Personal Background: I was born and grew up in a second-tier city in China. Come to the United States for the Model United Nations Conference in the winter of 2013. I was 16, and it was my first time abroad.
• The smell of coffee and cheese is everywhere. The airport, the hotel where I stayed, the hotel where the conference was held all smelled of the distinctive sweet and bitter coffee. It was a bit strange for me at first, but then I started to like it. (Most Chinese, including me, don't drink much coffee and cheese.) The donuts are so good.
• Infrastructure, including airports, subways, roads, traffic lights, etc., is poorly maintained and dilapidated. I remember seeing one of the subways built in the late 1800s. That would explain it. (According to Wikipedia, Boston's first subway was built in 1897 and Beijing's in 1969.)
• There are so many mentally ill and homeless people on the streets that it really scares me. Every day I see one or two homeless people talking to themselves or swearing randomly.
• The ladies of Wall Street are no joke. I saw a lady in a dress and suit on a snowy winter day, and I was wearing a Canada goose. She looks thin, but she looks strong to me.
• Pedestrian traffic lights are not green, but white. It's confusing to me.
•行人交通灯不是绿色的，而是白色的。这让我很困惑。
• Lots of squirrels and birds. They're not afraid of people.
•很多松鼠和鸟，他们不怕人。
• Seagulls fly around the city. This may not come as a shock at all to people who live near the sea, but it was a shock to me. I live in the middle of China.
• The streets of New York are actually quite narrow, especially Wall Street.
•纽约的街道实际上相当狭窄，尤其是华尔街。
• Urban cemeteries. It was a huge culture shock for me because Chinese people are a bit afraid to walk through a cemetery, let alone live next to one.
•城市墓地。这对我来说是一个巨大的文化冲击，因为中国人有点害怕走过墓地，更不用说住在墓地旁边了。
• This trip to New York and the East Coast almost made me not want to live there. So I went to college in California. I'm sorry if that offended anyone who liked it there. It's just a personal preference.
Difference does not mean that one place or culture is better or worse than another, but different is different.
差异并不意味着一个地方或文化比另一个地方或文化更好或更差，但不同就是不同。
中国网友朴文杰的回答
You don't really want to know!
你不会真的想知道的!
Here's what I've heard from clients:
以下是我从客户那里得到的评价:
1. Wow, I thought New York was a very prosperous city, but it turned out to be a nothing city.
1. 哇，我以为纽约是一个非常繁荣的城市，结果却变成了一个一无是处的城市。
2. I thought New York would improve a lot, but I am shocked that it is so far behind, let alone compared to our big cities Shanghai and Beijing.
2. 我以为纽约会进步很多，但我很震惊它竟然如此落后，更不用说和我们的大城市上海和北京相比了。
3. Most stores in New York are supposed to be posh, but I haven't seen one that can be called posh.
3. 纽约的大多数商店都应该很豪华，但我还没有看到一家能称得上豪华的。
4. The designer stores are dead and most of the customers are Chinese. Wonder where the New York shoppers are?
4. 名牌商店死气沉沉，大多数顾客都是中国人，想知道纽约的购物者在哪里?
These are just a few.
这些只是少数。
Open your eyes, travel to China, and tell me what shocked you when you first visited Shanghai or Beijing. Sitting at the bottom of a well will only show you so much.
First I landed at Kennedy Airport, looked outside, and just wanted to hop on a plane and go back. Where the hell am I? That's not even the half of it. I was put on a small windowless bus in front of the famous Central Station. I don't know where I can stand. It was unbelievably dirty. I looked up and down the street and what the hell was all I could see.
And then the streets are toonarrow. But it's still okay for tourists.
然后就是街道太窄了。但这对游客来说还是可以的。
The stink at the bus stop was the first shock. This is incredible in China's big cities. But then I found the same thing in Washington, DC, near the White House. I made an excuse for those cities that the people were probably not highly educated and mostly homeless. Until I smelled the same thing at a bus stop in front of Harvard.....
3. Times Square is small and shabby. I wonder why it is so famous. Compared to Orlando and Miami, New York is not my cup of tea.
3.时代广场又小又破旧，我不知道它为什么那么有名?与奥兰多、迈阿密相比，纽约不是我的菜。
Americans really need to spend some money on infrastructure. Residents deserve a better living environment. It's not for tourists, it's not for the Wall Street elite, it's for local residents.
So many myths about New York, and now I realize they're all lies.
