A 4th of July in Orange County
(Photo by Zhang Ye, No Title)
Fast links to my Leaving-America-Journal series:
A 4th of July in Orange County
Sitting in the yard in my uncle’s house, watching the neighborhood of Yorba Linda, Orange County, California, lighting up their fireworks, turns out to be the way I spent this 4th of July. It was not how I planned to spend this 4th of July, but it is a way to spend a 4th of July that I don’t really have any major complaints. Except that this is my last 4th of July until my next 4th of July in the uncertain future. My uncle’s house in Yorba Linda is my last stop, before moving back to Taiwan for an indefinite amount of time. I flew to John Wayne Airport on the afternoon of the 4th. Catching the fireworks in the evening was an unexpected surprise for me.
The fireworks are adorable. They do not reach high, and do not go out with a big bang. But they do have a special charm, a certain cuteness that complemented the townhomes of Yorba Linda that look like a gathering of small churches funneling along the valley. Sitting on top of the hills of Yorba Linda, watching the fireworks sparkling in between the houses, is very merry.
But there is something off about the fireworks experience. There is something un-American-like about it. The neighbors next door were out on their balcony looking at the fireworks as I sat in the sunbathing chair. I threw them the usual small talk with goodwill: “how’s your 4th of July”, “I’m the nephew, nice to meet you,” “the fireworks are very cute.” The conversation never stroke. The small talks from the neighbor’s yard were refused. There were no neighborhood to watch the neighborhood fireworks. That, is un-American-like.
I have asked my uncle and aunt about the names of the neighbors. It turns out my uncle’s family and the neighbor have lived side by side with each other for 20 some years and did not know each other’s name. That, the strange unfamiliarity between my relatives and their neighbors, is un-American-like.
Of course, the neighbors are American, so are my uncle and aunt. And they are most likely all good people too. It's just that as somebody who lived in New York, who came from a place that was already there on the very first 4th of July, who lived just miles away from the ancient battlefield where the Continental Army marched and fought, whatever that is west of the Mississippi River, seems un-American-like. But America is large and vast, it is many things, and many of what it is are contradictory.
California is at the very west, so west that if you travel more west, you will fall into the ocean, not the ocean from which the Mayflower came, but the ocean across which the United States discovered strange peoples living on the other side of the stormy sea almost 200 years after the Mayflower voyage: Japanese, Chinese, Koreans, Vietnamese, Indian, and many many more. Some of those people became friends with the United States, some of those people became bitter foes, but most of them alternated between friends and foe, and among them are the Taiwanese, by whom I was raised.
So how did Americans come all the way from where it all started, to become, for me, something so un-American-like, as I watch the fireworks sparkling among the neighborhood? Metaphorically asking, of course.
I’ve lived on both sides of the coasts. I’ve been to the coast where everything started, and the coast that seems to be even newer than the New World. The coast where everything is dusty and used, and the coast where everything is clean and fresh. I think I may entitle myself to answer that question, in a metaphorical sense, of course.
Perhaps, some one hundred and seventy years ago, there was a family fleeing Europe for whatever reason they had. They heard about the New World and its abundance, and got off the boat on the Lower East Side. But what they found in the Lower East Side, was not much different from what they had in the Old World. That, people living on top of each other, and that, people calculating about the next man’s breed, is too much for the family who already went through three thousand years of that in the Old World. They decide to go west, west of the Mississippi River, to a place where history doesn't exist. This time, they are going to take something for themselves once and for all, that there will be no taking and grabbing from anyone anymore.
In 1848, as the European revolutions burst and subsided in swift succession, a new land of the new world had just been conquered by the United States on the very west side of the Americas. It was a land the United States snatched from the new born country, Mexico, who had taken it from the natives. When the family crossed the Mississippi River, they didn’t know how far west they would go nor did they hear about the barren land, California. But one generation later, California became the origin of the family. The two historical events separated on either side of the Atlantic Ocean were unrelated to each other, but the magnificent spell that is called the America has a way to vortex human ordeals with its mysterious ways.
A hundred and seventy years later, Americans had stretched their houses across the dry lands of the greater Los Angeles area. The land is vast and there are many spaces to be had. Indeed, the family who had moved from the Old World, to the Lower East Side, and west to California, never had to take anything from anybody ever, or so it seems. Everyone can have a house and a car to themselves. And the houses are low and expansive across the vast land. There is no reason to stuff as many human bodies into tall buildings where learning your next door’s custom is a matter of avoiding misunderstanding and maintaining the crumbling peace. But in Orange County, California, everybody has a share of the land they can completely call “my”, and there seems to be still more land to be spared. Culture seems to be a matter of education and refinement.
What seems un-American-like to me, also seems to be the epitome of the American Dream. Everyone seems to have gotten their cut of the pie in the abundant land. The irony is, when what is “my” is completely “my”, and what is “yours” completely “yours”, there is no reason to notice each other anymore, nor share a cheerful moment with your neighbor on the 4th of July.
Having what is “my” completely my, what is “yours” completely yours, is probably not as bad as I make it out. The modern colonial style townhouses sloping down the hills of Yorba Linda is adorable at night. But, still, if Yorba Linda is American, what is there to stop me from calling myself an American as well?
July 15st, 2023
Kado
Photo by Zhang Ye//@sh.bos.ny
The featuring photos was taken on the passing 4th of July in the Bay Area. Work has brought Zhang Ye to the Bay Area. Here is the full entry to Zhang Ye’s Instagram album.
Zhang Ye and I was supposed to meet up sometime during the 4th of July weekend, but due to miss-scheduling and flight cancellation, we ended up barely catching each other in South California. I flew to Orange County on the 4th as she flew out that same afternoon. Although we didn’t cross each other, we both caught a firework as we land.
Before I leave New York, Zhang Ye told me she believes in 緣分, and our 緣分 hasn’t exhausted yet. I also believe that someday sometime, we will see each other again at some part of the world.