for MoroccoEnglish.com
What do you think this is going to be about? There surely is action almost everywhere in the US. I have experienced, however, that when you compare country life in small boroughs in Mississippi or Tennessee, for instance, to life in urban giant cities such as Chicago or New York the point will appear much clearer. The impact of great cities of the US is felt everywhere inside as well as outside the country. Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York” is a great illustration of the action I am talking about.
In “the city that doesn’t sleep”, when you want to be “top of the heap” you cannot achieve that through wishes or day dreams. You cannot just wake up to find yourself “King of the hill” or “top of the list”. When you really “want to be part of it”, there is only one way that could be achieved; through focused, sustained and intelligent hard work.
The New York I experienced in 1977 was on a tour bus that took us (International exchange students) through the city to see its most remarkable landmarks such as (listed randomly): The empire State Building, Fifth Avenue, Union Square, Madison Square Garden, Central Park, China Town, Harlem, The world Trade Center and places we had more time to explore such as the United Nations and at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Visiting New York can be very challenging and motivating, as young exchange students we were advised and encouraged to visit places as groups and not to stray away anywhere beyond 7:00 pm. Walking between giant sky scrapers referred to as “great man-made canyons” makes you feel so tiny in a powerful and dominating environment. People are dwarfed by these out of the usual surroundings but when one thinks of Plato’s “The hand is the tool of tools and the mind is the form of forms” and when you consider people’s ambitions and aspirations and you find out that “the sky is the limit” then your self-confidence is sooner restored and the Man in you soars above the tallest of buildings.
Being a teacher, I think that great cities such as New York are most suitable when talking of “superlatives” both in the positive as well as in the negative sense. It can be the most dynamic, the most powerful, the most populated, the richest, the busiest, the fastest to mention just a few and on the other hand you can start your own list with the least again in the positive as well as in the negative sense.
A lot of people think of New York as a “jungle of steel and cement” but that is not particularly true, there are lots of green areas inside this city the biggest of which is Central Park. This extremely huge park helps providing the city with better air quality. It is a haven from the hustle and bustle of city life and a place for enjoying good and relaxing moments for the city inhabitants and visitors.
In 2005, I had another opportunity to visit New York. Though I did not spend much time there, it was an opportunity for me to get “a feel” of the city in the twenty first century. This time round I visited certain places I listed earlier but not from a tour bus. Armed with our maps (Moroccan colleagues), we indulged in a thorough exploration and discovery of Manhattan Island.
The most interesting sites we visited were Central Park, Madison square garden, Union square, China town and plenty of interesting streets where street vendors from different backgrounds and cultures exhibited their products. At Lafayette Street, for instance, the products ranged from food to handcrafts and in a different street elaborate works of Art were exhibited.
In the city that never sleeps, one had better see for himself what it is like by night. The most spectacular scenes were at Times Square with all its neon technology of advertising and at Broadway where we had a chance to watch the “Beauty and the beast” show. At many levels, the show was a very rewarding cultural and educational experience.
The next day, our exploration of the city culminated with a very informative and enriching visit to the United Nations where we had a glimpse of how the UN operates to promote peace, solidarity and stability in the world. The cosmopolitan character of New York is a great example of co-existence between Western and Eastern cultures and ways of life despite the fierce competition to do better and to be “Head of the heap”.
Action in New York is limitless; it is there in fields of knowledge, Culture, sports, research, innovation, business and politics. The hasty pace of life makes anybody who would like “to be part of it” to budget their time very efficiently to be able to get in the swing of events and follow the merciless flow. To conclude, I had better refer back to Frank Sinatra’s song “New York, New York” as an eloquent illustration of action in those places “where the action is”.
Mohamed El Hassan
Abou El Fadel is currently teaching English in Inezgane, Morocco. He was an American field service exchange student in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1976-1977. In 2002, he received a national award from the Ministry of National Education for his work “Spelling Championship for Non-native Speakers” In 2004, he taught at Morristown Junior-Senior high school in Indiana as a Fulbright exchange teacher. The town council awarded him the key to Morristown at the end of his teaching experience. In 2005, he took part in the partnership for learning program at the University of Delaware as a teacher trainer. At present, he is writing his “Cultural Journals” as part of his educational experience in the US and co-writing Functional Arabic with Professor Larbi Oukada.
Morocco World News
