Category — Cultural Encounters

Tavor in hand, ready. Left, Roni.

The sight of soldiers in pizza shops and the feeling of M16s brushing against my clothes were everyday occurrences during my year in Israel. Granted, it took some time to readjust to New York City life. Now, still, when I see a police officer, I notice (and smirk just a bit) at the small size of his gun. When I see the gun, I am reminded of the very unique experience I shared with a friend during my year abroad, shooting in a range. I have two memorabilia from that experience, one stronger than the other: a photograph—a precise candid shot of me at just the right angle—and a target sheet with more than one bull’s eye.

I remember our minivan rumbling down the dusty, dirt road smack in middle of the West Bank desert. This shooting range, located in Israel’s West Bank, is not just any shooting range. It felt like a real battlefield. In fact, as our instructor Roni taught us, it is an actual anti-terrorism base where the Israeli Defense Forces train soldiers for the army. Not an indoors entertainment complex, where you shoot behind protective glass. This was serious business.

Roni, the guy in charge, was a member of IDF, no Joe Shmoe with a job at an entertainment industry. The first gun I handled was the Israeli Tavor, the new gun replacing the standard M16 in IDF. On Roni’s “Up!” (or, in his Israeli accent, “Ahp!”), I pulled back and aimed for the target sheet, never mind the painful recoil of the rifle. We also experimented with handguns, a significantly harder skill to master. I must say, I did pre-tty well for a girl my age and size.

The coolest thing of all—and the most Israeli thing of all—was when Michael, our chaperon, a regular citizen (who happens to be on the security team in his neighborhood) took out his own M16 sniper. (Yes, he owns the gun and keeps it in his car sometimes.) Michael frequents this range so often that he created his own addition to the shooting game: aiming at bright blue balloons instead of the standard target sheets. To his surprise and mine, I popped both balloons on my first two tries! Michael was so impressed; he nicknamed me “sharpshooter” the rest of the day.

New-Yorker born-and-bred, artillery as a commonplace of public life was at first shocking to me: the NYPD seemed tame compared to the super-tough Israeli soldiers. I definitely got a glimpse into life on the wild side, foreign to native New Yorkers.

When having trouble describing a neighborhood, I look around. I do the Cha-Cha Slide: a slide to the left, then the right, then back. A mental tap-dance on the New York City map is all I need to get me in the right direction.

So when I needed to find a Rite Aid close by the dorm, I shimmied around the Lower East Side until I found it. A few taps to the right is Chinatown, to the left are some projects, with some hip little restaurants and dives in between.

As it turns out, the only Rite Aid on my dance floor was a jive to the left. The art galleries and boutiques gave way to factories and large housing projects. While marching down the blocks I saw a sad little book lying on its side, wet and worn-down, its title face-up for the world to mock.

“The Audacity of Hope, Barack Obama” sighed the dog-eared pages of this melancholy little novel. The sight of the lonely block littered with nothing – no people, or stores – but this book, left a sour taste in my mouth. It made me chuckle at its irony, but overall was a pretty bitter image. I shook my head, took a snapshot, and reluctantly rumba’d on my way.

It was last weekend, while I was on the 7 train on my way to the required Macaulay Tech Fair when I stumbled upon an awesome cultural encounter. I was just sitting down on the train at Main Street Flushing, waiting for the it to finally leave the station, when a tiny Asian woman with a big pink suitcase walked through the doors and sat next to me.

This was all fine and dandy, but then she started to lean over me. I just sat there thinking why is this woman leaning over me. But then I noticed that she was trying to read the little sticker that listed all the stops the 7 train made. All of a sudden, in broken English, she asked whether or not the train went to Grand Central.  “Yea,” I said. She smiled, but I didn’t know if she got it or not. Then she asked me how many stops till we got there.  I told her, but she kept leaning over me looking at the sticker. I then realized that she was probably confused by the fact that we were already passed 40^th street and proceeding on to 33^rd st. She knew she was getting off at 42^nd street. This meant that she probably didn’t know the streets were different in Manhattan. She got really nervous, until she heard another lady on the train, who was apparently speaking her native tongue.  This was a relief to me. After a quick back and forth between the two, for the first time, the woman sitting next to me looked satisfied and relieved.

