Adventure in One World
Never go to New York with less
than fifty dollars in your pocket;
you might be taken for an immi
grant. There are three ways to
travel in New York: by subway,
on a bus, or just stand in the way
of a mob of pedestrians. While I
Was in New York, I usually ended
by going in the last manner.
When I first arrived, I heard that
the United Nations Secretariat
Was sponsoring an International
Student’s Day at Lake Success,
New York. I knew that the group
Was to leave from Times Square at
ten o’clock on Tuesday, and
naturally I was interested. Thus
on Tuesday, December 21, I was
Walking down Forty-Second Street
nt about nine o’clock in the morn
ing when suddenly behind me I
beard what sounded like a Chinese
open forum rushing down on me.
Not wanting to cause any con
fusion, I ducked quietly into the
Pepsi-Cola Student Center on
Times Square. But no, here they
oame as quietly as a ladies’ bridge
club with scandals flying. By
this time I was completely lost,
and so I just joined the gang,
^hen all of them were inside the
•Pain lobby the guides shoved me
along with them into line, and we
Piarched downstairs into the Inter-
Pational Student Lounge where we
Were registered. When it came my
turn to be registered, I stepped up
to the girl at the desk; and she
asked my name. I told her. “Fine,”
ahe replied, “And where are you
from?” I tried to tell her I was
from North Carolina, but she evi-
*fontly misunderstood me. When
®he handed me my identification
card it read, “Native Country—
Tanama.” Who was I to argue?
to thirty years old, and the number
of men and women was about
equal.
Aifter we had been given a
chance to get acquainted with sev
eral of the other students, we were
divided into groups of sixteen with
a guide to conduct each of the five
groups to the subway and out to
Lake Success. The guide of my
group was a young Austrian girl
from Vienna named Eva. She was
a student in New York employed
as a guide by the U. N. Secre
tariat. She had just received her
citizenship papers the week before,
after six years of waiting. We
were all happy for her and yet
sad; for after six years she still
had no home and was satisfied just
to be able to work and live here in
the United States.
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We were all put at ease by a
fJ.N. guide who welcomed us and
Piade us feel more comfortable.
Everywhere I turned I heard a dif
ferent language being spoken by
httle groups of students. I recog
nized Spanish, German, French,
nPd Chinese in some groups; but,
ns a whole, everyone spoke Eng
lish most of the time. The students
®eemed to be from about eighteen
On the trip to Lake Success I
overheard many amazing and
amusing conversations. One Ger
man girl who had just arrived in
the United States asked the guide
something in German and he
answered in English, ‘“This coun
try is designed on the idea that all
men are created equal.” The girl
was surprised at that. On one side
of her was a Jew from Iran and
an Indian. On the other side of her
was a Negro from Nigeria and I.
I think she understood when the
guide explained his statement. One
man remarked to another, “Over
here they trust you to put your
own dime in the turnstile and to
leave money for a paper when you
pick one up. Why over here they
even let you pick out what you
want in a cafeteria. How can they
do it?”
When we arrived at Lake Suc
cess, I was really amazed. The
Or
'Jcurge vv. ureeiie, piuxca-
C , ''f social science at Catawba church for the meeting. Mr. Leon-
U. N. building was one massive
structure two stories in height,
covering many acres of ground.
One thing I did not quite under
stand though was where the name
“Lake Success” came from. A lake
had once been there, but it was
notably unsuccessful. It had dried
up. Later it was filled in, and now
the U. N. building occupies its for
mer site.
We were admitted to the build
ing, and all filed into the huge
lobby. We were then escorted into
the Security Council Conference
Room where we had seats around
a fifty foot octagonal desk. I had
hoped that I was not the only
American that had been shang
haied into the group. By this time
I realized that out of eighty stu
dents I was the only native Ameri
can. StiU nobody seemed to notice
me. I was just one of the crowd,
For though I felt out of place, I
must have looked almost normal.
I was taken out of my meditations
by the voice of M. Georges Thor-
gevsky, a Frenchman in the inter
preting division of the Secretariat,
who spoke English only when he
had to. He explained in English
that the little five-inch, oblong box
on the desk at the outside was the
simultaneous interpreter switch
board. On it was a dial with six
numbers, and by flipping the dial
we could listen to a man’s speech
being translated by interpreters
into any one of five languages
while he spoke. Then we put on
the earphones, and he lapsed into
French as we listened to him in
English on the simultaneous inter
preter. I did not learn much about
interpreting, but I surely did have
fun flipping that dial and hearing
the speech in Chinese, Russian,
Spanish, and French. For the first
few minutes of his speech every
one in the room sat playfully flip
ping his dials from language to
language. After many speeches
and demonstrations we were taken
into the Security Council Cham
bers where everyone took pictures
and explored. Some of the bolder
ones of us in the crowd sat in the
(Continued on Page 21)
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