太多关于纽约的传说，现在我发现传说都是谎言。
美国网友戴维•潘的回答
I was born and raised in New York and moved to Los Angeles more than 50 years ago. As much as I miss New York's ubiquitous classical music, ethnic restaurants and grocery stores, I'm happier and less stressed in the pleasant climate and easy-going atmosphere of life in the coastal suburbs of Los Angeles, plus the excellent modern public transportation in Los Angeles and the health care at UCLA for 86 years now.
You are right, especially about New York's antiquated subway, poor facilities for the disabled, and elevators that often don't or don't work. Los Angeles, by contrast, is a fully disabled accessible city, with modern bus rapid transit stations and ubiquitous disabled transportation services. However, our homelessness problem is so bad that local and state governments seem unwilling or unable to address it because civil rights limit who should be institutionalized. This is unique to our West Coast cities and New York. I don't know if this is political incompetence or "poverty problem."
Years later I visited friends who lived on Long Island and visited New York.
多年后我拜访了住在长岛的朋友，还游览了纽约。
When I first arrived at his apartment, I saw some rats around the trash can near his apartment.
当我第一次到达他的公寓时，我看到他公寓附近的垃圾桶周围有一些老鼠。
It shocked me, but it was on Long Island. Until I saw rats in midtown Manhattan.
这让我很震惊，但那是在长岛。直到我在曼哈顿市中心也看到了老鼠。
When we took the subway to the city center, the train was almost half an hour late without warning. I'm used to the subway always being on time, so this is unusual for me.
I wasn't at all surprised by the density of people in New York, but I was shocked by how good the Met was. If I had the chance to go to New York again, that would definitely be the place to go again.
More than once in Times Square, I came across an advertisement for Xinhua, China's official news agency. It's really shocking, and just as shocking is how bad the AD is. It showed only the red logo, which looked more like the logo of a missile unit than that of a news corporation.
There's a lot of gun violence. When I first came to New York, I saw a man standing on the street with a handgun, obviously expecting something. My colleague told me that someone had been robbed on the next street the day before, and that there had been a shooting about ten blocks away a month earlier. I heard a Columbia professor was killed by a stray bullet. Thanks to Mayor Giuliani, New York is much safer.
The wealth gap between the haves and have-nots is so wide and how people are segregated according to race and social class. It has never been a melting pot, but a Swiss cheese of people who don't trust each other. The public infrastructure is very old and in many ways disorganized. We are in a constant state of violence because we can get beaten up on the subway because we are Asians of all races, especially Russians and blacks. And:
1. Except for Central Park, there's no green in Manhattan. I was speechless.
1. 除了中央公园，曼哈顿没有一点绿色。我对此无言以对，城建太差。
2. Much of Washington Heights is only spoken in Spanish.
2. 华盛顿高地的很多地方只说西班牙语。
3. Other things, like the smell of urine and dirty city subways with rats running around are not new to me, I've heard a lot about them.
3. 其他的事情，比如小便味和老鼠跑的肮脏的城市地铁对我来说并不新鲜，我已经听过很多了。
4. Other than that, New York is not very different from any other major American city.
4. 除此之外，纽约和美国其他大城市没有太大的不同。
I'm from New York, so I can't be sure. However, I think they would be impressed (and perhaps shocked) by the human rights that exist in New York. Same-sex couples walk down the street holding hands or kissing, people protest freely in the streets, and many parades celebrate New York City's diverse cultures. Gay Pride parade, Puerto Rican Day parade, Israel Day parade, St. Patrick's Day Parade, etc. I think they will be impressed by the diversity of Chinese people, culture and food. Perhaps shock is not the right word, but I think the diversity of people and cultures and the freedoms we take for granted will certainly come to the fore.
最新数据显示，中国人在美国的移民数量远高于其他国家，这是一个长期以来的趋势。根据2023年5月份的数据，截至目前为止，中国移民在美国的数量已经超过了500万。这个数字可能会让一些人感到惊讶，因为我们往往会认为大多数移民来自墨西哥或其他拉丁美洲国家。
那么为什么会出现这种情况呢？首先中国是一个人口众多的国家，其经济和文化的发展也在快速发展。这使得越来越多的中国人希望到其他国家寻求更好的生活和机会。与此同时，美国在全球范围内拥有最好的教育、科技和商业资源，这些都是吸引中国人移民到美国的主要原因之一。
中国人的移民方式也是非常多样化的，有些人通过学习、工作签证或投资移民等方式来到美国，而有些人则通过亲属关系或婚姻签证来到美国。在海外问答论坛Quora上，美国网友问：初到美国纽约的中国人会被其繁华景象震惊到吗？这引起各国网友的关注和热议，我们看看他们的观点。
问题
中国网友魏敏康的回答
Personal Background: I was born and grew up in a second-tier city in China. Come to the United States for the Model United Nations Conference in the winter of 2013. I was 16, and it was my first time abroad.