Eventually, a mariachi band decided to come on the train wearing the costumes and everything. To make matters worse for the poor woman, the lady who spoke the woman’s language got off at Queensboro Plaza, making the woman stand up, probably out confusion and distress.  This forced another conversation between the two until finally the train doors closed. I realized that the lady leaving, because she was using her fingers, had told the woman that the train would eventually get to Grand Central in four more stops.

By the time we got to Vernon Blvd. the lady was leaning over me again staring at the little sticker while glancing at a piece of paper with a bunch of writing on it. All I could make out on it was, “42^nd Street Grand Central.”  In an attempt to reassure her I said, “Next stop,” trying not to confuse her, I put up one finger. She understood and looked relieved, at least she stopped leaning over me. Four minutes later we were pulling into Grand Central, I said, “This is it.” She proceeded to thank me, picked up her enormous pink suitcase and left through the train doors.

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On Thursday morning, I was hired at Sunrise Mart and went in for my first day of training that night. Sunrise Mart is a quaint, authentic Japanese market nestled on the second story of an old building in St. Mark’s Place that I had been frequenting since I discovered it some weeks before.

My first day of work was nerve wracking, but incredibly fun. I enjoyed ringing up groceries and politely conversing with customers in both English and Japanese. One thing I noticed was that, more often than not, the customers wanted to give exact change. Rather than hurrying to pay for their groceries, it seemed much more important to get rid of those pesky coins weighing down pockets and purses. I remembered that this had been the trend in Japan as well and coin purses of every style imaginable could be found.

I remember having a huge amount of trouble giving exact change in Japan. It is so easy for me to add up our quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies into correct amounts so that I get nothing but nice crisp bills in return. In Japan, I just couldn’t do it. Something that seems almost second nature to me in the United States was quite a time-consuming task in Japan. At some stores, my friend would simply lose patience and take my coin purse from me, putting the accurate coins down, while I stood by blushing. On the other hand, when I had a Japanese foreign exchange student live with me, she ended up with almost fifteen dollars in coins because she did not want to embarrass herself by taking so long to count out change in stores.

At one point, one of my Japanese customers was fishing through his coin purse for coins. After fussing with the coins for about a minute, he thrust his wallet into my hand and said, “you do it”. I could not help laughing as I began counting out his coins, saying, “it’s okay, in Japan, I had the same problem”. Feeling less embarrassed, he smiled and remarked “no matter where you are, money is hard, isn’t it?”

Isn’t that the truth?

For the Columbus Day weekend, two of my friends came back from college for a few days. One from Trinity College in Connecticut, and one from the University of Buffalo. After talking to both of them individually about their respective schools and how they liked it, I realized how much I missed out on by staying home for college. One of the two referred to their college life as being a “fantasy world.” He’s having the time of his life being away at school on his own and he’d rather stay there all year than come home to visit. He says coming back to Brooklyn is like coming back to reality, and it’s depressing to him. He loves the independent lifestyle and the enjoyment of living with friends. He’s having the time of his life at school and doesn’t want that feeling to end.

My brother, Kevin, went to Binghamton University and graduated in 2008. Ever since then he’s talked about how much he misses college. I never really knew if this was how everyone felt until I heard all my friends that went away talk about how much they love it. As much as I am happy for them that they’re having a good time, their good time makes me feel like I made the wrong decision on staying home for school.

The college lifestyles of staying home and going away vary in many ways. Staying home, I still feel constricted in the same house with my parents, my aunt, and my brothers. I feel like I’m living the same way I’ve been living the past seventeen years of my life. There hasn’t been a change. From what I’ve seen and heard, going away to college is a thrill, an excitement, and a mystery. It’s something new. It brings on new challenges, new stories, and life lessons. I feel like I’m missing out on an important aspect of life by staying home.

