This is New York

Warmest greetings, everyone, from New York!

Okay, haven't been posting pictures because I haven't set up my permanent internet connection yet and am using a public computer in a lab at the moment, and haven't been posting at all because CUE has been utterly packed with events, meaning to say every night's sleep is only at most six hours long. In fact, by posting this now, I will probably regret this tomorrow afternoon. But too many things have happened, and all of it begs to be written down somewhere.

But what can I say? New York is utterly astonishing. It's not exactly a forgiving place; the first thing I encountered when I got of CX 830 at JFK was a long queue through Immigration, because their computer system had broken down. Then, there was a long queue for the taxi, and then a traffic jam along the highway from JFK to Manhattan. The first impression of the city was, therefore, one of gridlock. And the people are rather ruthless when they're irritated, all too ready to unleash a formidable array of curses and cleverly disguised profanities at you.

But they make up for it by being almost flawlessly polite. The traffic here does go out of its way to give way to large gaggles of undergraduates wandering across avenues and streets with nary a glance at the lights. On the subway, people do say their P's and Q's, and even the most perfunctory "Thank you" prompts a reply, an extra effort that is almost unheard of back home. It is not difficult or intimidating to deal normally with these people at all; the only possible obstacle is the accent, which can be easily learnt and overcome.

And the things that New York throws at you every day are astounding. Every night, CUE participants get to go out on the city to explore various landmarks and activities. So, over the last three nights, I've been to Central Park (where we went in search of a Graciella commemmorative concert but found a spontaneous rhumba party instead, which was in turn broken up when the cops showed up), the Brooklyn Bridge (after which we went hunting for cheap eats and ended up in a fantastically decorated European-style cafe near school), Chinatown (where for an exorbitant price we got authentic-tasting bubble tea) and Shea Stadium (for a Mets game - after which there was a fight among the fans, and New York's finest appeared again, this time on horseback). The city is so vibrant that even when you get lost, you're bound to find something worth going to; boredom is not an option. And whereas history may lie thickly on European streets, here, I think what coats the streets and avenues of New York is fascination.

And the unexpected can ambush you at any moment. On the subway ride from Chinatown back to Columbia, a man with an orange t-shirt on his head and many plastic bags tried to talk me into joining his evangelical army to save Riverside Church from the Devil, in the meantime demonstrating an incredible knowledge of Singaporean society. On campus at the start of this week, film crews were all over the lawn filming scenes from Gossip Girl, which actually means nothing to me, but was fun to watch - and I'm sure this factoid will make someone jealous (I mean, we were within spitting distance of the stars, whoever they were). A CBS reporter haunted one of the Columbia gates on one afternoon. And when I was opening a bank account earlier today, a woman suddenly burst into the bank, screamed at the manager to leave her alone and stop harrassing her, and then left - after which the cops arrived.

And the people who experience all this with me are amazing as well. It's still early days, but it turns out that it may not be that difficult to talk to these people after all. There is a certain youthfulness in their thought and expression that cannot be ignored, but above all, their earnestness and goodwill smooths away any cultural barriers that may have existed, defusing potentially explosive differences into valuable talking points. There is also a certain degree of racism that is only to be expected in a city and school like this, but most of the time it is harmless, and sometimes even richly funny. And anyway, practically everyone has been game to try out new things, and to wander the streets of Manhattan at all hours, and have been invariably helpful and friendly. There really is nothing more that I can rightly ask of these people, and I am deeply glad that I've had the chance to pass this week with them.

At my service site, too, the people are remarkable. I'm working at a homeless shelter, and there is a day-care centre in it that looks after the kids when the parents are out looking for new accommodation. K and I are working with the older kids, who range from three to six years old. Their energy is boundless, and they are utterly, stunningly intelligent, demonstrating a surprisingly wide knowledge and being able to carry out conversations that are so earnest and sensible that it makes your heart melt. And even though they are under welfare, they seem to lead such charmed lives to my eyes, and I find that my fascination with this city is somewhat reflected in them, in a more intense, more guileless, purer form.

The streets, too, seem to me to be enchanted. The weather has been flawless since I left Singapore, making every day a blue-sky day, when the light is sharp and clear, making everything blaze with beauty. On the first day, riding the cab into the city, we passed over the Triborough Bridge, and there was the Manhattan skyline, resplendent in the gold of sunset, shadowy and utterly promising in the distance. The largest monuments, like the legendary Shea Stadium, and the smallest details, like the book stalls that pop up on the sidewalks in the sunlight, speak to me equally with promise and anticipation; these streets contain within them the seeds of powerful experiences, only waiting for someone to come and find them. But by far the best moment so far was when I crossed the Brooklyn Bridge on foot at night with some of the CUE people. Seeing Manhattan glowing in the weeknight darkness, the Empire State and Chrysler Buildings incandescent in their luminous regalia, Downtown made up of dense constellations of office lights, and the torch of the Statue itself a pinprick of yellow in the distance - at that time, I felt like I would burst into tears right there: I felt I was ready to die. At that time, I knew that the long journey to New York through space and time, the journey that started so long ago in such different circumstances, had finally come to an end, and had given birth in its waning to a new era - this new era - bursting with promise. And the best thing was that since I was with a CUE group, I had someone with which to share this incredible moment, something that had almost never happened before, and had certainly never happened so intensely before.

This is New York. And things are starting.