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Chinatown residents reminded of hardships in China they fled from when Sandy cut water and power Original article in Chinese published on November 29, 2011 via World Journal |
Superstorm Sandy’s wrath has done incalculable damage to New York City, with electricity and water supply systems cut off for as long as one full week, plunging the financial capital of the world into isolation and a sense of helplessness, and serving as a painful reminder for those denizens of the city that had once experienced such hardships on a matter of daily life in their country of origin. Among those that bore the brunt of the storm were the residents of Manhattan's Chinatown, who gritted their teeth and bore it as they climbed long flights of stairs hauling heavy pails of water or lined up in long queues for food, facing the difficult situation of no water, of no electricity and of no place where one could go to get even a morsel of food. They had no choice but to face the challenge, and laugh at themselves while doing so, commenting that it was like being thrust back to the days when they served in China’s People's Liberation Army and living conditions were truly rudimentary.
Sandy made landfall in all its fury on the evening of October 29th, plunging the city into darkness and without running water in ways that no one had expected or even dreamed of. On the 30th I drove over the Williamsburg Bridge into Manhattan, melting into the eerie silence. Moving through the traffic with nary a working stoplight filled me with a sense of foreboding. There was no joy in the air and the few people that could be seen walking on the street were hurrying along amid the gloom. Driving further, what I saw was a deserted Chinatown. The empty streets of the normally noisy and crowded neighborhood was something to behold, tranquil yet bleak and certainly a rare sight. Buildings were colorless under cover of the gray sky. I came across the first denizen out on the street, a man walking along the Bowery Street, who gave his surname as Yang and explained that he lives on the seventh floor of a Delancey Street housing project. Shrugging his shoulders, he said he had gone out to reconnoiter as there was no water or electricity at home. He asked me,”Ms. Tu, what would you say if the power is still off tomorrow?” I just looked at him as I had no answer. No one could foretell what would be in store for the next day.
Turning onto Mott Street, I saw the doors of restaurants that are normally packed with diners locked up tight as a drum. Some restaurant owners had managed to rig up some kind of lighting with candles or batteries and were doing their best to cook something up for the crowds of people waiting hopefully outside. A tourist from France held a bowl of hard earned hot wonton soup, taking it in in large mouthfuls. With his face warmed by the vapors rising from the soup’s hot surface, he said: ”I am so happy to have this bowl of hot wonton soup! It is hard to find any food as there is no power in the hotel and no open shops.” The soup sold out within two hours,and the restaurant owner shook his head when asked if he would open the restaurant the next day. He answered: ”it’s so miserable not to have any power. I don’t know how things will be tomorrow.” Apart from tourists, only the few people who went outside to see how things were going could be seen on the street. Everybody was facing uncertainty and feared for what lay ahead.
With power and water cut off and no end in sight, the federal government started to bring in and distribute supplies from the second day of November. Water and food were sent into Chinatown on military vehicles, piled onto the square at Confucius Plaza and then distributed to people waiting in endless lines that stretched out for blocks. It is hard to imagine this happening in New York City, the bastion of capitalism. A person waiting in the queue, who gave his last name as Chen and originated from China’s Liaoning province, said, ”Do you think it is like returning to the days when we were in the liberation army? It’s so horrible!” I had no answer for him, and then turned my gaze to a group of people with handbags waiting quietly and patiently for their relief supplies. It brought to mind a picture of the Russians lined up for bread on a snowy day, as depicted in a history book during my years in junior high.
Suddenly feeling frightened, I fled from the line and planned to go visit some elderly people in their apartment. I wanted to hear some stories from some of the older residents who had been living without power or water for several days. I came across a middle aged man yelling into the receiver of a phone in a telephone booth: ”My cell phone has run out of power, and I finally found a public phone after walking over twenty blocks, to tell you I am safe.” I stopped by to chat with him, knowing that the man, who gave his surname as Liu, had not been able to contact his family for many days because of the power shutdown. He had walked from the Lower East Side all the way uptown to the section of the city that still had power, somewhere above 34th street. He said:“My situation is certainly not the worst. What is really worrying is what this is doing to the elderly.” I looked at him dubiously, said my goodbye and continued towards my destination.
The office of the BRC Senior Nutrition Program at 30 Delancey was completely dark. Volunteers from Harvard University were busy moving about in the darkness of the building stairwell sending relief supplies door to door to every senior citizen they could find. Two middle aged women sat in the hall and told me that they were visiting nurses. When asked how they were taking care of the elderly while there was no water nor power, one of them said, ”I am already exhausted after spending three hours on four different buses to get here. Besides, I had to climb up and down nine floors more than ten times, as the person I care for needs to drink water.” I followed her, climbing up in the darkness to see the elderly person under her care.
The nurse pulled open the curtain, letting in a dull light. An elderly man in his eighties sat on wheelchair, his dark face covered with wrinkles. We exchanged greetings, before asking him how he had been faring since the power shut down. He answered slowly, “It’s merely a power cut! We have nothing to fear. Having escaped from the mainland to Taiwan, and then from Taiwan to the US, we have even had to go through periods where all we had to eat was the bark from a tree. So what’s there to be afraid of?” He inquired as to my age and where I was from. I answered that I was a 28 and from Taiwan. He added, ”You young people already complain all the time living in such an easy environment, but you don’t know what misery really is until you come face to face with imminent catastrophe.”
