“So how do you like living in New York?”
I’ve been getting this question a lot, and it took me a while to collect my thoughts. It also wasn’t until the past week or so that living here has begun to feel permanent — that it’s begun to sink in that I’m here to stay, at least for the coming two years.
Let me preface this by saying that I’m one of the few people who doesn’t have a highly romanticized view of New York City. I never really have. Before I visited for the first time in the summer of 2005, I always wanted to go, to see the city for myself rather than just knowing it from movies, but I never pictured myself living here. I’ve met a ton of people over the years whose dream is to live and work here, but that was never me. Even after studying graphic design and learning that in order to be an influential designer who gets to work on the most exciting projects, one needs to live in New York City or Los Angeles, or possibly San Francisco or Chicago, I never expected to end up here. I didn’t really even want to, mainly because I’m very concerned about personal safety, and I didn’t want to live someplace I wouldn’t feel safe.
One of the reasons that I ended up making my peace with it is because I felt, “Well, if I can’t be in Tokyo, New York City is one of the most similar places.” But the comparison between Tokyo and New York ended up becoming a trap that’s made it difficult for me to like it here. I realized very quickly that though they do share a lot of similarities, the cultures of the two cities are vastly different, and in any comparison between those, the culture of New York is found wanting.
Here are some examples of things in New York that I dislike:
- Crime is a real concern, especially as a single white female; it’s not safe out after dark
- It’s always noisy
- It always smells like trash in the streets, especially during the summer
- Stairwells leading down to subway stations always smell like urine
Take pretty much any of those, take its opposite, and that’s what it’s like in Tokyo.
What really gets me about New York, though, that’s the real deal-breaker is the people. I’m not even talking about criminals; I’m talking about your average New Yorker. On the whole, they are angry, they are rude, and they are incredibly inconsiderate.
Here are some examples of New Yorkers’ behaviors that never cease to try my patience:
- They will go through the emergency doors at the subway exits, which produce a blaring loud siren for about a minute, just because they are too lazy to go through the turnstile gates (or perhaps even because they know it will annoy anyone in earshot)
- They will stand directly in front of the doors of a subway train while waiting for them to open so they can get on, without leaving room for others to get off the train first
- They will listen to their music on their headphones so loudly pretty much anyone in their half of the subway car gets to suffer along with them
Again, none of these things would ever occur in Tokyo. In fact, people would probably be ostracized for that manner of inconsiderate behavior. On many occasions, I’m forced to wonder how people could breed a culture that’s so rude. How could people’s parents permit them to end up this way?
Of course, there’s benefits to living here; there’s a lot to do, in fact, most of the time, there’s too much to do. Almost every weekend, I can name at least three conferences on subjects that interest me, and a variety of concerts and events that I could attend if I were a little bit more comfortable with my income. And it is, of course, an ideal place to be in terms of networking and finding business opportunities. Also, as much as everyone loves to harp on the MTA, it’s still nice to be in a city that has a public transportation system that works most of the time.
But overall, to me, the benefits of being in New York don’t outweigh the drawbacks. I feel like, the longer you live here, the angrier you become, thus perpetuating this vicious cycle of New Yorkers being rude and angry people. And for this reason, I can’t picture myself living here beyond the two years I’m here for grad school. I don’t want to be an angry person.