个人背景:我在中国二线城市出生和长大。2013年冬天来美国参加模拟联合国大会吧。那时我16岁，是第一次出国。
Impact on me:
对我带来的冲击:
• The smell of coffee and cheese is everywhere. The airport, the hotel where I stayed, the hotel where the conference was held all smelled of the distinctive sweet and bitter coffee. It was a bit strange for me at first, but then I started to like it. (Most Chinese, including me, don't drink much coffee and cheese.) The donuts are so good.
•咖啡和奶酪的味道无处不在。机场，我住过的酒店，举办会议的酒店都弥漫着独特的甜苦咖啡味。一开始对我来说有点奇怪，但后来我开始喜欢上了。(包括我在内的大多数中国人都不怎么喝咖啡和奶酪。)甜甜圈太好吃了。
• Infrastructure, including airports, subways, roads, traffic lights, etc., is poorly maintained and dilapidated. I remember seeing one of the subways built in the late 1800s. That would explain it. (According to Wikipedia, Boston's first subway was built in 1897 and Beijing's in 1969.)
•基础设施，包括机场、地铁、道路、交通信号灯等没有得到很好的维护，破旧不堪。我记得我看到其中一条地铁建于19世纪晚期。这就解释得通了。(维基百科显示:波士顿最早的地铁建于1897年，北京最早的地铁建于1969年。)
• There are so many mentally ill and homeless people on the streets that it really scares me. Every day I see one or two homeless people talking to themselves or swearing randomly.
•街上有这么多精神病患者和无家可归的人，那真的把我吓坏了。每天我都会看到一两个无家可归的人自言自语或随意咒骂。
• The ladies of Wall Street are no joke. I saw a lady in a dress and suit on a snowy winter day, and I was wearing a Canada goose. She looks thin, but she looks strong to me.
•华尔街的女士们可不是开玩笑的。我看到一位女士在下雪的冬天穿着裙子和西装，而我穿着加拿大鹅。她看起来很瘦，但在我看来很坚强。
• Police patrol the streets on horseback.
•警察骑马巡街。
• Pedestrian traffic lights are not green, but white. It's confusing to me.
•行人交通灯不是绿色的，而是白色的。这让我很困惑。
• Lots of squirrels and birds. They're not afraid of people.
•很多松鼠和鸟，他们不怕人。
• Seagulls fly around the city. This may not come as a shock at all to people who live near the sea, but it was a shock to me. I live in the middle of China.
•城市里的海鸥飞来飞去。对于住在海边的人来说，这可能一点也不震惊，但对我来说却很震惊。我住在中国的中部。
• The streets of New York are actually quite narrow, especially Wall Street.
•纽约的街道实际上相当狭窄，尤其是华尔街。
• Urban cemeteries. It was a huge culture shock for me because Chinese people are a bit afraid to walk through a cemetery, let alone live next to one.
•城市墓地。这对我来说是一个巨大的文化冲击，因为中国人有点害怕走过墓地，更不用说住在墓地旁边了。
• This trip to New York and the East Coast almost made me not want to live there. So I went to college in California. I'm sorry if that offended anyone who liked it there. It's just a personal preference.
•这次去纽约和东海岸的旅行几乎让我不想住在那里。所以我去了加州读大学。如果这冒犯了任何喜欢那里的人，我很抱歉。这只是个人喜好。
Difference does not mean that one place or culture is better or worse than another, but different is different.
差异并不意味着一个地方或文化比另一个地方或文化更好或更差，但不同就是不同。
中国网友朴文杰的回答
You don't really want to know!
你不会真的想知道的!
Here's what I've heard from clients:
以下是我从客户那里得到的评价:
1. Wow, I thought New York was a very prosperous city, but it turned out to be a nothing city.
1. 哇，我以为纽约是一个非常繁荣的城市，结果却变成了一个一无是处的城市。
2. I thought New York would improve a lot, but I am shocked that it is so far behind, let alone compared to our big cities Shanghai and Beijing.
2. 我以为纽约会进步很多，但我很震惊它竟然如此落后，更不用说和我们的大城市上海和北京相比了。
3. Most stores in New York are supposed to be posh, but I haven't seen one that can be called posh.
3. 纽约的大多数商店都应该很豪华，但我还没有看到一家能称得上豪华的。
4. The designer stores are dead and most of the customers are Chinese. Wonder where the New York shoppers are?
4. 名牌商店死气沉沉，大多数顾客都是中国人，想知道纽约的购物者在哪里?
