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Complex Numbers #628842 added January 10, 2009 at 2:04am
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Civilization
The word "civilization" can be interpreted as "the art of living in cities."
The hotel I'm overnighting in doesn't have a fourth floor.
The elevator numbers go from SC (sub-cellar) to C to L to 2, then 3, then 5-9. I'm on the ninth floor. I'll call it the penthouse suite although it's about the size of my bedroom at home (which is to say: the size of the closet in many modern homes).
The hotel is in downtown Flushing, which is in Queens, which is in New York City. Nearby are the grounds where two World's Fairs were held - one significantly more famous than the other.
One of the great paradoxes of a city is how cramped everything is, and yet they leave room (at least, here) for wide, open spaces - after all, we've been evolving for billions of years (yes, billions; I hope I've scared all the young-earth creationists away from this blog by now) and have only had "civilization" for a paltry few thousand. I guess we haven't quite perfected the art.
The dominant local culture is of Chinese origin. Most of the shops are signed in what I assume to be Chinese characters. This hotel boasts multilingual hospitality: English, Chinese, Spanish, a few others; it appears to be owned and run by ethnic Chinese.
Perhaps there's a cultural aversion to the number four, just as many high-rises built by European-Americans skip the 13th floor. I wanted to ask at the desk about it, but didn't want to be rude or seem like a Bad American. Bad enough I wasn't thinking and put on my Serenity t-shirt for the trip - has what I sincerely hope is the actual Chinese ideograph meaning "Serenity" on it, and not "I am a Bad American."
The drink machine doesn't chill properly, and I ended up with a warm Sprite. I'm pretty sure that's a maintenance fault and not a cultural superstition.
I spent a few minutes walking around the center of town. You hear stories about how dangerous it is in a city, but who's going to fuck with a big guy in a trench coat? Nice place. Interesting shops. Starbuck's on one corner; I didn't go in.
Tomorrow - that is, later today, after I get some sleep - I'll go see my aunt. But I'm only here for one night; the only train I could catch going home leaves at 3am on Sunday morning. Turns out UVA classes restart on Monday, which explains why everything else was booked. I'll be spending tomorrow night in Penn Station and in transit.
Long weekend. Probably won't be back on until Sunday evening.
(Edited to add: after I wrote this I did remember something involving the number four in some Asian cultures and finally hit on the right Google search to confirm it. Apparently, the word for "four" is very similar to the word for "death" in at least China, and so there's a cultural aversion to it. Makes me wonder why they don't just come up with a different word for "four," but I suppose it'd be kind of difficult selling it to the over one billion speakers of some dialect of Chinese.) |
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