Sure, I like Baruch College and Macaulay, but I think college is about more than just the school, the academics, and the grades. It’s about the whole experience with new people, new places, and a new environment. With that being said, I feel like I didn’t give myself a chance to have all those experiences when I made the decision to stay home.

This weekend I experienced something that truly was mind blowing. As I was walking through my neighborhood I saw someone who stuck out like a sore thumb. There was a large group of Korean people walking down the block and I knew they were Korean by the language they were speaking. Right in the center of this large crowd I saw three older members who were wearing traditional Korean clothing. They were also speaking Korean with the younger youth they were surrounded by. The younger teenagers were wearing clothing that we would normally see on the streets. This was an interesting sight because not only was there a stark difference in age but also a difference in culture. The older people most likely came from Korea and decided to wear a more traditional outfit, while the younger kids definitely grew up in America. Everyone got along perfectly fine and it seemed like this cultural difference did not exist. The teenagers showed the older people a great amount of respect, constantly bowing to them and putting their heads down to show respect. Although, at first glance it seemed that this group would not get along, that is actually not true because everyone got along very well even though there was this generation gap. I was surprised that everyone in the group got along and thought that no matter how different or culturally different people were they could get along with proper effort.

This past weekend I experienced something truly different. My friend, Moishe, who had been in Israel for most of his life, decided that he wanted to come to the United States to have some fun. Of course, he decided to give me a call and asked if I were available to hang out with him for an entire day. Although I’ve never seen him in person before, I knew a lot about him since we used to be pen pals back in the day.

Before I met him, I was nervous and curious as to the day ahead. I also thought if we didn’t have things to talk about, then the exchange would be quite awkward, and he wouldn’t have a good time in New York City.

During the middle of that day, I heard a knock on my door, and immediately guessed that it had to be my good friend Moishe. I welcomed him in, and for the next two hours we just talked about our different lives, and what his goals were for the rest of his life. Before long, my worst fears had come true. We had nothing else to say to one another, so our dialogue had quickly turned into silence. At that moment, I suggested we step out so that I can show him around the Brooklyn neighborhood that we were in. As soon as were exited the front door of my house, Moishe saw two pretty Caucasian girls walking down the street. Even though he barely knew how to speak English, he courageously approached them. This was the worst idea imaginable, or so I thought. With his bad, accented English, Moishe was trying to convince the girls to come and have lunch with us. After some initial confusion, the two girls finally knew what he was trying to convey, and decided to come with us. For the remainder of the day, I got to admit I had fun with the two girls, even though I had to engage them in conversation while my friend Moishe just stared at their pretty faces.

Truth be told, I honestly didn’t think my Israeli friend with a thick accent could pull off communicating with two American girls, let alone persuading them to lunch with us. I thought that the fact he was a foreigner would surly hinder his chances. To my great surprise, the girls found his accent hysterical, and took him up on his offer. Life is pretty good with Moishe around.

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“Where was I now? … All that flashed into my eyes were the countless shapes of people walking by to nowhere. Again and again, I called out for Midori from the dead center of this pace that was no place.” – Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

My first encounter of a different culture came when I was about 8 years old. I invaded my best friend’s house almost everyday. I justified my forceful invasion as showing a sign of affection toward my poor, lonely friend who had to wait for her working parents by herself until the evening. As soon as I entered the house, I took off my shoes and ran straight into my friend’s father’s small library. His shelves were filled with thick books covered with leather and exotic prints. Some of them were in different languages. However, even the ones written in Korean were too long and complicated for me.

