America, Cutting Back

So now in America we are in the midst of a full-on economic (and political) crisis. The failure of Wall Street and our financial system has been compared to that of a third-world country, the kind that have to get bailed out by the World Bank and IMF. I've heard that many retirees have already had their 401K's and savings cut 20%.

Given the high, and increasing, cost of living in the United States, I think we might start having to ask the kinds of questions, and making the kinds of sacrifices, that they make in other less-rich parts of the world. Maybe not the kinds they make in Peru, where they put their children to work collecting scrap metal out of trash heaps. But maybe the kinds they make in Korea, where my family is from.

For instance: living with your extended family. My grandmother lives with one of my aunts in Seoul, and all of her children help take care of her. I saw a news report recently that says an increasing amount of elderly in America can't afford to live on their own and are moving in with adult children. I think this kind of sacrifice is probably a good thing. Americans don't honor their family obligations nearly as much as either Koreans or Peruvians, and I think not having the money to live on our own might force us to deal with family relationships that have long been strained or just inactive. (I think a big part of the problem is that we move out of our parents' house at age 18, so our relationships with our parents remain frozen in an adolescent, rebellious-teenager state.)

Another possible sacrifice (for those not doing so already) might be living in an apartment instead of a house, and taking public transport instead of driving your own car. This will be a tough transition since so many of our cities are built around cars and sprawl. In Korea they've built massive condo towers throughout Seoul and other cities which allow millions to live in modern, comfortable, affordable units and either drive or take their excellent subway system.

I wonder if we'll also see some emigration. The US has already seen immigration drop off and some immigrants have even returned to their home countries as a result of the bad economy. Despite South Korea's economic success, competition for schools and jobs is still fierce, and many young people move abroad for better job opportunities. Might we start seeing more Americans work abroad during the coming recession, where economies are growing and the cost of living is lower?

America is over two generations removed from the Great Depression; South Korea is only about one generation removed from poverty, and accordingly South Koreans still work incredibly hard to avoid falling back into it. (You pretty much miss out on your youth in South Korea; when my cousins were in high school they went to class around 7am-4pm and to "cram school" from 5-10pm.) Hopefully America won't quite go to that extreme, but we can probably no longer assume that we'll be more successful than our parents without even trying.

Disasters and their consequences

Well, here I am, seven years after 9/11, five years after the Great Blackout of 2003, one year after traveling to the earthquake zone around Chincha, Peru, and once again in the midst of a disaster zone: Houston after Hurricane Ike.

I've been living in Sugar Land, just southwest of Houston, all summer. I've been job-hunting and planning on moving to either the East or West coast. However, a variety of factors has kept me here longer than anticipated. I'm beginning to suspect that one of them is that God intends for me to experience as many different kinds of disasters as possible. I have to say, as much pain and stress as they entail, I've learned a lot and may even be grateful for each disaster I've experienced.

I think 9/11, as I've shared below, gave me a framework to understand suffering and tragedy, and the possible redemptive effects of it. It also gave me a sense of what's really important in life at an early age, when my friendships were not yet very deep and my aspirations were vague and directionless.

The blackout in New York City showed me the resilience of New Yorkers, a people who after all had the perspective of having been through a terrorist attack. Work and busy schedules ceased, people held block parties and took in their neighbors. Hotel patrons locked outside of their rooms (the downside of electronic keycards) actually slept outside on the steps or sidewalks of New York and passed the night in safety. Everyone took a break from their TVs and laptops and engage in old-fashioned pastimes like conversation by candlelight or board games.

The earthquake in Peru, the only disaster in which I was an aid worker/reporter and not a resident, was more like a bird's-eye view of what disaster does to the have-nots. I learned that millions of dollars in aid don't do much good if they're stolen or distributed inefficiently. I saw that the real problem was not the earthquake event itself, but the poverty and exclusion which led people to build their homes out of mud in shantytowns in the first place (which of course promptly fell down in the quake while more expensive brick and concrete structures survived). Over a year later, most of their neighborhoods have not been rebuilt; both a cause and an effect is that these people have hardly any voice in the political process. I learned, as we saw in our own country from Katrina, that the poor do not have many resources with which to build their lives, and therefore are forgotten more quickly and suffer more profoundly than the rich.

