Features
Falling in love with chaos
By Qinmiao Deng ’20
November 10, 2016
Tags features
“Welcome to New York.” It was while listening to this song that I arrived in New York, the heart of the whole world, for the very first time on Oct. 12, 2016. It was a calm night, the gentle October wind blew through the entire city, through the bright lights and through the loud noises.
When I got off of the bus on 5th Avenue, I just could not help but marvel at everything in the city— the people, the streets, the shops and even the sky—trying to find some familiarities in a place that I had never been. But I failed. New York is New York. It cannot be anything but itself, it cannot be compared to anything but itself. Even though some criticize it for being crowded, dirty and chaotic, you can never deny the charm that shines brightly from deep within the heart of the city itself.
The more days I spent in the city, the more I fell totally and completely in love with the New York nights. In my hometown of Chéngdu, the streets are pretty much quiet by midnight, but in New York, silence never falls upon the city. It is vibrant and alive 24 hours a day, seven days a week; it never stops, it never sleeps. Cars, people, lights and shops are never at rest. Every time, you walk in the streets, even at three o’clock in the morning, you can feel that everything is still alive. I will never forget standing on the highest floor of the Empire State Building and smiling in awe as lights shone brightly in the city that lay beneath me. Everything was lit up in the city, and the city in turn lights up my heart.
My sister once told me that when she felt a lot of academic pressure, she would go to the gym in her apartment building for a run at one o’clock in the morning. However, what surprised her was that there were a large number of people who were exercising at that time.
Suddenly, she felt her own pressure of being insignificant because she was not the only person who worked all the time, so she would run calmly on the treadmill, thinking positive thoughts about her life. This is New York: no matter who you are elsewhere, you are just somebody here. Everyone keeps moving nonstop. New York makes you feel small but brings countless possibilities to you as well. It is as if you can fail desperately and drastically on one street, but you can keep on walking and stage a comeback at the corner on a new street. Everyone does it.
To some extent, New York is kind of shallow because its splendid glory is not profound. It is like a giant monster, extending to all parts of the world in the most wonderful graphic design.
Many people, including New Yorkers, do not understand why New York can still maintain its identity despite its chaos and craziness. Maybe, it is because we are all New York—we are the order in the craziness, the rationality in the chaos and the promise in endless possibilities. See, New York is New York: Nobody’s and everybody’s city that never sleeps.