Category — Site Authors

The first day of classes ends at Baruch, I thought it was a nice day to walk home. Walking past boutiques selling high class paintings at “discount” prices, I think of how nice it would be to have some sort of fancy artwork hang on my wall.

As I was approaching Union Square I had an intense craving for Chinese food, and while scoping out the streets for a take out joint these bright colors on the floor caught my eye. A man was creating this intricate pattern with nothing but a vision in his mind and colored spray paint. He didn’t need his art to be hanging in a gallery or boutique, he just created.

“That was definitely intentional,” I thought to myself as I lay there recovering from the agonizing pain I felt in my now black and blue eye.  The Colden Basketball Tournament carried a reputation for its physicality, however this game was turning into a brawl.  On the very next possession as I dribbled the ball down the court, I heard my friend holler in pain.  When I gazed back I saw my friend cupping his ear, blood oozing between his fingers.  The same person from the other team who took a cheap shot at me, stood next to him, with a sinister grin on his face, and my friend’s blood on his lip.  The cannibalistic monster had apparently taken a bite from his ear.   Having had enough, I plowed him to the ground and planted a right-handed jab, contorting his face.  As he got up, he howled at me in Chinese, a language completely alien to me, and vanished.  Both teams had been disqualified, but I was happy that I stuck up for my friend.  The moment we stepped outside of the gym, my teammates and I were enveloped by a group of Asian teenagers, some of whom I recognized instantly from my junior high school.  Again, Mike Tyson Jr. (as we appropriately nicknamed him) barked at me in Chinese and pulled out a knife. To my relief, one of the kids from my school told Mike Tyson Jr. something in Chinese, and they quickly disappeared.  Apparently they were scared that I had recognized them, and that I could easily identify them and get them in trouble.  Many insecure, Asian, immigrant teens (especially in Flushing) form gang like groups, trying to pick fights and gain a reputation for being hardnosed, but thankfully this group stopped before they did anything regrettable.

Dyker Park. The place where I learned to play the game of basketball.

Growing up in New York City has been an enriching experience. Not only have I enjoyed myself; I’ve also learned to adapt to the often-hostile environment.

I moved from the suburbs of New Jersey to the streets of Brooklyn at an awkward age. During my adolescent years, I had a difficult time connecting with my peers. A series of small happenings built up and exploded into a particularly heated situation. I was alone at a local park playing basketball when a couple of African American kids came and wanted to play with me. I was hesitant at first, but being the nice guy that I was, I begrudgingly invited them to join me. After a few plays I knew that I had made a  terrible choice. Not only were they twice my size, but they were manhandling me as well. At that moment, my self-esteem was shattered. I started to hate the game of basketball, and most importantly I started to hate those who were a different race than me.

Five months later, I attended a high school where I met and befriended a culturally diverse group of classmates. It was at that time in my life that I finally realized skin color does not define a person. I was no longer restrained by my fears and anger towards those different from me. Also, I learned to keep an open heart and mind and not to judge future acquaintances solely by recalling past experiences.

Growing up in an idyllic little New York town sixty miles north of Manhattan, unquestionably, I have lived my entire life a ‘New Yorker.’  Undoubtedly though, my idea of a ‘New Yorker’ differs from your ‘New Yorker’ and while I have been born into a family whose entire existence in America has been limited to the boroughs comprising New York City, I am quick to point out to all who inquire, that my ‘title’ applies merely to my residence in the state. Perhaps, it is because my ideas of the City have come primarily from watching Eyewitness News in the morning or listening to my dad complain about the traffic going to or from (probably both) ways to work each day. Either way, I figured that once school began I could see for myself what being the other ‘New Yorker’ was all about.

With little more than a week under my belt, the one thing that I have witnessed more than anything else is that New York is different just for being diverse, unique for being inimitable. Sure everything in New York moves a little quicker and sure, I have been to dozens of cities where the residents are friendlier, but what New York lacks in etiquette, it makes up with something more important: a common bond and attitude (like it or not) that surpasses language, appearance, socioeconomic statuses and other so-called boundaries that are supposed to divide, rather than unite. The City is, at least in my estimations (and current limited knowledge) the perfect microcosm of what our country once was, still is and always will be: united not because of our differences, but in spite of them. And while my title ‘New Yorker’ might not be the same as yours, I don’t mind, at the very least, I have it in my genes.

My New York. The train coincidentally is heading to the City.

Photo Copyright- Wikimedia – Daniel Case

My coach’s laugh is incredible. Her voice never fails to permeate the unexpectedly thin walls of the ping pong club on West 100^th. She speaks impeccable Mandarin and beautiful Japanese but her English is fractured at best. Coach reacts to miscommunications and misunderstandings with a dainty, shielded giggle that rapidly morphs into a vivacious laugh. Her reaction to uncertainty is friendly and honest- wildly different from the demeanors of other club members of analogous descent.

I made the mistake of adorning green socks for a table tennis session not long ago. Barely a moment after I pulled them on under coach’s quizzical eyes she spoke loudly and sharply, “What is that?” I held one up, and slowly replied “…Socks”. As she continued to ogle I clumsily attempted to put my Chinese vocabulary quizzes to use, “Ni zhidao, wazi.” After a moment of continued staring she began to laugh, apparently green socks are incredibly funny in China. Gasping she attempted to explain but naturally couldn’t find the proper English words to elucidate her hysterics.  She said something about Chinese police officers wearing green socks, and how silly I was to not have normal white ones but broke off again in another fit of laughter. I remain unaware of what was so funny about my socks, but appreciate the all-encompassing amusement of mutual confusion.

