Fusion—New York

It is 10:30pm.

On the shiny rain-washed Broadway Street devoid of day-time honking cars, two carts of Hispanic tourists convulse in their rickshaws pulling up short in front of the traffic lights. On the left, the 24-hrs “Food mart” still offers a buffet with a few lukewarm and cold entrees. A few miles ahead, a group of street performers are deep in their uplifting duets that a dollar of contribution seems humiliating. Just around the corner, a dozen of homelessness curls up on the staircase leading to the roman-style public library, probably enjoying the starry night.

This is New York.

Hybridity is a term to weak to express its capacity. Korea Street, China town or Little Italy are the names help locate gourmet food for pilgrims only, but the city is literally filled with a variety of facial colors next to a rainbow. You have to wait for someone who speak that you can correctly identify his or her origin, background, or even—language eloquence. Everyone becomes an enigma. Without correct labeling, you cannot risk despising someone on a bike shopping in the flea market as he might be the top chef in the city, or because of her Asian overall look then you can be ready to make fun of her broken accent. On top of the usual nonchalant aura every city dweller possessed, New Yorkers has to pull all their control over their curiosity or temptation of labeling but to remain aloof at every possible cultural shock. This means, to a certain extent, it becomes a city you can wander about free of identity, free of looks, resembling a virtual web world.

Enjoying the identity of “otherness” roaming in the city, you may realize that it’s the array of architecture that help cultivate the holistic landscape in the New Yorker’s mind. Gothic-styled Trinity church of over 200 hundred years sits at the beginning of Wall Street. The trend-setting 5th avenue houses a Farmers’ market in its hub. Looking up, you will see the skyline meanders from the new, sharp edges of the skyscrapers to the delicate, pointed roof top of an old church or administration building. Surprise, yes, it’s the surprise the city brings to you its vibrancy, its respect to history, and its fusion beauty. Anyway, politically correctness can still be identified in the faintest corner of the nation’s public utility, for example, when Tibet’s armor is named as one of the most precious exhibits in the Metropolitan Museum of Art because of it rarity and craftsmanship.

Of course, the city recalls much of my love and memory over my hometown country. It’s not the Soho or Times Square, but the genuine business wit of Chinese. The coach business commuting among the country’s China towns demands strong network, discipline, guts, but underscored by the safety issue from the Chinese drivers working around the clock. Hong Kong styled “Three entrees, One bowl” business has evolved and thrived in China town, and has been featured on TV. Lying on the dining table with northern styled dumplings, sour and spicy soup, Cantonese styled congee and rice rolls, you feel so much back home again.

To be home is not to feel ashamed of thy self. One night it rained, a street vendor carried her little cart full of umbrellas, and cried, “aubalabababababba.” A black girl stopped by and asked for the price. Then just across the street, another man with a similar bucket of umbrellas yelling, “Tee-doa, Tee-doa.” More passers-by stopped before his little cart. So, even though they cannot pronounce “Umbrella” or “Three dollars” correctly, no worries, they still survive.