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During the summer of 2006, I went on vacation to Punjab, India.  Although I didn’t enjoy my trip as a whole, I really enjoyed visiting the city of Amritsar.  The whole city of Amritsar contains a rich collection of Sikh history and culture.  There are many Sikh temples, and historical sites spread throughout the city, of which the most popular is the Golden Temple.

If you were to ask me what my favorite thing about my trip to India was, I wouldn’t hesitate at all to say that it was visiting the temple.  Harimandir Sahib (as it is also known as) is perhaps the most elegant work of Sikh architecture. When I first walked through the archway and saw the Golden Temple, I was awestruck.  It stood surrounded by a large body of water, glowing in the night sky; also, the water casted the reflection of the temple.  My parents made me take some of the water (from the body of water) and pour it over my head; they said that it was for purification.   I didn’t really understand what they meant by this, but I did it anyways. My parents had brought me to visit Harimandir Sahib not only for its aesthetic beauty, but for religious purposes as well.  I also got the chance to go into the temple, and say my prayers; however all my attention was focused on the magnificent building.  Over 85 percent of the temple was covered in gold (including the inside), and the floors were made of exquisite marble. Nothing I’ve seen in my life is more beautiful than the Golden Temple in Amritsar India. (photo from http://www.visit-incredible-india.com/golden-temple-budget-tour.html)

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It was a Friday night and I was returning home from my weekly model UN meeting with my friend Kevin. As we boarded the 6 train, he turned to me and asked if I knew how to play Mahjong. I had seen relatives playing Jewish Mahjong, and I had seen yakuza play it in old Japanese mafia films, but I had a feeling that wasn’t going to cut it, so I told him that I didn’t really know, but that I would love to learn.

We got back to the dorm, and two of our friends were sitting in the community room, eyes glazing over as they stared at their laptop screens. They were more than willing to play with us.

The game started off a little rocky. Each of us knew a different version of Mahjong; Jewish/Japanese, Shanghainese, Hong Kong, and a Toisan/Canton mixture. By the end of the fifth round, however, everyone started to get into their own groove. We were able to mix and match our different Mahjong styles and it made for quite an interesting game.

“Rokuman!” I cried out, putting down the tile with the Chinese characters for “six” and “ten thousand” on them.

“Samton!”

“Pon!”

“Window!”

Because we could all read the Chinese characters and recognize the pictures, we could cry out the name of the tile in whatever language we so pleased. As the game progressed, five languages (Japanese, Cantonese, Mandarin, Shanghainese, and English) were being combined, giving way to quite an amusing game and learning experience.

The game lasted from 8:30 PM until 3:00 AM, us laughing and shouting the whole time. The later it got, the more ridiculous our combinations became, until no one could understand what anyone was saying, nut we didn’t need to. We all found ourselves on the same page, connected through our extremely fun multi-cultural game of Mahjong.

Although I lost all of my chips and ended up owing some to everyone, I won a few games and greatly broadened my cultural horizons while deepening my friendships. I cannot wait to play again.

Quality of Life. 5:45PM

The Quality of Life Task Force: a bunch of college kids in their washed jeans and heavy black coats sat on the sturdy, cold metal chairs while nervously staring at the clock until they could see Richard Price, the author of Lush Life, on the 7^th floor of the Newman library building at Baruch college. Their mantra: focus, do not fall asleep, and get out of here early; their motto: Everyone’s got something to gain.

“Is dead tonight,” when Richard Price started to read this line, I instantly realize that all those expectations that I had before were useless. Focusing and not falling asleep were no longer my mantra. I was immediately drawn to Richard Price’s Lush Life.

I always loved reading, but I hated when the author himself read off his book to people. I subconsciously felt some sort of pressure in the author’s tone at the latest reading I went: “This is my book. Since I wrote this , you must understand this in my way.” Especially, I disliked the question and answer that followed the reading. The author was giving away all the sources of his inspiration and conveying the deeper meaning. The author interpreted the book for me. There was no place for my imagination. However, Richard Price was not the author but a storyteller who made extraordinary out of the ordinary. His reading changed my initial preconception on the unappealing nature of author readings.

Richard Price was a writer like a projector at the theater, which enlarges the tiny still-cuts of the movie into the lively scenes on the huge screen. The reading started with a night fishing on Delaney street, where used to be known as the center of Heroine and other illegal drug smuggling. However, if you are making hasty presumption, “Yah Yah Yah, that is how it is for all NYC based novels: Cops, Pots, and Gun,” you got it very wrong. The vivid description and speedy progress of the story itself would prove that every point of your generalization is wrong. Richard Price was an author who only writes about what he knows. Thus, he is not afraid to question back to the readers “how do I possibly know everything?” Furthermore, his story flowed with the dialogue between the characters that further empowered the realistic tone.

