Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving was on Thursday and to the North Americans this festival is as important as Christmas. Thanksgiving is about family gathering and Christmas is more for the kids. New York City celebrates by having a parade named the Macy's Parade. Macy is a really old departmental store in midtown Manhattan and it is apparent from the the type of escalators they have. The escalators look so antique you could take a piece and sell it off in a shop. Macy claimed to be the biggest store in the world. Well, maybe it was in the past, but now I think it is only a small fraction of Singapore's Takashimaya. Macy started the parade a long time ago and a main draw of it are the gigantic rubber balloons that come in the shapes of Garfield, Snoopy, Big Bird and even Pokemon. When I say gigantic I really mean it as the balloons are 2 stories high. There were incidents when a balloon would veer off course because of the winds and hit a lamp post and injure spectators.
The parade would start at 9am and last till 12am, so I got up really early at 6am that day. When I opened the door to check the weather I saw that it was raining heavily. It was the biggest rain I have seen since I came. I figured even if I could reach NYC I wouldn't be able to take nice pictures anyway so I went back to bed and woke up later to watch the parade on the tv. I felt really sad that I couldn't attend. I have missed the NYC marathon and the Halloween parade and now I missed this one. It makes me wonder what the hell I am doing in New York if I couldn't catch the parades and I might not get another chance again. I am afraid that I would go back to Singapore without catching much of New York and to make things seem better I went online to buy a ticket for the "Phantom of the Opera". Of course that means I would be watching it alone but I don't care. When I watched Macy's Parade on tv I almost wanted to take pictures of the tv scenes. The next biggest upcoming event is the New Year countdown in Times Square and if I miss this one I am going to feel miserable forever.
In the very least I got to attend an American Thanksgiving dinner hosted by my boss. David's wife Yuan is a Chinese so the dinner was more of a mixture of American and Chinese food. There were Turkey, mashed potatoes, spaghetti, bacon, sprouts, fish and rice. A turkey is really a very big chicken. It is heavy and slippery and it really isn't something an amateur would try cooking. We had a bottle of white Riesling wine from Germany and the taste was fantastic. Its not as bitter as the cheap wine and not as sweet as the Ice wine. I do not really enjoy alcohol anymore but this wine is different from other alcohols. Riesling, I shall remember this word so that I can buy it next time.
My colleague Ning and his wife were there as well and they were from China so I decided to take them on for a game of table tennis after dinner. I should know better, for later I received a thrashing and a valuable lesson in table tennis. The table was located in the basement. The basement, was not a dark and eerie place. David had it furnished so it was like a play room for the children, and it was big and the table was a real table tennis table unlike the make shift one I had when I was young. When I was a kid my brother and me would join up 2 small tables to play table tennis in the balcony. The tables were usually the ones grandma used for placing offerings during praying and we would use books or bricks for a net. If you hit the ball too hard it would go flying out of the balcony window onto the platform on the 3rd floor and you would have to go running from the 8th floor to get it.
Ning's wife was skillful and Ning himself was even better. He applied top spins and bottom spins to his balls and kept me guessing and running in the wrong directions. When they served the ball they had this stance that screamed "I am an expert and you don't fool around with me". It didn't help that we were playing pairs and I had David as my partner. David was used to playing single player with his son, and after he hit the ball he would forget to back off to allow me in for the next ball. As he was a big guy I couldn't get around him to the ball. If there were a game that involves a racket twice the size of a tennis racket David would be up for it, so it was cute seeing his big hands handling a small ping pong bat. Nevertheless I have to give him credit for hitting some good balls hahaha.
When it was time to go Ning drove me back. He is really a nice and helpful guy and has a few peculiarities like not having a mobile phone and insisting on taking shortcuts when driving. His reason for not having a mobile phone is that he doesn't believe he is so important to be reached anytime, anywhere. As fate would have it we were struck with a punctured tire on the way home. It was still raining at midnight and it wasn't a nice feeling to be out in the cold at night. I kind of feel guilty for his punctured tire because if he wasn't trying to drive me back it wouldn't have happened, even though he said nails got in because he took shortcuts. We left the car at a petrol kiosk and Ning suggested I call his wife to drive and get us. I called with the Cingular network but the reception was poor. Tried as I might I couldn't get any reception. Fortunately I had my other auto-roaming phone with T-Mobile network and I was finally able to get through and Ning's wife got all of us home.
