After leaving class this morning, I came out surprisingly optimistic. Not only did I find out that we'll be finally reading each others' stories but that maybe there is hope out there in the world. Well specifically, here in NYC.
For class today, we were all supposed to read an essay called "Find Your Beach" by Zadie Smith, a British writer who discusses her grand interpretation of NYC versus her homeland back in London. As the professor asked the class to go around and interpret their viewpoint on how Smith dissected NYC in such a way, majority of us agreed that foreigners (or in a more modern terms, "trans-planters") who move here should not be writing their versions of how New York City really is. They don't have the right to define a place where the vast population of the world only remembers Manhattan as NYC when there are four other boroughs that encircle the island. But as we reached to the end of the circle, there were three students who answered differently to this.
The students' answers consisted of how fortunate we are to have such a place that allows creativity and new ideas to grow. The possibilities are surrounding us and we're not able to grasp that all in because as one of the students replied: the grass is always greener on the other side.
And it is true, the other side of the fence is always romanticized in our minds because of our consistent cycle of the same schedule. Maybe that's the reason so many of us hate the newcomers and their bright smiles on their faces, make fun of the new hipsters that move to the gentrified Williamsburg, Red Hook, and Bedford-Stuyvesant areas.
The same experience transplants experience here, we also see when we travel to a fresh environment. We will stare at certain monuments for a while and think about the intense amount of history or marvel in awe at how great the food is and brag to all of our friends by uploading pictures on our social media pages. Yet, we have the authority to make fun and even hate those who do the same over here.
Traveling the very first time to Sweden and with a friend to Vienna during the upcoming holiday season, dating a guy whose also not a native New Yorker, and working with tourists allowed me to be more opened minded. Before meeting these people and not traveling, I was one of those people that would look down at those who weren't fellow native New Yorkers. I would also make fun and say cruel things about them but having a broadened mind allowed me to accept that every single day, a new transplant will move here in NYC and not know what Staten Island is.
I mean, I know more transplants than native New Yorkers and they're much more kind.