Having said goodbye, I groped along in the darkness down the nine stories to the hall on the ground floor. When I saw the light, I pondered his words, but didn’t know if I had fully taken in the essence of their meaning. Then, on November 3rd, power was restored to the Lower East Side. Row upon row of cheering could be heard the moment the lights came back on. Leaving the Lower East Side, I took in a deep breath, looking up at the long awaited streetlights. It just may be that, whether one lives in good circumstances or in truly poor ones, just the fact of being alive is all the matters. Because just being alive, that is in itself a kind of hope.
Sandy made landfall in all its fury on the evening of October 29th, plunging the city into darkness and without running water in ways that no one had expected or even dreamed of. On the 30th I drove over the Williamsburg Bridge into Manhattan, melting into the eerie silence. Moving through the traffic with nary a working stoplight filled me with a sense of foreboding. There was no joy in the air and the few people that could be seen walking on the street were hurrying along amid the gloom. Driving further, what I saw was a deserted Chinatown. The empty streets of the normally noisy and crowded neighborhood was something to behold, tranquil yet bleak and certainly a rare sight. Buildings were colorless under cover of the gray sky. I came across the first denizen out on the street, a man walking along the Bowery Street, who gave his surname as Yang and explained that he lives on the seventh floor of a Delancey Street housing project. Shrugging his shoulders, he said he had gone out to reconnoiter as there was no water or electricity at home. He asked me,”Ms. Tu, what would you say if the power is still off tomorrow?” I just looked at him as I had no answer. No one could foretell what would be in store for the next day.
Turning onto Mott Street, I saw the doors of restaurants that are normally packed with diners locked up tight as a drum. Some restaurant owners had managed to rig up some kind of lighting with candles or batteries and were doing their best to cook something up for the crowds of people waiting hopefully outside. A tourist from France held a bowl of hard earned hot wonton soup, taking it in in large mouthfuls. With his face warmed by the vapors rising from the soup’s hot surface, he said: ”I am so happy to have this bowl of hot wonton soup! It is hard to find any food as there is no power in the hotel and no open shops.” The soup sold out within two hours,and the restaurant owner shook his head when asked if he would open the restaurant the next day. He answered: ”it’s so miserable not to have any power. I don’t know how things will be tomorrow.” Apart from tourists, only the few people who went outside to see how things were going could be seen on the street. Everybody was facing uncertainty and feared for what lay ahead.
With power and water cut off and no end in sight, the federal government started to bring in and distribute supplies from the second day of November. Water and food were sent into Chinatown on military vehicles, piled onto the square at Confucius Plaza and then distributed to people waiting in endless lines that stretched out for blocks. It is hard to imagine this happening in New York City, the bastion of capitalism. A person waiting in the queue, who gave his last name as Chen and originated from China’s Liaoning province, said, ”Do you think it is like returning to the days when we were in the liberation army? It’s so horrible!” I had no answer for him, and then turned my gaze to a group of people with handbags waiting quietly and patiently for their relief supplies. It brought to mind a picture of the Russians lined up for bread on a snowy day, as depicted in a history book during my years in junior high.
Suddenly feeling frightened, I fled from the line and planned to go visit some elderly people in their apartment. I wanted to hear some stories from some of the older residents who had been living without power or water for several days. I came across a middle aged man yelling into the receiver of a phone in a telephone booth: ”My cell phone has run out of power, and I finally found a public phone after walking over twenty blocks, to tell you I am safe.” I stopped by to chat with him, knowing that the man, who gave his surname as Liu, had not been able to contact his family for many days because of the power shutdown. He had walked from the Lower East Side all the way uptown to the section of the city that still had power, somewhere above 34th street. He said:“My situation is certainly not the worst. What is really worrying is what this is doing to the elderly.” I looked at him dubiously, said my goodbye and continued towards my destination.
The office of the BRC Senior Nutrition Program at 30 Delancey was completely dark. Volunteers from Harvard University were busy moving about in the darkness of the building stairwell sending relief supplies door to door to every senior citizen they could find. Two middle aged women sat in the hall and told me that they were visiting nurses. When asked how they were taking care of the elderly while there was no water nor power, one of them said, ”I am already exhausted after spending three hours on four different buses to get here. Besides, I had to climb up and down nine floors more than ten times, as the person I care for needs to drink water.” I followed her, climbing up in the darkness to see the elderly person under her care.
The nurse pulled open the curtain, letting in a dull light. An elderly man in his eighties sat on wheelchair, his dark face covered with wrinkles. We exchanged greetings, before asking him how he had been faring since the power shut down. He answered slowly, “It’s merely a power cut! We have nothing to fear. Having escaped from the mainland to Taiwan, and then from Taiwan to the US, we have even had to go through periods where all we had to eat was the bark from a tree. So what’s there to be afraid of?” He inquired as to my age and where I was from. I answered that I was a 28 and from Taiwan. He added, ”You young people already complain all the time living in such an easy environment, but you don’t know what misery really is until you come face to face with imminent catastrophe.”
Having said goodbye, I groped along in the darkness down the nine stories to the hall on the ground floor. When I saw the light, I pondered his words, but didn’t know if I had fully taken in the essence of their meaning. Then, on November 3rd, power was restored to the Lower East Side. Row upon row of cheering could be heard the moment the lights came back on. Leaving the Lower East Side, I took in a deep breath, looking up at the long awaited streetlights. It just may be that, whether one lives in good circumstances or in truly poor ones, just the fact of being alive is all the matters. Because just being alive, that is in itself a kind of hope.
