Final Thoughts...
Trip Start
Mar 03, 2011
1
14
Trip End
Apr 05, 2011
New York City, New York
Monday, April 4, 2011
All these figures, and what, I’m wondering, do I make of them? Does this multitude of facts automatically that I can take my flight home to London tomorrow evening safe in the knowledge that I’ve actually learnt something about this place? I’m not too sure. There was too much that I didn’t see and, what I did see, I saw only for the briefest of moments. I am absolutely convinced that a month wouldn’t be long enough to fully appreciate the cultural and psychological particulars of even a small country, let alone this monstrously proportioned one.
I can’t, for instance, get my head around how a country so enamored with its sense of place in the world is so flooded – both culturally and numerically – immigrants. Just today, I read that over the past decade, the proportion of Hispanics and Asians in the US has increased by 40%. And yet everywhere I went, people held their hand to their chest and waved the Star Spangled Banner and asked me about 9/11 as if America is the most homogeneous nation of patriots imaginable. I don’t think I’ll ever understand this about the US.
Nor do I think I’ll ever truly understand how a country as developed and powerful as the US can simultaneously be so involved in the rest of the world’s affairs (economically, politically, culturally, militarily), and yet house a people who, I’ve found – aside from in the coastal cities – often to be shockingly unaware about anything except their own insular society. I’ll never forget the thoughts that went through my mind upon hearing some of the more outrageous cases of ignorance.
If these two conundrums are eerily similar to the ones I posed way back in my first post, the self-reference is deliberate. You’re probably justified in asking yourself now, why, if after reading all these thousands of words, you bothered at all, considering I don’t seem to have come to any authoritative conclusions about the American way of life whatsoever. Well, at least on the big questions.
On the small matters, I hope I’ve managed to cast some light and, maybe, even dispel some stereotypes. I’ve been overwhelmed by the charm, welcoming nature – I’m conscious that now I’m moving dangerously close to sounding like some marquis in the Royal Dragoons lamenting the loss of our selfless, simple cousins – and kindness of Americans. Over the past month my soul has been torn to-and-fro between wanting to hug everyone I meet and praise the heavens that not everyone is as reserved and cynical as Europeans on the one hand and catching the first flight to Vienna or Budapest just to escape the heart-breaking simplicity of the people. It’s sometimes been very hard, but I’ve decided to stick with Americans. I think it suffices to say that after my trip to Europe, my overriding memory was of the churches and palaces and idyllic country villages and Bach concerts and Rembrandts in the galleries. In America, I’m sure it’ll be of the couple that paid my fare on the train coming back from Santa Fe or the smile of the lady whom I stopped for directions in San Francisco when she told me to 'be sure to have a good time!’ or that free meal or those free drinks.
Does this mean I could live in America? For me, this is the question you have to ask yourself when abroad, and it’s been one I’ve asked myself at regular intervals from the very beginning. Like Americans themselves, I swing between seeing only the positives and the negatives. The country is beautiful; it has more variation in terrain and landscapes than anywhere else I’ve been. But then, as I found myself drooling over the magnificent peaks of the Rocky Mountains or lush California paddy-fields, I remembered that just to get there, it had taken me twenty-four or forty-eight hours. How could I live somewhere where you have to pick up your keys and drive half a mile just to get life’s basics? One of the many things I love about Europe is that you can cross Belgium in an hour; you can zip between capitals in an afternoon. You can’t do this in America. But then, as this country has an irritating (and naturally, enthralling) habit of doing, I turned a corner and saw yet another pristine wilderness and all my doubts were instantly assuaged until I checked my watch again and realized the next town I’d see was Salt Lake City. In five hours.
For all my ambivalence about so much in this country, there is a lot I can say without any doubt that I’ve missed about London. I’ve missed saying ‘university’ instead of ‘college’ (a word, I fear, along with ‘soccer,’ ‘sidewalk,’ and ‘subway’ among others that have embedded themselves so far into my subconscious that I’ll continue repeating them for many weeks); I’ve missed being able to drink a good cup of tea; I’ve missed Radio 4; I’ve missed laughing at Prime Ministers Questions when one side of the Commons makes that animalistic wailing sound and flaps its papers as if 250 MPs all decided to have an epileptic shock simultaneously; I’ve missed clotted cream; I’ve missed the editorials in The Independent; I’ve missed being able to make some risqué comment about the dubious nature of my sexuality and not be taken too seriously (or, I guess I can only hope – I’m not sure with how much confidence – not seriously at all).
In a strange way, I think it would be these small pleasures that make life in Britain tolerable that would prevent me from living in the US for any period of time. Even the cringe-worthy patriotism or the parochial ignorance or the atrocious public transport, are all things I could endure – if only because, for better of for worse, they make America the incredible place it really is. I don’t want there to be a publicly-funded health service; I don’t want there to be a genuinely social democratic political party; I don’t want the gun laws to be tightened; I don’t want Spanish or French to be taught in schools. If I wanted all these things, I could happily fly over to Stockholm or Oslo or somewhere equally staid. Its idiosyncrasies – both quaint and those that make sane Europeans everywhere hop up and down with disbelief – are what make America well, American. If nothing else, I hope I’ll be able to come back to Europe without the arrogance that I left it with. Every country has its positives and negatives; there’s no point pointing them out constantly.
This morning, I took the subway underneath the East River to Brooklyn, a Borough of New York that I’d never visited before. Catching the dull glint of light from the water in the corner of my eye, I strode down a couple of streets, across an unhealthy patch of sickly grass and stood face to face with the towering peaks of Manhattan. Although I’ve been to the Big Apple a number of times, and seen it from practically every angle, this was the first time I’d actually seen Manhattan from afar, its concrete pinnacles blending with the smoke-coloured sky. I really had come full circle. It was just over a month ago that I’d stepped over those tramps and got on the train to Chicago. One theme the more perceptive among you may have noticed is that, at every opportunity, no matter how inappropriate, I’ve tried to point out one of my famous ‘contradictions.’ Staring listlessly over the water, I thought to myself quite how American this view was. It was the first view that those 19th century immigrants would have seen of this country, this squalid, beautiful, fabulously wealthy and pitifully poor, this heart-rendingly kind, heart-rendingly heartless country. How apt, the philosopher in me mused pretentiously, that I should have started and ended here. Just then, a noise disrupted my ponderings. I turned around to see a family coming towards me, three generations of grandparents, parents and young children all chatting happily together. I thought at first that they were American, but the remoteness of their voices to my ear quickly made me realize that they were Eastern European – Russian perhaps, or Ukrainian. And so, with the Empire State Building facing me to my west, I gazed over this symbol of Americana serenaded by the laughs and shouts of people in some Slavonic language I had no hope of ever understanding. What could be more contradictory – and American – I thought, than that?
Comments
I enjoyed your writing. It is always nice to see where you live through another.
Scott ~ Savannah, GA