For about two hours, he guided us through the sneaky backstreets in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. With slightly shaky voice and humor, he made us imagine the incident of that night. We were welcomed to make gasps and laughs at every little thing that was projected in image of the street from his book without feeling any pressure. Price’s philosophy toward diversity provided an entirely different scope of our city lives. He started questioning how everyone -Jews, Catholics, Asians, Blacks, Republicans and Democrats- all can mingle and ignore each other at the same time in New York City.  Eventually he ended up figuring out nothing about the cause of such collision. Maybe he simply regarded such a job is for some super smart physician, but not a cool writer like him. Truly, his free and easy-going personality made myself to acknowledge newly found pleasure of listening and imagining.

On October 19^th, I fulfilled all my required task forces. I could never allow myself dare to fall asleep or lose focus. However, my mantra had to change five seconds after Richard Price started his reading. “Tell me more!” became my new mantra for the next one-hour and half. My mind is still chanting that mantra while I am trying to read the hard copy of Lush Life in my dorm room. I’ll be gladly chanting this mantra more than a thousand times until his new book comes out. “Tell me just a little bit more, Mr. Price!”

The image was taken from <http://frazeurphotography.com/portfolio/source/lower_east_side_nyc.htm>

I used to know someone who joked around with a mischievous smile that “Everybody loves you when you’re six foot in the ground.” He was the godfather of hippies who used to sing “All you need is love!” with his old guitar. The sincere philanthropist, environmentalist, and musician, John Lennon has been under the ground for few decades now. However, his songs are still echoing in people’s mind in the name of peace and love. I visited Strawberry Fields, the heart of the culture that John Lennon created, on the day after his seventieth birthday.

At first, my day started out as an ordinary Sunday evening. After coming back from church, my cousin’s family and I sat in front of the dinner table, casually joking around whose life was more miserable. This typical dinner conversation was dramatically changed when my cousin-in-law brought John Lennon to our table. My cousin-in-law, who has been playing guitar for more than 30 years, told us that yesterday was John Lennon’s birthday. John Lennon from the Beatles, of course I knew him. Once the main singer-songwriter for the world’s famous band the Beatles, met Yoko Ono, fell madly in love with her, abandoned everything that appeared profitable in his life, ditched the Beatles, and decided to live his remaining life as a happy hippie in Manhattan instead. Or at least, that was all what I knew about him.

I always had a tendency of separating music from art. I often introduced myself as an artist, but music was something totally outside of my sphere of interest. Furthermore, I had a cheesy taste as a listener. I was born and raised in the 90s, growing up listening to all that “pop-sick-cle” music featured by the Backstreet boys and Britney Spears.  Then, there came the 21^st century and I danced to the “Boom Boom Pow” flow with obnoxiously loud bass sound and incomprehensible rap.  When my cousin-in-law asked me if I want to visit Strawberry Fields, I thought why not- I love strawberries. He kindly informed me that we’re going to Strawberry Fields not strawberry picking. It was the little portion of Central Park that was dedicated to the memories of John Lennon. Oh, okay, I thought, still why not. At least, there should be one strawberry if they named after it like that.

When we finally arrived at the 72^nd street, west side of Central Park, we could hear a band playing Lennon’s song “Imagine” from a distance. My family and I walked faster and faster as if we are drawn to a magnetic field. In the middle everyone -hippies, non-hippies, musicians, and non-musicians- we finally stopped. I had no idea how that happened, but I started to sing along with them. I didn’t even know that I knew the lyrics. We sang and sang in complete circles, looking and smiling at each other and the strangers, as if we’ve known each other for a long time.

As to what my kindly cousin-in-law said, there was not even a single strawberry at Strawberry Fields. However, I was able to pick something sweeter than strawberries. It was the seed of culture that John Lennon strived to cultivate throughout his life that eventually grew up into a fruit and ripened in the people’s mind. It was also the power of his culture that made me start imagining a world without religion, possession, greed, and hunger, but only filled with peace and love. Everyone thought he was a dreamer, but he was not the only one. And today, I’m joining this circle of life because I am simply curious- what color is the sky in his heaven?

The image was taken from <http://www.nycgovparks.org/sub_about/parks_history/strawberry_field_images/large/Strawberry_Fields_Forever.jpg>