This is China! BLOG

The Big Apple on Ice

After I finished co-chairing the Atlas-SFI conference on “The Financial and Legal Strategies for Doing Business in China” (November 6-7, 2006), I decided to take a stroll down 42nd Street, The evening was cool, the sky overcast, the Helmsley Hotel - where the Conference had been held – had become confining. The Big Apple always beckons for a stroll down her cacaphonous streets.

How I like Manhattan! It’s probably the closest to a Chinese city I know of.There’s always so much energy in the air, and the occasional oddity to marvel at as well.

I found my marvel of the week near the New York Public Library, in the adjacent park. Loud Flamenco music was blaring from outdoor speakers near a great white tent. Insatiably curious, I made my way to the bright lights and blaring noise.

What a wonderful little universe I discovered. Hundreds of men, women and children from scores of ethnicities were skating on an outdoor ice rink. It was a frozen fount of joy. People of all ages were skating round and round in various states of ecstacy ranging from quiet contentment to exuberant, unbridled happiness. It was a happy place to be.

Still dressed in my suit (the dark, pin-striped Zhong Shan-cut one) I looked on, infected by the happiness of the skaters. It didn’t matter the skill level of the skaters - there were those who would fall down every few paces, those who were fast to spin and to pirouette, and those who kept the same pace lap after lap, as if contemplating the thickness of the ice with each shuffle - all were so clearly enjoying themselves.

Now the last time I ice skated was in University and it was an unmitigated disaster. Never picked it up again after that. And though I’m not one of those who will hold his breath during televised ice skating competitions to see if Michelle Kwan is going to fall down after she does the tripe axle with splits at the end, I do appreciate the difficulty and beauty of the diversion.

I also appreciate when people have abandoned themselves to joy. I decided to sit down at the outdoor bistro and break my fast of bagels and bottled water in New York. I wanted a cappucino. A waiter dressed in formal waiter-ware took my order; after a moment’s consideration, I decided I was hungry and decided to eat a slice of apple crumb pie as well.

It was a delicious moment there with my cappucino and pie, literally watching the world spin by me, so happy. I really felt at that moment what I would call the human dream, in which no matter where you are from and how you look and what tongue you speak with you go round on the same world as everyone else and everyone else knows that. And when you fall down, there’s someone nearby to pick you up and help you on your way.

Life is like that it seems to me: you go round, you have bad patches, you fall, you get up, dust yourself off; then, when you come round to that patch again, you’ve hopefully corrected your approach and glide right over it. Or you fall down again, but in a different way.

Filled up with cappucino, apple pie and the joy of others I set back for the return jaunt to the hotel. What a great city, I thought to myself. A great experiment in how the world itself can be at times when it feels at its best.

It’s also a city that makes a mean Apple Pie!

William Dodson
New York, New York