虹在天涯 在寂寞行星的浪跡

Autumn in New York
紐約的秋天

originally written in November 2000
原寫於2000年11月

Now I call myself a New Yorker.

It's been exactly 2 months after I started this new position in Brooklyn. This institute is not as famous or in glamorous locations like New York University and Columbia University. but this place is smaller and thus more intimate. It is also not as competitive and workaholic like in Harvard, where I went to school a few years back.

I moved to New York at the beginning of autumn, so I barely escaped the horrifying heat of summer. Unfortunately, due to the extremely high rental cost in New York, I still don't really have my own place at this moment. I slept at my friend's sofa coach for three weeks before I settled in the attic of a Chinese guest house in Flushing (a district full of Asian immigrants in the borough of Queen's, it's half an hour's subway ride from Manhattan). The owners are from China. Residents on other floors change on daily basis but there are always so many people in this house. I think I will move very soon. Since buying an apartment of my own may be cheaper than renting one, I am shopping for my first real estate property these days.

My job hasn't got too stressful yet. I have read a lot of background information and papers in this field. However, I do have some problems to start my own research project. Long commuting from Flushing to Brooklyn (70 to 100 minutes) also wears me out often. I do have a lot of chance to enjoy the ever-changing scenes of New York. The very talked about "World/Subway Baseball Series" (both teams in the final are from NYC) was over almost one month ago, but I still remember how people in this city were crazy about it. I also went to the Halloween Parade on the last night of October, watching a lot skeletal puppets wandering on the 6th Avenue. There were also some small film festivals I went to. All the festivals had opening receptions, which served a lot of free cocktails.... Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get in the really glamorous ones.

A movie really impressed me is Taiwanese director, Edward Yang's "Yi-Yi". I couldn't believe that it cannot find a distributor back home in Taiwan (but got one in New York). It is a really great movie. The family in the film lives just a few blocks from my parents' apartment and the kid in the movie even goes to Long-Ann Elementary School (the same as I), so I feel extremely intimate about it. It is very long (3 hours) but really warm your hearts. In fact, I think it is better than the Oscar winning "American Beauty". Too bad that Taiwanese moviegoers cannot see this movie anytime soon.

After a Thanksgiving break in New Orleans, I'm back to work again. Though it is officially still autumn now, I feel it is really like winter. The Christmas is approaching, so I will see a shopping frenzy in this city. The huge Christmas tree will be lit up at Rockefeller Center and Christmas carols will be sung everywhere. For the first time, I will celebrate Christmas in my favorite city in the world.

After a long and harsh year, this should be a good way to conclude a millennium.