Well, we all need hand phones don't we?
David
David is my boss and he is a Canadian, stands about 1.90m tall with ruffled brown hair and has a little pot belly. I do not know the difference between a Canadian and an American, perhaps except for the fact that Canadians end their sentences with an "aaa" sound. I don't think westerners can tell a China Chinese from a Taiwanese or a Singaporean from a Hongkonger too. I kind of knew my boss before I arrived in New York, because I searched him up on the internet. On Yahoo he had 300 plus hits, which is not surprising given that he is the corporate webmaster. I guess that makes him sort of a celebrity and these days you know you are famous only if you are able to find your name in Wikipedia.
On my first day at work he took me to the Toastmaster's club in IBM. I have heard about the toastmaster's before and it is a club where you can build your confidence in speaking and acquire presentation skills. These skills are important because when you speak you want to capture your audience's attention and get your points across efficiently though I never felt compelled enough to join one in Singapore when there were so many other things to do-- like learn the guitar. I procrastinated before and I am still doing it now. However, this offers me a fantastic opportunity to get a glimpse into the Toastmasters.
They would appoint two to three persons to present on any topic they wish but they would have to make use of a particular technique. David's topic for the day was "Web 2.0" and he was required to present to a "non-technical" crowd. He presented very fluently with the aid of powerpoint slides and I don't think it was difficult for him given his experience and that English is his first language. After the 3 speakers had spoken there were 3 respective evaluators who sang praises of the presenters. They didn't criticise too much and I think if they had any they might have put it across by passing them in the slip of paper containing their comments. Then there was a person who counted the redundant sounds such as the "ah"s and "eh"s and the unintended pauses and I find those helpful as I tend to speak with unnecessary sounds too. That "ah" counter certainly helps to keep you conscious of your sounds. Finally the president did her evaluation and the whole session lasted one hour during lunch time. There were noticeably more Asian faces than Caucasians. I suppose Asians want to brush up their English speaking skills at the same time whereas Caucasians should already be comfortable presenting in their first language and I wonder whether that is the case for me. Judging from the difficulties I have finding the right words during conversations with Mainland Chinese I certainly don't think I can hold a presentation in Mandarin well at all. That is something I should be ashamed of.
I like the way David engages in intellectual conversations. We were talking about the American reality shows during our first lunch session and he said most of the talk shows had weird characters because in a land as big as America you could really find any type of person. For example in The Jerry Springer Show you could have confessions that include a man admitting that he had married his horse, or a man who had a dedicated fetish for vomiting. I reflected,"In Singapore we do not have such shows."
"Oh, why do you think that is so?" David questioned and it sort of thrown me off guard because I didn't really think about any substantial reason that could attribute to it. I thought by asking that question he was most probably trying to figure out my character and thinking instead of being interested in the real answer. I managed to squeeze out one which sound reasonable to me.
"It's the nature of Singaporeans. We do not have that inquisitive nature and even the paparazzi cease to exist. That is also why a lot of celebrities like to settle in the country."
"That might be true, or it could simply be due to the fact that in a large country like America you could find any sort of people," said David with a straight face. He looks intelligent when he is in such a contemplative mood, and I think he is.
On one of the days on the bus I saw that the bus wasn't operating on Election Day. When I told David that I might have to work remotely in the house he was pretty much surprised that there were going to be no buses. "It all seemed so backwards to me," he lamented. "Buses ought to be operating on Election Day because the masses are going to need them. The only reason I can think of is that the politicians are trying to manipulate the results because the poor who take the buses may prefer the opposing party."
Sometimes we talk about George Bush and the situation in Iraq. David's opinion is that Bush may seem stupid to the masses, but underneath that stupidity is intelligence because Bush knows how to appeal to the people. When he says, "We are going in to uphold justice." or "We are going to stay the course.", these simple messages portray him as a hero and people love simple messages. In David's words, "People do not like politicians like John Kerry who elaborate on sophisticated policies that are not easy for the masses to understand." He found a clip on YouTube which brings across the point and you can find the clip at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmXEb_YpKXU or you can search "Bush Script Writer" on the website.
