Post-166: In New York City (Part II, Feeling Provincial)

Previous Post: Part I, Transportation

I left off in post-165 having just gotten off the bus in midtown Manhattan, about 11 AM.

Waiting nearby was one of the most optimistic people I’ve ever come across, my friend T.A. from Kazakhstan. I met him when I was traveling there in 2011. He is in the USA on a “work and travel” visa now. He holds two college degrees back home, and worked in a bank in his hometown. Although ethnically-Kazakh, he cannot speak the Kazakh language very well, as so many of them can’t. He speaks Russian.

T.A. has lived all around the USA now, from the Southern-efficiency of Carolina, to the Northern-charm of New York City, to the gentleness of the Pacific Northwest.

In 2011, I recommended T.A. to read The Great Gatsby after he asked me a question that was, in effect, “What is the Great American Novel?” I found the book locally and bought it for him when I left. / T.A. also asked me around that time about which era or aspect of history one should study “to understand the USA”. Without hesitation, I told him to study the U.S. Civil War, the defining event of the USA, to my mind. In the course of our day touring around Manhattan, we passed a statue of General Sherman on horseback. He didn’t recognize the name. Enthusiastically, I said,” This man won the Civil War”, which, according to my amateur studying of the subject, is not far off from the truth. “Wow!” he said, and insisted on taking my picture in front of the statue (below). I mentioned that if he ever goes back to Spartanburg, South Carolina (his first place of residence, last year), he would do well to not to get too chatty about ol’ Sherman!  [Click on the photos below to enlarge them]

Backtracking to 11 AM, some scenes of the vicinity of the bus drop-off point:

Read More

T.A. and I were hungry. He suggested going to a bagel-and-coffee shop nearby, which we did. The menu was plastered up behind the counter. Items on it that I’d never even heard-of before glared back at me menacingly, in that cynical and gritty New York way. My lack of knowledge of basic “bagel fare” immediately made me feel provincial, and/or reinforced my view of NYC as a foreign-country. One particular item on the menu that I’d never heard of was “lox”, apparently a topping for bagels. Who knew? Not I.

T.A. was also unaware of what “lox” was. The next weekend, I learned from a friend of my father’s (Tim) that lox is a fish-spread used traditionally by the Jews on bagels. I’d learned years earlier that bagels were “invented” by Jews in New York City, or perhaps it was that they were invented in the shtetls of Eastern Europe and hopped across the ocean via Ellis Island.

The shtetl lives on New York City.

The woman holding the orange sign above is advertising a Jewish catering service.

Many businesses in NYC, it seemed, make it clear that they serve only their own ethic-communities. Another example was a poster (left) I spotted for a ‘Jews-Only’ dating agency called “JDate”. 
[Click to enlarge the poster].

There are a few of us Gentiles in Manhattan, too, though. Here are some:

One thing I can say about Manhattan is that the people are (1) more self-consciously wealthy, (2) more fashionable and (3) thinner, than people I’m familiar with elsewhere in the USA. The obesity problem in the USA is almost hard to notice among this kind of chic crowd, as above. The two Nordic-looking young women in the photo exemplify this.

A large number of women on the streets of NYC seemed to wear these “ugg” boots, visible on the red-coat-wearer and plastic-bag-holder above. You can also see above that this particular Monday was rainy and chilly. Nobody seemed to mind much. Bad weather conditions are a lot easier to deal with on foot than in a car.

Next:   Part III, “Up the Empire State Building”