Photographed by Leela Corman of Brokelyn.com

I took a place in line behind an elderly man in the meat market section of my residential international food store. Domino is one of the many stores on Kings Highway that highlights the street’s cultural diversity.  However, this store served as the principal port of Slavic cuisine, particularly the delicacy of Eastern European meat and the harvest of the Ukrainian breadbasket that is seldom found in American chain supermarkets.

The man in front of me spoke in a raspy voice that both attested to his age with his wrinkly complexion, and to the tainted mustache that was trimmed with decades of tobacco smoke. He wore a Soviet naval cap and a shirt with the American flag, the sort that may have been given out in a raffle during a Fourth of July festival. The woman behind the counter asked him in Russian. “Здравствуйте, что вы пожалаете” (Hello, what would you like?)  He answered “Cердельки – две pieces.”  (Sausages – two pieces) She complied and probably took no notice of his melting pot rhetoric.

It seems that one can’t help but stumble upon a melding of culture in New York City. A mesh of food, music, and language—the vibrant colors of society are ubiquitous in this new found world. Even through my thickly paned window, the collision of past, present, and future can be observed: graffiti in more than one language emblazoned on the building across the street.

And the day only continues to amaze me with its “cultural encounters”–down the stairs and onto a street where I have to stop for a minute to just attempt to take it in. Chinese writings on the side of a building followed by a sign proclaiming “In God we trust” only ensure my wonder. Just the sounds of this place… A Spanish-speaker helping a Chinese-speaker find the airport would’ve once been but a missed event on the subway—but now, I can’t help but to stand agape at how well the communication actually works. And my insight into this success led me to even greater realization: these cultural encounters that I see every day in this city, regardless of ethnicity, origin, and societal bounds, are successful—and I can’t wait to see what else this place has to offer.

Sitting in Bryant Park, I gingerly turned the page of my book and took another sip of tea. Completely absorbed in my novel, I was not even taking breaks to people watch, as I tend to do. I was suddenly jostled out of my concentration by the movement of all the chairs at the table next to me. I glanced to the side and found myself intrigued by the collection of individuals who had taken seats beside me. All six members of the party carefully began removing Tupperware from their bags, silently placing them on the table. They sat in awkward silence for a few moments, until one girl spoke up.

“This is called inarizushi”, she said slowly, in a thick Japanese accent. “It is very popular dish in Japan”.

“Oh! I have tried this before!” said another, before she happily introduced her own dish, Pierogi, a type of Polish dumpling.

My book lay on the table, abandoned, as I continued to listen to the names of the foods, all said in extremely dense accents hailing from the same country as the dish brought. Although conversation was no doubt greatly stunted, everyone managed to communicate his or her thoughts, and each person listened patiently as the others tried hard to find the English words to express themselves accurately. And when they, trying so hard to find those words, still came up empty-handed, they simply smiled and said the food was delicious. After all, “mmmm!” is the same in every language.

This weekend, I traveled to New Brunswick to drop my sister and her luggage off at Rutgers University. Upon arriving, I couldn’t help but notice bright red, bolded letter “R’s” on most students’ attires we passed by.

As we lugged my sister’s supplies out of the car, we spotted a group of students standing outside of the door, all with anxious expressions on their faces. No student looked alike, as if they were from all different parts of the tri-state area. In my opinion, going to a college out of state allows you to meet new faces and familiarize yourself with new people and their interests; my sister is now able to become exposed to people outside of the typical Asian group she was with in her high school.

We entered the building, and when we passed her floormates, I noticed that many students were paired off with roommates who didn’t share the same ethnicity. Every door was decorated with the roommates’ names, along with varying pictures to depict the artists’ interests.  My sister’s name was decorated with a carousel and a pretzel, along with movie tickets lining the borders of the paper. I can only guess that the person designing the poster is someone who enjoys food and theater arts.

It was of no surprise to me when my parents announced during the summer of 2007 that the family was taking a trip out of the country. The surprise came when they told me that the destination was Armenia. I, by nationality, am Armenian. I was 14 when we had this conversation and had never visited my home country before in my life. I was anxious, excited, and scared all at the same time – comparable to how most kids feel about starting a new life in a new school.

Armenia is the type of country into which you can arrive unannounced with no money in your pocket and receive food and housing within the hour. Everyone there treats each other like family. My family, which did announce that it was arriving, was greeted by what seemed like the entire airport garage full of cars. To avoid offending anyone, my brother, mother, father, and I all got into different cars with our distant relatives.

The entire trip was one gigantic cultural encounter that opened my eyes to a myriad of new experiences; but one specific encounter that I will never forget in my life was one related to fuel.

Armenia is a developing country that does not have a very wealthy population. The economy is still primarily based on agriculture and the technology is sub-par. This was clearly evident the minute you stepped outside of the airport and this encounter solidified every assumption I had made about the country’s industry.

We all know that a car needs some sort of fuel to run and some of us even know the different kinds of fuel: gasoline, diesel, and electricity. One day, when a relative was driving around my brother, father, and me, he stated that he needed gas. This statement would have flown right past us if he used the Russian word “benzene” for gas. He, however, used the Russian word “gas.” We asked him what he meant and he explained that most cars in Armenia ran on gas – natural gas. To give you an understanding of what image this evoked in our minds, imagine hooking up your car to your gas stove, cranking up the dial to “high” and waiting a few minutes for the gas to flow into a special container in your car. Our visions became reality when we arrived at the special “gas” station 5 miles from the center of the city.

This entire time my mind has been obsessing over the idea of how Armenians, as well as other nationalities that occupy developing nations, have to constantly come up with, what to us seem to be ingenious, ways to overcome obstacles in life that we never even face. Compressing natural gas in a canister and rerouting the entire fuel system to run on it to save a few dollars every month seemed absurd to us; but for them, there was no way to afford a car without doing it.