I pretty much enjoy these conversations because they have depth and David always seems to be able to offer valuable insights.
My recipes
新洲炒米粉
IngredientsMixed vegetables of beans and carrot
1 egg
beef cubes (can't find chicken cubes)
mexican chilli powder
soy sauce and sesame oil
mee fen
Cooking instructionsSoak the mee fen for 20 minutes in water. Pour in a little bit of oil into the pan. Fry the mixed vegetables and beef cubes before adding the egg. Stir the egg to break them into small pieces. Put soy sauce, sesame oil, salt and chilli powder and fry. Put in the mee fen and put in more soy sauce and sesame oil and fry. If it becomes too dry add some water. Serve when the mee fen is evenly browned.
VerdictAs good as the ones you can eat at any hawker center. And I am not kidding.
Seafood Pasta with Bockwurst Sausages
Ingredients
Cut pieces of squid, prawns and mussels
Parmesan cheese
Bottled tomato sauce
Spagetti
Beef bockwurst sauages
Cooking InstructionsBring water in pan to boiling. Put in spagetti together with the squid, prawns and mussels and wait for 12 minutes. Drain the water and put the spagetti onto a plate. Next pour the tomato sauce into the pan and heat it. Pour the sauce over the spagetti. Top it with parmesan cheese. Heat the sausages in a microwave for 1 minute and serve.
VerdictThis is delicious enough if you add enough parmesan cheese.
Chicken Noodle SoupIngredientsoriental chinese noodle (amount that can fill your stomach)
spinach (never replace this with cabbage)
1 egg
1 chicken drumstick and 1 chicken thigh
mexican chilly powder (use chinese one if possible)
anchovy
soy sauce and sesame oil(very important)
Cooking InstructionsPour water into pan. Heat up water till boiling. Put the chicken and the anchovy together with soy sauce and sesame oil. The sesame oil is key so please remember. Continue heating for 10 minutes. Next, add the egg and spinach and stir. Finally add the noodles. The yellow noodles are salty in nature so add just a little more salt. Wait for 5 minutes and serve with mexican chilly powder.
VerdictThis dish is not very nice. I think it would be better if I cooked it with curry so as to make curry chicken noodle.
A Typical Day
In the morning on Friday I woke up at 7:38am and wondered why the handphone alarm didn't sound at 7:30. Most probably it did, but somehow I just switched it off unconciously and that might be due to the fact that I was still in the very dreams I was having every night since I came. Even though the dreams were weird I wasn't particularly disturbed by them. After all they were not nightmares at least and if you dream you are supposed to be in deep sleep isn't it? I liked sleeping in the nights here because it was all cool from the natural aircon and I didn't have to worry about the electricity bills at all hahaha.
Just the other day we had daylight saving and I had to adjust my time backwards by one hour. So if the sun was supposed to come up at 6:30 it would come up now at 5:30. I checked out the origin of daylight saving in Wikipedia and it said, "Governments often promote it as an energy conservation measure, on the grounds that it allows more effective use of natural sunlight resource in summer time." I didn't know how true was that but I didn't like the idea because I woke up everyday with the sun glaring in my face, even though it was nice to wake up with a view of the Hudson river out in the window.
Breakfast was simple--two toasted pieces of whole grain bread with nutella and a glass of orange juice. Every now and then I would have cereals with milk too. The bus would come at 837am and I had to be on time for if I miss the bus it would mean another 40 minutes of braving the strong chilly winds. There was once I missed the bus and that was truly a unbearable experience. It came on time today, thankfully. The passengers were a mixture of hispanics and blacks. (Yes at this point I know you are worried for me but they are just like any other people so they are pretty harmless. Being hispanic or black doesn't make you a criminal.) Most of the passengers were sleepy and there would be some listening to their ipods. As far as I had noticed the only music players I had seen in use here were ipods. Sony and Creative were non-existent. I wondered whether the Americans even knew these brands in the first place.