Now, in a large and fairly prosperous American city which has been hit by a hurricane, I am learning the limitations of our very lifestyle. After 9/11 or the blackout, the solution was to go back to living our normal lives as soon as possible. Now, in light of energy crises and economic crises, I'm not sure how sustainable that is. In the capital of oil, we are suffering gas shortages. In a city built around cars and sprawl, we are experiencing the disadvantages of scale. With our infrastructure down, and electricity being restored agonizingly slowly, one wonders whether we have the money or political will for the major overhaul our infrastructure needs. Over time I'm sure Houston will be able to repair most of the damage. But what if hurricanes start hitting Houston more frequently? New Orleans is still not the same three years later; what will happen to Houston after a few more Ikes or Katrinas? Maybe I'm being pessimistic, but I think we may all start to feel a little more vulnerable and less self-sufficient from now on. (I write these lines from the house of a friend from my parents' church, who has generously taken us in until our power is back on.)

All in all, there is much that we can take from disasters. I hope we don't become so afraid of them, or caught up in just their economic costs, that we fail to recognize the obvious implications: that we are not in control of our own destinies, much as we would like to believe we are, and that we have to support each other (which requires forming actual relationships with our neighbors instead of holing up in our own homes and lives) sooner or later in this unpredictable world.

Hurricane Ike struck late Friday night (Sept. 12). This map refers to power restored by this Friday (Sept. 19), Monday (Sept. 22), or even later. My neighborhood is in Fort Bend County, in the "by Monday" category.

Remembering 9/11

A pause to commemorate the seventh anniversary of September 11, 2001.

I was in Brooklyn that day, staying with my sister not long after graduating from NYU, and looking for a job in the midst of the Dotcom crash. My sister lived in Williamsburg, a trendy warehouse district right across the East River from Lower Manhattan. Looking down Metropolitan Avenue, the main cross-street near her apartment, one had a stark, clear view of the World Trade Center while walking to and from the subway. The two towers were beautiful in their simplicity, especially lit up at night. They were the mountains of our concrete jungle, our clearest tallest landmarks in the city.

My sister had already left for her job in the city that morning. I got up a little later and walked up Union Ave to the subway, hoping to head into Manhattan to do some job research at NYU. I was surprised to find police tape across all of the subway entrances. The New York City subway never shuts down, much less at the start of a weekday. It was a busy station, and a few other riders were milling around, similarly puzzled.

I decided to walk about 12 minutes to the next subway stop to see if that was open. At that point, walking west toward the city, I looked up and saw the World Trade Center, only instead of the usual two towers, there was only one tower standing, pouring smoke. I literally didn't comprehend what I was seeing. It didn't even occur to me to be afraid; I was just confused. It must be an optical illusion, I decided. Some chimney in Brooklyn is pouring smoke, and there's some logical explanation for why I can't see the second tower.

When I got to the Lorimer St. stop, which is the last stop in Brooklyn before going under the East River into Manhattan, and saw that it too was closed, I finally began to suspect something was wrong. At this point, probably about 9:30am, everyone on the street was still acting perfectly normally, not realizing what was happening across the river. I decided to hang out for a while until I could figure out what was going on. I went into a shop to look for something to eat.

The shop, a typical hole in the wall selling newspapers and cigarettes, was empty. The radio was on high volume, and the shopkeeper was immobile. The broadcaster on the radio was having a nervous breakdown. "Lower Manhattan is in ruins!" is all I remember hearing clearly. From the description it sounded like an atomic bomb had detonated.

Still confused, I went outside to look at the World Trade Center again, and this time nothing was there but an enormous column of smoke. It was finally sinking in that something terrible had happened, yet many walking along Lorimer were still oblivious to what was going on, making the whole experience even more surreal. I started to walk back to my sister's apartment, understanding at least that I was not going to get a subway into Manhattan, and I started to pass some old-timers sitting outside on their stoops, also with their radios turned up, and heard more broadcasters' unnervingly distraught voices as I walked by. The people on their stoops, like the shopkeeper, were not crying or talking; they were just sitting and listening, not moving. I realize in retrospect they must have been in shock and disbelief, as I was.

I also remember wondering to myself as I walked, if some end-of-the-world disaster had happened, why aren't I upset or crying? I had never been through any major tragedy, and probably like so many of my generation, found it hard to relate to or feel anything when disasters occurred in other parts of the world. I would remember this later as a trait of my pre-9/11 self.

