度娘不让我升级不开森

【7】Coming Into the Country
n the Old World, there was one way of life, or 2, maybe 10. Here there are dozens, hundreds, all jammed in together, cheek by jowl, especially in the dizzying cities. Everywhere has a somewhere else just around the corner. We newish Americans leapfrog from world to world, reinventing ourselves en route. We perform our college selves, our waitress selves, our dot-com selves, our parent selves, our downtown selves, our Muslim, Greek, Hindi, South African selves. Even into the second or third generation, we speak different languages -- more languages, often, than we know we know. We sport different names. I am Gish, Geesh, Jen, Lillian, Lil, Bilien, Ms. Jen, Miss Ren, Mrs. O'Connor. Or maybe we insist on one name. The filmmaker Mira Nair, for example, will be called NIGH-ear, please; she is not a depilatory product.
Of course, there are places where she does not have to insist, and places that don't get the joke, that need -- that get -- other jokes. It's a kind of high, switching spiels, eating Ethiopian, French, Thai, getting around. And the inventing! The moments of grand inspiration: I think I will call myself Houdini. Who could give up even the quotidian luxury of choosing, that small swell of power: to walk or to drive? The soup or the salad? The green or the blue? We bubble with pleasure. It's me. I'm taking the plane. I'll take the sofa, the chair, the whole shebang -- why not?
Why not, indeed? A most American question, a question that comes to dominate our most private self-talk. In therapy-speak, we Americans like to give ourselves permission. To do what? To take care of ourselves, to express ourselves, to listen to ourselves. We tune out the loudspeaker of duty, tune in to the whisper of desire. This is faint at first, but soon proves easily audible; indeed, irresistible. Why not go to town? Why not move away? Why not marry out? Why not? Why not? Why not?
To come to America is to be greatly disoriented for many a day. The smell of

多发几天新贴，一天一贴别连续发

我去，这个没过