Liangliang and The Tale of Two Cities

Next week Liangliang will go back to Beijing for the whole summer. Very much excited, she is planning a lot of things to do in Beijing. By splitting her time between New York and Beijing she leads a life of, in Charles Dichens' words, The Tale of Two Cities.

 

Maybe we all are yearning to travel back and forth. Life is elsewhere (for whomever read this book I will buy dinner). I guess people in New York are especially prone to such urge. After all, most of us came here to search for a different life in the first place. In Le Petit Prince, the Little Prince saw trains passing in front of him one after another from different directions. In the end he concluded that only children know what they are looking for. The rest of us, in his eyes, are not as lucky. 

 

But Saint-Exupery wrote this story when he traveled to New York because of the war in European continent. The book was published in 1943 in New York. Incidentally the bookstore helped him to publish this book located right in Rockefeller Center. I didn't know this until the owner closed it last year. I was only able to catch a glimpse to its inside from the window. The writer returned to Europe later. He Like Liangliang and us,  wanted to go after life elsewhere. New York is as much a destination as a new starting line.

 

Then we have J.D. Salinger, a New York native. For a while he lived in an apartment on East side several blocks away from where I work. From there he moved to New Hampshire and lived in recluse till his death. He gained his fame through his well-known tale staged in New York City. His eccentricity is puzzling. While another native New Yorker, Woody Allen, basically crystallized his deep love and admiration for New York City in movie "Manhattan". To him the only cultural advantage of Los Angels (hence the rest of the world) is one can "make a right turn on a red light". In his seventies he still plays clarinet in a Jazz band every Monday in Carlyle Hotel. Amazing. Nonetheless, in recent years he has been making movies in London, Barcelona and Paris. Sooner or later we grow out of New York City.

 

So does Liangliang. The spring term ends, along with her many Manhattan shopping sprees and late night parties. When she comes back in fall, she will tell us her version of The Tale of Two Cities. I am sure it will be fancinating.