When I got home I discovered our TV wasn't working. The World Trade Center, aside from being a huge office complex with a rooftop restaurant and observation deck and a mall in the basement, was also the largest antenna and TV/cellphone tower in Manhattan. Consequently no one's cellphone was working, and most of the TV broadcast signals were out. We were only getting reception on one channel, CBS, grainy but a lifeline of information. My sister arrived home in the afternoon, cranky after having sat in a parked subway car under the East River for a few hours with no explanation of what had happened, then having to walk several hours home across the Williamsburg Bridge. She seemed to think what had happened was a small-scale bomb or threat. When the scale of the bloodshed became clear, and the news unceasingly grim, she opted to leave town with some friends for a few days. It was interesting to see how people reacted; some had to get out of New York right away, and others had to come closer to Ground Zero to help or just express their solidarity, even if it meant driving for hundreds of miles.

As for me, I couldn't tear myself away from the news. I sat and watched TV morning to night, with few breaks, for two weeks solid (no one was hiring anyway). I saw every familiar anchor, from Peter Jennings to the local TV weatherman, covered in ashes with tears streaming down their faces. They played the footage of the planes plowing into those towers over and over again. Later they stopped, realizing they were causing millions of people to be traumatized, but I think we needed to watch it again and again before we could believe what had happened. My friends and I were emailing each other to make sure we were alright. Some of them, living in one of the NYU dorms down in the Financial District, were not allowed to go home for a few months. NYU put them up in hotels and gave them money to buy new clothes. Some had seen the planes fly into the buildings from close range.

As soon as they began lifting restrictions and allowing people below 14th Street, I went into the city to walk around the NYU area, my old home. New York City had become a no-fly zone, but the occasional roar of military jets overhead kept us on edge. Also, less than two miles north of Ground Zero, there was a strange smell hanging in the air, which was some strange putrid burnt chemical smell. The air felt thick and unclean to breathe. The smell lasted for weeks.

First I walked around Union Square, which had become an impromptu shrine and gathering place. The sidewalks were covered with candles, flowers, and missing persons signs. The signs were the worst: smiling pictures of beloved fathers and mothers, brothers and sons, sisters and fiances. There were also signs pleading for peace, despite what had happened. Our hearts were broken, and we couldn't stand the thought of more death.

It must have been at least a month after 9/11 when the perimeter of Ground Zero was opened up again to foot traffic. As you got closer to Ground Zero, all of the awnings and windows facing the explosion, many stories high, were covered with a fine ash. It looked like a dirty, gray snowfall had covered the city. The sight of the ruins was something I'll never forget, and no tribute they build will ever do justice to it. To witness "The Pile", a smoking metal inferno of twisted steel beams shooting about fifteen stories into the air, was like witnessing the gates of hell. But at the same time it was like being on hallowed ground; everyone was silent, many tearful, unable to forget the thousands of ordinary New Yorkers who were buried in unrecognizable form, somewhere in that gnarled mess. Those missing persons signs were still up on every corner, reminding us what their faces looked like.

It didn't take me long to realize some things had changed inside of me. For one thing, I had never clenched my jaw or ground my teeth before 9/11. Afterward I did both, probably an unconscious reaction to the stress and fear of our new reality, and had some dental issues because of it. Also, that detachment I had observed in myself on the morning of 9/11 had vanished. To this day, a mere mention or photographic image of 9/11 is enough to start the tears (and those who know me know I'm not a cryer). The grief we went through as a city, as well as the depths of love and compassion we experienced from the rest of the world, was an emotional experience we could never forget.

For those of us in New York City, I think for almost a full year we couldn't believe it, and took every opportunity to talk about it. I'm pretty sure that millions of us were suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. During a coffee break, on the subway, socializing after work, we would ask each other, "Where were you on 9/11?" and mulled over every detail. As anyone who's lived in New York knows, having total strangers open up to each other like this was unprecedented. I'm convinced we were all just trying to process, and comprehend, the incomprehensible. I remember my pastor Tim Keller summing up how everyone felt when he said, "After 9/11, things I was certain could never happen are now entirely possible." The world was turned on its head. I kept looking up at the Empire State Building to make sure it was still there, and knew that my own little life could be snuffed out at any moment.

As the years passed, some New Yorkers moved away and others moved in, and bit by bit that sense of camaraderie, that sharing in suffering, began to fade. After holding our breath for the next attack for so long, we began to allow ourselves to go "back to normal" when it didn't happen. But the city had changed. As cheesy as it sounds, a lot of us really did reevaluate our priorities. Many found solace in faith; my own church and many others swelled overnight. We all learned how vulnerable, and how strong, we could be. To quote my pastor again, the best narrative for what had happened was not a narrative of retaliation and revenge, but of resurrection; the belief that the tragedy would not bring the city to a halt but rather could make the city a better place. (See his five-year anniversary message, delivered to victims' families and President Bush, here.)