New York 2019

“Do you have your I-20 form?”

It is early morning in Seoul, and I and three other North America-bound passengers have just been shepherded through the Incheon airport as our flight arrived late and we are cutting transfers a bit finely.

I blink. “Er… not quite sure what that is, I’ve just got a regular visa…?”

The man breaks out into a surprised smile. “Oh, you’re not a student, I’m sorry!”

All right, it’s gratifying. “No, just a tourist.”

Thirteen hours later (half of which I spent humming Neil Diamond’s Coming to America), the Korean Air A380 touches down in sunny JFK. The queues are not tremendously awful, and the immigration officer waves me through the gates with a breezy “Be safe and have fun!”

Just like that, I am here, in the greatest city on earth, in the country of my former colonizers. It is slightly disorienting.

I suspect our prolonged exposure to American cultural hegemony has something to do with it, because everywhere looked like a well-dressed set for a movie or a show that I’d seen before.

Home for the first few days was a tree-lined neighbourhood in Queens. Pretty houses, tidy lawns, a few Stars and Stripes on display; a very agreeable place to land in, really, and made all the more welcoming by family.

There is Coney Island, loud and bright and colourful in the piercing autumn sunlight. Walking down the shore with my aunt and uncle to breathe the Atlantic Ocean in; sharing Nathan’s famous hotdogs, observed by one of those native New Yorkers: a bird with brilliant deep-green plumage and a fearless look in its eye. We go on a drive and cross the Brooklyn Bridge at dusk and I catch my first glimpse of Manhattan. Just like in the movies.

There is a trip through upstate New York, all lovely masses of forest foliage. My uncle wants to show us West Point (an absorbing attraction, but perhaps this is just me and my propensity for military thrillers? We’re never going to escape American literature, either). This sortie includes a stop at Rockland Bakery in Nanuet, which is carb heaven because you get to step inside and watch them churn out all those bagels and rolls.

Cousin A takes us on a food tour that same afternoon, never mind the freezing rain. We start off in the East Village with a signature pizza slice of (ginormous) American proportions at Artichoke Basille’s Pizza on 14th, then cross the road for tasty steamed buns at BaoHaus Restaurant.

We head to the Chelsea Market, where I wander into Anthropologie like the basic creature I am, but ultimately end up buying a gorgeous Little Prince Moleskine planner from a stationery shop. (Not that I’ve used it much in 2020…) Starbucks Reserve Roastery is right next door and I grab a Turinese bicerin just because it’s available and I’m one of those insufferably annoying people who once spend a single week grazing abundantly in Italy and never forget it.

“Where do you want to go next?” cousin A asks.

“23 Cornelia Street,” I say. Lover was released two months ago and Cornelia Street is by far my favourite song on this album. The boys tolerate the Swiftie in their midst, I get my photos, and then we amble around Rockefeller Center, plaza and NBC Studios and Radio City Music Hall and all – a veritable holiday movie montage.

We head back to Queens with banana pudding takeaway from Magnolia Bakery, realise we’re still hungry, and so make a beeline (hee hee) for – where else – Jollibee Woodside, where the burger steak is $5 and the peach mango pie $2 and everything tastes exactly like home.

We move to our Times Square hotel the day after, and the route takes us through the Queens-Midtown Tunnel – “turned around before I hit the tunnel, sat on the roof, you and I,” I warble because that is my real New York song – and past brownstones that seem to feature in every rom-com ever.

Then it is time to brave the subway. We’ve all heard horror stories, of course, but this trip – the $3, 20-minute ride from 42nd to South Ferry – isn’t any worse than the ones on the Parisian metro.

We have time to kill before the ferry leaves, so we amble round the South Street Seaport Historic District and come across the Titanic memorial lighthouse. There’s a McNally Jackson on Fulton with fetching blue doors – don’t we love independent bookstores? – and I debate whether to buy Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility (having gotten into more than one ~discussion~ about this) before I end up with Ian McEwan’s The Cockroach, a wonderfully incisive satire about Brexit – the story literally begins with the titular bug waking up to realize he’s the UK Prime Minister.

The ferry sails past Lady Liberty, and I wonder what it must have felt like for all those immigrants arriving on Ellis Island. It is always a complicated experience, examining this from the point of view of a formerly colonized Asian, and – honestly? – it’s difficult to keep up a critical train of thought when it is an irrepressibly jaunty day, out there bobbing on the swells of the harbour.

Back on land, we head up to Wall Street and the NYSE, pass by Trinity Church en route to the 9/11 Memorial. It is a solemn place, hushed and heavy; somehow it feels like it manages to keep the city’s big, brash personality at bay. The day ends with a stroll down Fifth Avenue, a peep at our country’s UN mission and hotdogs in Bryant Park.

Our New York stay also features midnight snacks and diner breakfasts, Hudson Yards, the High Line and Broadway; and it ends with Jollibee on 8th (you can upgrade to adobo rice, wow) and Central Park. Another bright, shimmery, good-natured sort of day, with dogs and musicians by the water, and squirrels in the grass and the beginnings of fall colour; and as we enter I look up squinting into the sunlight and catch sight of Essex House – a tiny reminder of one of my favourite people back then. *sigh*

We think we just have enough time to duck into Guantanamera for a filling lunch, but barely; we end up rushing the few blocks to the Javits Center afterwards with luggage in tow in order to catch the bus to Philly.

But this fine and fizzy city is made for fast walking and we clocked 17k steps that day.

One last thing I want to say here though is, again much like when I visited Paris – wait, why do I keep on comparing it with Paris, maybe because both cities share a larger-than-life mystique? I reckon I would view London through the same lens when I get there.

Where were we? Ah yes, perhaps my expectations have been managed a little too well. Was mentally prepared for rude, pushy, I’m walkin’ here! types, but they were… friendly. From the Chick-fil-A cashier to the stranger who smiled “Nice skirt!” – It’s a dress, but thank you, I called back – to those repairmen who shrugged and said “We’re not the law” when we asked if it was fine to cross the road at some point (very possibly jaywalking but oh well); that was possibly the biggest film twist of all.

Greatest city in the world, indeed.