ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO GO TO NEW YORK CITY AT A TIME LIKE THIS?

By Mansor Puteh

I am writing this while sitting in the Greyhound bus from Boston back to New York City on 10 December, 2021, that takes five hours, using the Wi-Fi available on board while busying myself by taking photos and video along the way and looking at the scenery outside.

I remember taking the RT-PCR test on 3 December at 6.00 p.m. for my flight to New York City on 6 December. 

Unfortunately, the American government introduced a new rule to force foreign travelers to take the same test within twenty-four hours before his departure, so I had to take another test on 6 December morning, so I could get the results later at night. It was Sunday and many clinics were close but I found one in Damansara where I could take it there.

It is an unusual experience going to New York during the time of the covid-19 pandemic and Omicron variant, when no one knows what is waiting when the situation with the pandemic could change for the better or for the worse.

America had seen seven hundred thousand deaths as a result of the pandemic with Malaysia the number is around thirty thousand which is still too high.

I kept asking myself why go to New York or America at this time when the situation is fluid and also confusing with new rules and regulations imposed on a daily basis that can affect us and our state of mind? They were the normal times. I just had to because I had some matters to deal here that could not wait.

I never felt like this the time I went to New York City to enroll at a university there when I was a lot younger and had not traveled that much other than to go to Singapore, Indonesia and Australia.

But this time I didn't realize the things I had to do just to get the return ticket to go there and back. I realized afterwards how my return ticket was bad and could not be used, because I had to stop at Haneda and then switch to Narita Airport that the Japanese authorities suddenly did not allow for foreign travelers to do.

So I had to quickly get a replacement ticket that would fly me to Narita and from there catch another flight back to KLIA that cost me a bit more. 

However, when I got to New York City I realized what some of my friends had tried to warn me about the dangers about being there especially at this time proved to be wrong in some ways, once we get into the vibes of the city with me who is able to go about doing my things and meet people and to revisit the places I had been to before to bring back nice memories of the time I was there before.

I had my meeting at Columbia and gone to visit Harvard by taking a bus that crossed some states to arrive at Boston from where I went on to the city of Cambridge where Harvard is.

I know New York City and Boston quite well,  after having lived there three years and been back more than a dozen times over the years for various reasons - or not at all.

It is not very much different being in Malaysia now where we can go almost everywhere and do things we want. So it was nice for me to get a video clip a friend of mine sent from Melaka to see a small group of boys starting to group together to play sepak raga like I did when I was still living in Melaka and in Form Five and suffering a 'greenstick fracture' after falling on my right arm while trying to jump high and kick the raga ball hard.

I had traveled by land from coast to coast from Los Angeles to New York City many times and each trip took three days and three nights.

Is there is a better way to see the country than taking the bus? There is and it is by driving so we can stop anywhere we want. In the bus we are stuck with the schedule and cannot have the freedom to choose where we want to go to and be at.

America is a vast country with many time zones and with sceneries that change every few hours.

For me who is an ardent and compassionate photographer and videographer it is an exciting experience to be able to travel in this way; so from each trip I had made in America I often got six thousand photos and ten hours of video some I have used in the documentaries I produced. 

With digital photography it is virtually free to record so much data in the camera and camcorder unlike before when I had to pack twenty rolls of negative film and only got more than seven hundred photos, or with a Super8mm camera I could get a few minutes of film, all at some costs, to get the negatives and film and for processing and printing of the photos.

But this time around the experience of being in America is different; we are in the extended and confusing coronavirus or covid-19 pandemic era now with the sudden emergence of the Omicron variant that can cause traveling in this country to be somewhat restricted, as what some friends in Malaysia had warned me to expect and with winter the sun going down at four o'clock.

I am able to go anywhere I want, meet some friends who live here who I had not met in years and visit my alma mater, Columbia University but not at their apartments but in public places. 

Tomorrow I will take the Greyhound bus to go to Boston where I want to visit Harvard University before returning back to New York early next morning. This trip takes five hours and it passes through some cities including Yale University in New Haven in Connecticut.

I have been back to Columbia University and Astoria where I lived for a while, spending some time there yesterday. This place has changed a lot and I see many restaurants operated by Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, so getting halal food for me is not difficult.

There are still many people in Times Square with the theater houses showing new shows every night but with fewer seats in each hall.  

Unlike in the past when Time Square was crowded with so many foreign tourists who spoke in their languages with each other with so few local American tourists mingling amongst them. 

(Photo: Malaysian students in Boston going out for a gathering in the park in 1980.

Below: A sepak raga bulatan team showing some skills after the lockdowns in Melaka, and playing sepak raga bulatan in America with some friends in 1980 and cooking satay in Astoria Park with some friends.)