I was glad to have company on the bus today. There was this guy named Marco Zimmerling living in the same area in Ossining and he was working in IBM as an intern too. He was tall like all Germans so it was funny when he stood besides the short hispanics because he seemed like a giant besides them. Marc was a friendly guy who spoke fluent English. He did not have a Bachelor's because the German's system only recognised a Master's and he had a year and a half before he would get it. He told me he was glad we could understand each other's accent because his Malaysian mentor was tormenting him from the way he was speaking. "Even the Americans employees don't understand my mentor sometimes," he chided and he said what good was a mentor when you could not understand him and I was glad I didn't have a problem with my American boss at all.
Our conversations were mostly on IBM and the cultures in our country. I asked him about the no speed limit autobahns and the Oktober Fest and the education system in Germany. Not surprisingly I knew a lot more about his country then he knew about mine. After all Germany was a big aggressor in World War 2 and who in the world cared about the little red dot falling under the Japanese rule. Most of the time I felt like an ambassador of Singapore. After three weeks here I thought Singapore was still a much better place(minus the customer service) and I felt compelled to let the Americans or anyone in the world know about our country. In the end I had to clear up a lot of misunderstandings about our country.
"No Singapore is not a city in China. The city is the country. We are in South East Asia and yes, you can check the map and read up more on Wikipedia."
"Yes we did ban chewing gum but no, it is not because we want to keep the place very very clean. We only want to prevent the gums from disrupting our train service."
"Yes we do not have free speech but we do not mind that as long as it keeps the racial tolerance."
"Yes our national language is Malay but I can speak English because we use it in business and school and thanks for complimenting my English."
"Yup we have left hand drive and yes I am still trying to adjust to this right hand drive system."
"No we do not have winter and our place is hot and humid all the time and I would not trade that for this hahaha."
It was a pity that Marc would leave IBM soon. If not I could have hang out with him on some of the weekends and I didn't have to end up watching movies alone.
Work was enjoyable because my colleagues were nice people but on Fridays they would usually leave the place early to enjoy their weekends. Some would go up to upstate New York to see their family. With almost everyone gone I saw no point in staying that late so I walked out to the bus stop at 520pm. It was already pitch dark and it was all the fault of that daylight saving again. When I got back home I whipped up a quick meal of pasta before laying down on my bed to catch the dramas on ABC and Fox. There were Lost, Desperate Housewives, Day Break and Grey's Anatomy on ABC and Fox had Prison Break and House. I could catch something every night and I was thankful for that, for if not my mind might wander......back to Singapore.
Things I learned about NY
1. Politicians denounce each other on commercials in public TV. A typical one is "Mr so and so. Wrong on Iraq. Wrong on Bush. Wrong for New Jersey. Don't we need a senator that speaks for New Jersey?"
2. They do not show soccer here. News on English premiership is limited to one sentence in the papers--"Man Utd maintains lead at the top of the table." Pathetic.
3. Bus fares do not go with distance travelled. It's a flat fee even if you travelled a single bus stop.
4. They have food courts at shopping malls, but the stores are all fast food.
5. Abercrombie and Fitch put male models in front of their stores just to say hello and look good, and the models have sculpted abs.
6. The police in White Plains travelled on horses. And they are willing to let you take a picture if you ask them.
7. Halloween is a very big event here. Children dress up and go from houses to houses to collect candies.
8. The children don't really desire the candies, they just like to walk around as a gang.
9. And they get tired easily from the walking.
10.When they say "get into the groove" it means "ease into whatever you are doing".
11. "A soda" means any drink that is carbonated, be it Coca cola, root beer or sprite.
12. They do not sell packet coffee here in normal supermarkets. I found it in a Chinese supermarket.
13. The packet coffee is expensive because it is imported.
14. The hispanics are a big growing community. It's so big some channels are in Spanish.
15. The weather report is very accurate. When it says it rains, it rains.
16. The movie ticket cost twice of that in Singapore.
17. Any food fare served in a hawker stall in Singapore can beat the Chinese restaurant here.
18. Easily.
The Art of Tipping
The first thing I did after reaching my hotel was to go out and hunt for food. The chilly wind was stronger in Hudson Valley than in the city so I had to move really fast to get indoors as quickly as I could. There was an Applebee's in sight. What exactly was Applebee and what food they served I had no idea but I thought I would just eat whatever they had. After four meals in the airplace you would really settle for anything. In the end I ordered a steak, which was pretty delicious and filling and when the bill came I paused for a moment and looked at the waitress. The bill was 12 dollars. "How much should I tip you?" I asked.
