically running on their own will in
the wind. And that was it! I had expected mayhem- missiles of road sign
posts whirling past; trees being uprooted and tossed like matchsticks; a skinny
me desperately holding onto tree trunks to stop myself from being blown away
into the stratosphere. I lay in bed rather disappointed all night, willing the
kettles to shut up. So you can imagine my shock Tuesday morning when I saw the
pictures of the damage that Sandy had done to other parts of the city. I guess
I should be thankful that I only experienced the intensity of Sandy’s
destruction through CNN.
For a villager who is used to being
connected to everybody in her locality, New York is one big impersonal city. I
always hated being gawked at in Cambodia. But now I must admit, I do resent
this complete inconspicuousness. I was so used to being recognized everywhere
as the dread-locked African who lived on St 322. Here, nobody is curious, nobody
stares or even cares!! Yet, anonymity can be liberating. The week I landed in
NYC, I saw numerous adverts about a Museum of Sex and made a mental note to
visit it. To my delightful surprise, I stumbled upon it during a walk on Fifth
Avenue. By the time I realised that the Museum of Sex was anything but a
museum, it was too late; curiosity had already gotten the better of me.
Imitating the New Yorkers, I nonchalantly strolled around the soft pink and
luminous blue bits and pieces, some of which I still don’t know what they are
used for. And so as people laughed freely and leafed through pages that would
turn my uncle in the village blind, I walked to a dainty little pink thingy,
picked it up, and pressed a button.And for the life of me, I could not figure
out how to turn off the darn thing. I dropped the buzzing thingy to its shelf
with the intention of distancing myself from it but I couldn’t. It was
vibrating right off the shelf! ‘Do
you need help mom’ asked
one of the attendants. I wanted to say yes, but I said no all the while
fingering the thingy desperately trying to shut it up. To my relief it stopped
vibrating; I put it back and walked out the museum as fast as my legs could
take me. I could not understand how I could have mistaken a museum for a sex
shop. As it turns out; the shop is actually part of a four story museum. If I
had remembered that I am anonymous and hadn’t run out of the shop, I would have
made it to the actual museum. But I don’t think I am ever going there again.
When you make a fool of yourself in the
Big Apple, it certainly pays to be anonymous; especially if you have a brain
that’s so used to being the centre of attention in Asia that it starts to
create its own attention-seeking behaviour just to get a fix. I had agreed with
a friend to go to an art exhibition. We are both new to the city and we saw
this as a good opportunity to meet new people. Once there, it took us a loooong
time to meet anyone even though we were surrounded by loads. Viewers were
already chattering in their own little groups and neither of us had any witty
lines to approach them with. Huddling together, the two of us regarded each
other with uncertainty as we started to run out of things to say and were
becoming rather desperate for someone, anyone, to talk to us. Then one brave
guy approached and remarked on one of art pieces. We were so grateful for his
lame pick-up line and latched onto him. He introduced us to other people and
soon we were having ‘great and sophisticated’ conversations about future
cities, recycling, organic food, etc. I can generally keep up with these
‘intellectual’ talks, except when it comes to art. Which probably makes you
wonder what was I doing at an art exhibition in first place. Maybe I don’t
really appreciate art because my people are still smearing stick figures on the
exterior walls of their mud huts and I genuinely think my feet can draw better
abstract paintings than these great artists! Anyway, just when the conversation
was getting interesting, I started to feel funny. I asked for water, but there
was none. I knew things were getting out of hand when I started to frown at the
lips of my companion, which were certainly moving and twisting around his teeth
but the voice sounded as if it was coming from another room. I started to black
out. My legs couldn't support me anymore and I flopped to the floor in a heap.
All conversation stopped and every eye swiveled to me. Hands offering
crackers, grapes and water materialised before me. I didn't ask where the water
came but drank it gratefully. Somebody brought a chair and I somehow gathered
myself and collapsed in it to recover. Mercifully no-one thought to call 911.
But above all I was so grateful to go home as an anonymous stranger.
