What brings you to New York? What comes into your head when you think of New York? The glistening yellow lights all over Manhattan? The endless buildings throughout the city? A New Yorker who might be holding a bagel and coffee in her hands and insensitively passing people by? It would be Sex and the city that crosses my mind first. Carrie Bradshaw, one of the characters of the show, made me dream about being a New Yorker and I imagined all the time how glamorous it would be. At night with all the lights off and my head under the covers, I would picture myself walking around Manhattan, getting on the subway with coffee and chilling out in Central Park as if I were a real New Yorker. It is often said that America is the land of freedom and opportunity. Above all, we can easily find a bunch of songs about New York. What on earth makes people write those lyrics? New York itself has been a dream city for many people over the years. Some may desire to follow their dreams to the “Big Apple” in hopes of being included in a bigger world than they were in. And I was no exception. Since I majored in advertising and public relations in college, there has been an inevitable wish to display my own advertisement on Times Square’s main billboard. Carrie Bradshow, Times Square and Jay-Z’s Empire State Of Mind all inspired me to be a New Yorker. I ended up getting on a plane at the beginning of last summer, listening to a song by Frank Sinatra. He was saying “I want to be a part of it, New York, New York.” A new chapter of my life was about to begin.
Part 1, Hardships The first day I moved into the apartment on Roosevelt Island in New York, July 18, 2019 Welcome to Roosevelt Island Far from Carrie’s experience, what welcomed me first was the fact that there was no house for me to live in immediately. It was certainly difficult for me to find a decent place even though I had lived by myself for 5 years in Korea. My head was filled with complicated thoughts. “Where should I live? How can I find an apartment? Do I need a real estate broker?” I eventually got a tiny studio on Roosevelt Island, which doesn’t look like normal New York at all, with two Korean roommates. Can you ever imagine how three girls who just touched down in a strange land stay together in a studio with all their stuff and no privacy at all? We had six suitcases in total. There was no living room, cozy mattress, air conditioner, or even lights. No sooner had I come to New York, than everything I faced was completely different from my previous life. That was not what I had ever expected. We divided our studio into three crowded sections. Looking back on the past, to be honest, I don’t know how I could bear living there for 7 months. Yet ironically, the little space I had was the only place where I felt restful in this city. We stayed up all night with beers and music from time to time, sharing our daily lives. I have a dim recollection of what we were talking about, and it was mainly about how different we would be after living in New York for a year. It’s been a year and a half since then, and now I can ask myself. “Have I changed a lot?” My answer is “Definitely.”
Who knew saying ‘How are you’ would be difficult? I thought once I lived in a foreign country I would be good at speaking in English fluently. I was totally wrong. I couldn’t even say ‘How are you?’ verbally even though I was confident about knowing a lot of grammar. It was not the textbook-world, but real. Getting a great score on an exam and spitting a word and a sentence out of my mouth were completely different. Being friends with people while I was traveling the world and getting to know people and being surrounded by them everyday were clearly another matter. I spent my spare time becoming accustomed to English. For example, I changed the default language for all my electronic devices such as my iPhone, laptop and even ebook reader from Korean to English. I tried to expose myself to circumstances that consisted of English, turning on CNN when I was ready to go out and watching all traditional American TV shows and movies. Although to some extent I may have reached some level of using English, I constantly felt a lack. It was not until I started working at Manhattan Language and met people whom I love that I found a missing piece of the puzzle, which I’ll deal with it in much greater detail later in the next section.
Roosevelt Island, August 24, 2019
Who knew New York would be a dead city Up until January, assuring others of my family’s safety in Korea was a new form of greetings in our office instead of asking “How are you” because COVID-19 in the US was not as serious as in Asia at first. However it soon hit the whole United States and the epidemic rapidly spread. All non-essential business had to be shut down, and no one knew how long it would last. We couldn’t go to restaurants, cafes, or theaters on Broadway. It was not the New York we all knew, but a dead city. Even Times Square which is well known for never sleeping and always packed with a bunch of people seemed desolate itself. As the situation got worse and worse, I received an email from my government saying they were forcing me to go back to Korea right away given the number of infection cases. My New York life was about to be destroyed. I couldn’t let my dream of being a New Yorker disappear on account of the pandemic. So I made a decision to keep staying in New York in the face of danger. First of all, I convinced my parents and assured them I was doing okay here. After that, I needed permission from Manhattan Language, the internship sponsor in the US, and my government in that order. To do so, I had to submit a number of documents showing why I should be in New York and promising to be responsible for my safety. My request to stay was eventually approved and in the meantime, all my Korean friends went back to Korea except for me. I was left by myself. It was a miserable, lonely, and long struggle. I tried to bear the horrible time, looking back on my life, reading books, cooking for myself and doing yoga, which I had barely done before the pandemic. Because I wasn’t able to meet people in person ―in fact I didn’t have friends whom I could hang out with anymore though― taking online-English classes and joining online activities at ML were my only chances to communicate with people. In front of our laptops, we played some games together, drank beers, cooked for each other, worked out, and danced. Being taught by all my teachers, Susie, Ellen, and Douglas, talking to my classmates, and listening to their stories were all I could do and the only pleasure in my life for the past half year. Then one day, I got a message from my friend asking me to hang out somewhere near the park and it made a big difference to my quarantine life.
Part 2, People whom I love It was my friend Loren, who is another student worker in the office, and she suggested going to a park in Brooklyn with other students. The day I spent time with them was the best day in a while, and for the first time in three months I met people in person. We’ve been hanging out every weekend since then, and gone through a lot together. In the summer, we visited all kinds of beaches so much that we got sunburns, and in the fall, we wandered around in New York to look for foliage and went on a journey to Vermont. They became my best friends and if we regard some people who stand by us when we are having difficult times as family, then I would want to call them family. We have never been apart in joy and sorrow. How would my life have changed if I had turned down her very first invitation? I just don’t even want to imagine how it would have been different without them. I didn’t even expect I could have true friends here as well. Not until I met them, could I find the missing puzzle. Making this city worth living in was the people I became close to. They made my days, showed a new world to me and of course helped me improve my English skills too! The more being with them, the more I fell in love for New York. If I were to go back to my country and try to remember how living in New York was, I would think of the nights we stayed all up, the subway where we talked, the roads we walked together and my friends’ faces. I’ll never regret not going back to Korea when the pandemic hit. In a nutshell, pay attention to the people around you when you are in hard times. Who knows whether a stranger in your classroom will later become your best friend?
By Tessa, a Manhattan Language student from South Korea