Chapter 4 Brooklyn.

We had to change the plane twice, once in Anchorage, where we officially entered the United States, and the next time in Chicago.From Chicago to New York swirls of turbulence buffeted the plane.The whole structure of the plane shook wildly.The creaking noise from the wings growled and whined, sounding like what I had imagined the ancient dinosaurs would have sounded like.My younger sisters threw up, resulting from the combination of twenty hours of airplane food and this turbulence.The hysterical airline stewardesses arranged for us to sit at different seats so they could clean up the mess in the meantime.One of the stewardesses brought us about ten white bags and gestured to my sisters to throw up in the bags.My sisters nodded their heads.

The sight of New York city at night from the air was glaring.The tall beam of lights were flooding the night air.I and my smelly sisters stuck to the plane window to marvel at the island of tall lights.The place flaunted its wealth.Brighter than the stars in the sky, the organized layer of lights audaciously challenged the laws of nature.The concrete result of human hunger for material wealth was gathered at one place to showcase the limitless potential of human might.Rounding the head of a copper lady holding a torch at the southern tip of this massive island, the plane slowly prepared for a landing.Wearing a dress that flew with the Atlantic wind, the copper lady stood firmly, symbolizing the Western ethic of liberty and justice.This lone virtuous lady stood patiently, bottled up with her secret love, waiting until the day her true lover came ashore.

At the airport my father's friend was waiting for us.He brought a car that was even larger than my room used to be.At the touch of a button the car window opened and closed.All the way to our destination I kept opening and closing the window.We were brought to an apartment at a place called Brooklyn.

Next morning I found out that there was a beach in front of our apartment building.So I went out to the beach.But to my surprise, it was filled with foreigners.Then I realized that I was not in Korea.I was in Brooklyn.They were indeed strange looking people.I went around studying them.They had skin that was pale and a lot of people had red burns.Some people had strange brown dots all over their bodies.They also had unusual customs.Everyone was lying on a long chair instead of lying on the sand.Most of the women had bathing suits that stuck tightly to their body and I could see their nipples.Actually if I had went close enough to them and stuck my head onto their necks and looked down, I could have probably seen their breasts.I was about to try it when something else caught my attention."Everyone is lying on a long chair instead of lying on the sand!"Then I realized the reason that I was disturbed.The beach was filthy.The sand was gray.There was trash all over the place.I could smell oil in the salty air."No wonder people are lying on the chair," I thought to myself.The vast expanse of ocean that forgives all human debris stretched into the horizon; yet on this beach as if time has stopped the natural progression of ocean, human filth withstood the endless motion of the waves.Nature has lost its battle against human consumption on this beach at a place called Brooklyn.I felt a sudden chill of loneliness.

In the afternoon we went into Manhattan for a tour.The place overwhelmed me.Simply looking at so many high buildings made me dizzy.But at the same time I could not understand why the streets were so dirty.In the midst of wealth, oddly enough at every block there were people begging for money.Some women walked around almost naked.The white people were interesting; but the black people in the city truly stole my curiosity."How could anyone have skin that was actually black?" I thought.I walked up to a black person who was selling some kind of a toy on the street and looked at his skin carefully.His black skin looked natural to him.But there was something empty about him.He seemed to be asking a question that could not be answered.So I asked him a question in my broken English."Why is your skin black?"He looked at me for a minute in complete shock, and then he started to yell into my face."You crazy, mother-fucking, yellow bastard . . . ."His mouth became larger than his face and for a moment I thought he was going to eat me.I ran off as fast as I could.I thought he was going to cry.

Later that day we went to a place called the "Supermarket".The place was bigger than my Junior High School.Food was everywhere.People went around filling their carts with food wrapped in fancy packages.There was even a section that was filled with food for dogs and cats.This country was wealthier than I had ever dreamed!.But coming back to our apartment we passed a section of the city which looked as if it had been bombed.The place looked exactly like the picture that I had seen of Korea right after the Korean War.This place did not make sense to me.The America that I had seen so far did not make much sense to me.It was a big puzzle.