Danling Chen's Winning Entry

"Why do you think international friendship is important?"

Descending into a New York City subway station is unlike any other experience. The dank, pungent air of the underground station, the painfully-bright fluorescent lighting, the thundering roar of subway cars hurtling into and out of oblivion. And the people. Masses of people, of every age, race, ethnicity, and religion, mingling and huddling and laughing and speaking with one another, their tongues as multihued as their appearances. A coterie of sari-garbed Indian women occupy the same standing room as a group of young Asian students, while nearby, a French businessman consults the time with a gaggle of Romanian tourists. Spanish, Chinese, Swahili, English ebb and flow, singing the same rich song of diversity and tolerance that has sustained New York City for over a century.

Growing up in a city where race is but a box ticked off on paper, I’ve come to cherish a fundamental truth that people often disregard. We may not look the same, we may speak different languages, and we may adhere to unlike creeds, but we are all connected by a common thread. Humanity. It is this precise quality that enables us to feel compassion and empathy for one another, that allows us to appreciate other cultures and customs, and accept them as every bit as valid as our own. Ignorance breeds intolerance, but when we are willing to open our minds to the unknown, we usually find that the unfamiliar isn’t so exotic after all.

I am proud to be a New Yorker, just as I am proud to be a Chinese-American and proud to be human. Prejudice, I’ve found, isn’t the result of the clashing of differences, but the instinctive retreat from the shocking, much as we inadvertently wince when we have emerged from a dark place into the sunshine. The world is a big place, but even in a big city, it’s easy to recoil into that dark place, to forget that there is an entire planet out there, vibrant and pulsating with life.

International friendships are important because they urge—no, pull—us out of those dark, cozy niches to remind us that we are not alone. No matter what divisions seem to exist between us, we cannot ignore that we have a responsibility to cooperate for the global good. We cannot shield ourselves from the awful and cruel realities of life, so instead, we must challenge them as one united front. Understanding and tolerance are key components, but more than acknowledge what sets us apart, we must embrace what holds us together. Friendship and love, two concepts that transcend any delineation of nation, race, or religion—they are the workers of true peace and harmony. If we were all to reach out and clasp hands with someone whom we had thought alien or strange, and felt the pulse of life in their palm…peered into their eyes, and saw their harbored dreams and desires…and called them “friend” rather than foreigner, our future would be boundless.

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