"Well, its not necessary. You just tip whatever you want to."
Ok, so the tipping that Lonely Planet said was mandatory for all services was simply bullshit. I would like to think of it as a scam to increase consumer spending in America. I tipped her 2 bucks nevertheless for the service if not the advice.
It's a funny feeling when you do tipping. You feel an air of superiority and it's a false sense because in the end you are the one that is worse off.
On Sunday I met Uncle Danny at New York City and he took me down the endless avenues. He worked in NYC before so he was really familiar with the directions there. It's not that I would have got lost but it is always a nice thing to have company in the weekends, especially if he is your relative and you are in a foreign land. We went to this place called Lobster's and we were served by a smart looking waiter who spoke in a friendly tone.
"Hi guys how are you doing today? Good? My name is James and I would be serving you today."
After we ordered our food he would come by occasionally.
"How are you guys doing?"
"You like a refill of water?"
"How is the food today? Good?
"If you do need anything do feel free to get me."
"Like more juice? Can I clear this?"
I thought it was really professional of the waiter and I certainly did not get this kind of service back in Singapore. I would choose to think he didn't do it for the tip, which would go to the restaurant anyway. Comparatively the service level in Singapore is always atrocious and it is not difficult to know why when almost all of them are schooling part timers. The bill came and they charged 8% for the taxes and Uncle Danny paid double of the taxes for the tip. That's the norm and the waiter deserved it for the service we got.
When I went back to the house I had a discussion with the landlord and he said if he wasn't getting served properly he wasn't going to give any tipping. Ya that certainly made sense and made me wonder why I gave a tip for a chinese take away at the restaurant near my place.
Arrival
My first sight of New York wasn't that of the Statue of Liberty. It was the Long Island. Sitting high above in SQ26, I could see the beautiful and seemingly endless beaches. They did name the island aptly. How I wished I was down there in the beaches because the cramped space in the plane was making me claustrophobic, and the irregular sleep certainly didn't help.
When I touched down I had imagined I would see a crowded airport. After all this was JFK and it was supposed to be one of the busiest. At least, I had an impression that it would look just like it did in "The Terminal" starring Tom Hanks as the passenger who was trapped in no man's land. Things couldn't be more different. Terminal 4 was so eerily deserted it seemed that my plane was the only one that touched down that morning. I hastily took my luggage and went out of the Terminal only to be shocked by a gush of cold wind. It must have been like 10 degrees and my face went so numb I ran back to the refuge of the Terminal. Then, equipped with the thickest winter clothes I could find in my luggage, I ventured out again. There was a black man in service uniform outside the door and he said in a deep nasal voice, "Hey, where are you going?"
"To Grand Central Terminal," I said. I wondered whether he would understand my accent.
"Got a ticket yet?"
"Nope"
"Ok fifteen dollars for a ticket to Grand Central. The next bus would be here at 11:30."
I bought the ticket from him. All this while I was thinking about the interesting fact that I had just talked to the first black man in my life and I wondered how he would react if I had told him that. Its interesting because I saw Michael Jordan play basketball and I played Grand Theft Auto and I watched Hollywood movies but they were nothing quite the same as speaking to a black in person. If I had told him these he would probably stared at me like I was some kind of idiot from some part of asia.
The bus stopped along Park Avenue. I alighted and looked around to get a sense of direction. New York's avenues were broad and they were so straight I could see the rows of buildings that lined the two sides of the avenues. I couldn't see much of the sky though. With so many skyscrapers around, this city certainly needed much more air space. As I walked down the avenue I saw a magnificent sight. Right in front stood the Grand Central Terminal. It was just that--Grand. Its huge size, together with its intricately sculpted Greek statues made me feel as if I had landed in some fairyland in Enid Blyton's. If this was how New York was going to be I wouldn't mind staying here for six months.
I hoped.