Amongst  the books, there were a lot of works of Japanese literature. After coming back from work, my friends’ father often told me about his grand collection of Japanese books. One of his favorites was Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami. While he was describing the book, he would mention something about loss, agony, despair and confusion. I had no idea what he was saying. As he delved more deeply into the meaning of those words, I would get terribly lost. The thickness of the book and the smallness of the font made me literally run away from him for the entire day. By that time, I hardly experienced any loss in my life. Nothing was yet confusing or frustrating. I wasn’t happy all the time, but satisfied most of the times.

I started reading Murakami’s novels when I entered middle school. So many things happened to me over the five years. I had to overcome countless losses, including my beloved family member’s death, which brought great frustration and confusion in  life. It was then when I thought of what my friend’s father had told me. I borrowed the book from library and started to read it. As I flipped one page to the other, I was able to understand and even perceive the truthful meaning of those words. Without even noticing it, I myself was maturing as an adult.

Murakami’s books are solely based on the adult’s culture. How do adults define their lives? How do they see themselves? Why do they exist that way?  These are Murakami’s favorite questions for adults.  Through my own experience, I was able to broaden my viewpoint on various aspects of life.  Murakami’s insight guided me to answer those questions thoughtfully. he never defines life with the exact words from the dictionary; from the most atypical environment, he looks out  for ordinary people. From insanity, he defines rationality. I love Murakami’s writing not only for his delicate writing style or narrative skills. I love him because he’s one of the few authors who actually makes me think. By encountering new culture, I was able to perceive my life in an entirely different perspective.

I stood in Times Square like I was one the hundreds of tourists who stare in awe. Although I had been in Times Square countless times, the bright lights never failed to capture my eye. As I walked through the crowds of people, I heard a tremendous variety of different dialects, and saw cameras flash left and right. The allure of Times Square, like always, had me in a trance, but tonight I couldn’t stop and stare. I had to rush and get on line for the Jason Derulo concert. The line bent in and out of the city blocks like a slithering snake. I don’t call myself a fan of Jason Derulo’s music, but when my friends decided that we were going to his concert on Thursday night, I had no other options. While on line I saw that Jason Derulo attracted a huge range of fans. There was a group of excited friends who started talking to us about Jason Derulo. What I found intriguing about them was that they had come all the way from Australia, for the concert (as well as other reasons). They told us about a new and upcoming pop group from Australia called Trinity that was going to perform that night. I was surprised to hear that Jason Derulo, an American R&B and pop singer had such a huge fan base in Australia. The concert, unlike I had expected, was extremely entertaining. Jason Derulo’s singing, and dancing were spectacular. I also became a fan of Trinity; their pop music, which had an Australian taste, was unique and appealing to me. Watching an entertaining concert in my favorite place in the world made that night, one to remember.

A less than hospitable waiter placed our slightly extravagant bill on the table. Temporarily ignoring it, five hands made a mad grab for the small pile of fortune cookies that had appeared on the table. Fortune cookies are really nothing special. They aren’t even Chinese, I recall being disappointed to learn of their American origin in my freshman year of high school. The obvious appeal of the small treat is of course the fortune within, but fortunes now seem to have developed an attitude which detracts from what little appreciation one can have of fortune cookies.

“The greatest danger could be your stupidity.” I don’t remember who received this tiny piece of “wisdom” but I do recall a communal sense of insult. It was funny, really funny actually, to be so maligned by a tiny scrap of paper shoved inside of a cookie. Together we discussed how fortune cookies have really deteriorated over the years, slicing apart whoever was responsible for the decline as though said person was a dirty politician.

We were disappointed in the fortune but thinking about it, I suppose fortune cookies are letdowns more often then not. Anyone who relies on the “lucky numbers” is almost sure to be letdown, a person who expects a sound piece of philosophy is unlikely to receive such and again the cookie tastes kind of like a stale cracker. I am a fan of the “Speak Chinese” vocabulary word now featured on most fortunes, but it doesn’t make up for all the other sub par elements of contemporary fortune cookies. One can only hope that some innovation in the field will be developed to save the ebbing breed. If not, what little luster remains in the tiny packages may completely fade.