What city walking experiences do you have in common with the writer? What in your experience is different from what he wrote about? What do you think of the power of serendipity to “expose our commonalities,” as he puts it?

Few days after I graduated from high school, I was in the free time to go anywhere I want. I decided to walk around the Manhattan island, on foot for once in life time. That little journey took me about two and half day. I started my walk from Manhattan side Queens middle tunnel then up the island. 

That was a long and lonely walk, but fairly interesting. Enter the richest zip code in the US. I was able to smell money in upper east area. Wealthy and attractive people were everywhere. 

Soon passed the upper east, Herlem was totally different area. Stinky, industrial street was all around Herlem. As a stranger for that neighborhood, I got yell at few times by various people. One African American mistakenly said I’m Japanese and get the F out the country, because we took all the jobs from them. One old lady who was white, walked pass me like a teens and said “ make a way, Ching”. 

For sure I didn’t take those attitudes seriously, but one things has been proved again. Manhattan is an mysterious island, all kind of people doesn’t matter with race, income, ideals were all able to get together and live kind of peaceful. Manhattan still like a melting pot, but with boundary in between each section.