These are just a few.
这些只是少数。
Open your eyes, travel to China, and tell me what shocked you when you first visited Shanghai or Beijing. Sitting at the bottom of a well will only show you so much.
睁开你的眼睛，去中国旅行，告诉我当你第一次访问上海或北京时，什么让你震惊。像青蛙那样坐在井底下，只会让你看到那么多。
海外网友Demand Leung的回答
First I landed at Kennedy Airport, looked outside, and just wanted to hop on a plane and go back. Where the hell am I? That's not even the half of it. I was put on a small windowless bus in front of the famous Central Station. I don't know where I can stand. It was unbelievably dirty. I looked up and down the street and what the hell was all I could see.
首先我降落在肯尼迪机场，看了看外面，只想跳上飞机回去。我到底在哪儿?这还不到一半呢。我被送上一辆没有窗户的小巴士，停在著名的中央车站前。我不知道我能站在哪里。脏得令人难以置信。我上下打量了一下街道，我看到的都是什么鬼东西。
And then the streets are toonarrow. But it's still okay for tourists.
然后就是街道太窄了。但这对游客来说还是可以的。
The stink at the bus stop was the first shock. This is incredible in China's big cities. But then I found the same thing in Washington, DC, near the White House. I made an excuse for those cities that the people were probably not highly educated and mostly homeless. Until I smelled the same thing at a bus stop in front of Harvard.....
公交车站很臭，这让我第一次感到震惊。这在中国的大城市是令人难以置信的。但后来，我在华盛顿特区白宫附近发现了同样的情况。我为那些城市找了一个借口，那就是那里的人可能没有受过高等教育，而且大多数都是无家可归的人。直到我在哈佛大学门口的一个公交车站闻到了同样的味道.....
3. Times Square is small and shabby. I wonder why it is so famous. Compared to Orlando and Miami, New York is not my cup of tea.
3.时代广场又小又破旧，我不知道它为什么那么有名?与奥兰多、迈阿密相比，纽约不是我的菜。
Americans really need to spend some money on infrastructure. Residents deserve a better living environment. It's not for tourists, it's not for the Wall Street elite, it's for local residents.
美国人真的需要在基础设施上花些钱。居民值得拥有更好的生活环境。这里不面向游客，也不面向华尔街精英，只面向当地居民。
So many myths about New York, and now I realize they're all lies.
太多关于纽约的传说，现在我发现传说都是谎言。
美国网友戴维•潘的回答
I was born and raised in New York and moved to Los Angeles more than 50 years ago. As much as I miss New York's ubiquitous classical music, ethnic restaurants and grocery stores, I'm happier and less stressed in the pleasant climate and easy-going atmosphere of life in the coastal suburbs of Los Angeles, plus the excellent modern public transportation in Los Angeles and the health care at UCLA for 86 years now.
我在纽约出生长大，50多年前搬到了洛杉矶。虽然我很怀念纽约无处不在的古典音乐、民族餐厅和杂货店，但在洛杉矶沿海郊区宜人的气候和轻松自在的生活氛围中，我更快乐，压力更小，加上洛杉矶出色的现代公共交通和UCLA的医疗保健，到目前为止已经86年了。
You are right, especially about New York's antiquated subway, poor facilities for the disabled, and elevators that often don't or don't work. Los Angeles, by contrast, is a fully disabled accessible city, with modern bus rapid transit stations and ubiquitous disabled transportation services. However, our homelessness problem is so bad that local and state governments seem unwilling or unable to address it because civil rights limit who should be institutionalized. This is unique to our West Coast cities and New York. I don't know if this is political incompetence or "poverty problem."
你是对的，特别是关于纽约陈旧的地铁，残疾人设施很差，电梯经常没有或不工作。相比之下，洛杉矶是一个完全残疾人无障碍的城市，拥有现代化的快速公交车站和无处不在的残疾人交通服务。然而，我们无家可归的问题太糟糕了，地方和州政府似乎不愿意或无法解决这个问题，因为民权限制了那些应该被收容的人。这是我们西海岸城市和纽约的特有现象。不知道这是政治无能还是“贫困问题”。
Years later I visited friends who lived on Long Island and visited New York.
多年后我拜访了住在长岛的朋友，还游览了纽约。
When I first arrived at his apartment, I saw some rats around the trash can near his apartment.
当我第一次到达他的公寓时，我看到他公寓附近的垃圾桶周围有一些老鼠。
It shocked me, but it was on Long Island. Until I saw rats in midtown Manhattan.
这让我很震惊，但那是在长岛。直到我在曼哈顿市中心也看到了老鼠。
When we took the subway to the city center, the train was almost half an hour late without warning. I'm used to the subway always being on time, so this is unusual for me.
当我们乘地铁去市中心时，火车毫无预兆地晚点了将近半个小时。我习惯了地铁总是准点，所以这对我来说很不寻常。
I wasn't at all surprised by the density of people in New York, but I was shocked by how good the Met was. If I had the chance to go to New York again, that would definitely be the place to go again.
我对纽约的人口密度一点也不感到惊讶，但我对大都会博物馆的优秀程度感到震惊。如果我有机会再去纽约，那绝对是我要再去的地方。
More than once in Times Square, I came across an advertisement for Xinhua, China's official news agency. It's really shocking, and just as shocking is how bad the AD is. It showed only the red logo, which looked more like the logo of a missile unit than that of a news corporation.
在时代广场，我不止一次地看到了中国官方新闻机构新华社的广告。这真的令人震惊，同样令人震惊的是这则广告有多糟糕。它只显示了红色的标志，看起来更像是导弹部队的标志，而不是新闻公司的标志。
海外网友Tongue Lee的回答
There's a lot of gun violence. When I first came to New York, I saw a man standing on the street with a handgun, obviously expecting something. My colleague told me that someone had been robbed on the next street the day before, and that there had been a shooting about ten blocks away a month earlier. I heard a Columbia professor was killed by a stray bullet. Thanks to Mayor Giuliani, New York is much safer.
枪支暴力事件很多。当我第一次来到纽约时，我看到一个男人拿着一把手枪站在街上，显然是在期待什么。我的同事告诉我，前一天有人在隔壁街上被抢了，而且一个月前，大约十个街区外发生了一起枪击事件。我听说哥伦比亚大学的一位教授被流弹炸死了。感谢朱利安尼市长，纽约现在安全多了。
The wealth gap between the haves and have-nots is so wide and how people are segregated according to race and social class. It has never been a melting pot, but a Swiss cheese of people who don't trust each other. The public infrastructure is very old and in many ways disorganized. We are in a constant state of violence because we can get beaten up on the subway because we are Asians of all races, especially Russians and blacks. And:
贫富之间的财富差距如此之大，人们是如何根据种族和社会阶层而被隔离的。它从来不是一个大熔炉，而是一堆不信任彼此的人组成的瑞士奶酪。公共基础设施非常陈旧，很多方面都很混乱。我们一直处于暴力之中，因为我们在地铁上可能会被殴打，因为我们是来自所有种族的亚洲人，尤其是俄罗斯人和黑人。还有：
1. Except for Central Park, there's no green in Manhattan. I was speechless.
1. 除了中央公园，曼哈顿没有一点绿色。我对此无言以对，城建太差。
2. Much of Washington Heights is only spoken in Spanish.
2. 华盛顿高地的很多地方只说西班牙语。
3. Other things, like the smell of urine and dirty city subways with rats running around are not new to me, I've heard a lot about them.
3. 其他的事情，比如小便味和老鼠跑的肮脏的城市地铁对我来说并不新鲜，我已经听过很多了。
4. Other than that, New York is not very different from any other major American city.
4. 除此之外，纽约和美国其他大城市没有太大的不同。
I'm from New York, so I can't be sure. However, I think they would be impressed (and perhaps shocked) by the human rights that exist in New York. Same-sex couples walk down the street holding hands or kissing, people protest freely in the streets, and many parades celebrate New York City's diverse cultures. Gay Pride parade, Puerto Rican Day parade, Israel Day parade, St. Patrick's Day Parade, etc. I think they will be impressed by the diversity of Chinese people, culture and food. Perhaps shock is not the right word, but I think the diversity of people and cultures and the freedoms we take for granted will certainly come to the fore.
我来自纽约，所以我不能肯定。然而，我认为他们会对纽约存在的人权印象深刻(也许是震惊)。同性伴侣牵着手或亲吻走在街上，人们自由地在街上抗议，许多庆祝纽约市各种文化的游行。同性恋者骄傲游行，波多黎各日游行，以色列日游行，圣帕特里克节游行等等。我想他们会对中国人民、文化和食物的多样性印象深刻。也许用“震惊”这个词并不恰当，但我认为，人们和文化的多样性以及我们习以为常的自由肯定会脱颖而出。