Like all Americans, my thoughts have been mostly on the hateful and tragic event that happened over the weekend in VA, and how in 2017, I bared witness to groups of people carrying the hateful Nazi flags proudly on American soil. Not to mention the death of Heather Heyer in the hand of a Nazi. 

Yet tonight, here they are, a family of five, foreign tourists eagerly talking about what they had seen today around the big apple, and I assume what they plan to do tomorrow. I don’t know where they came from, except they spoke French, and they were happy. The oldest of the three children played staring contest with his younger sister while the mom tried to show her middle child how to say Union Square. When the father looked up from his phone and noticed me drawing them, he wasn’t afraid, but smiled. they all smiled as I showed them the drawing. As they reached their stop, we waved goodbye in both broken English and French (Despite my 3 years of learning).

There is a lot of hate in America right now, maybe it has been brewing for sometime, hate against people different than us, different in skin colors, different in culture practice, which imaginary friend upstairs in the clouds to believe in, or even what kind of food to eat or not eat. 

Yet aren’t we all just tourists? one second here taking in all that life has to offer, and next second we are gone? whats the point of hating each other within such short time we all have here? Instead of closing doors, we should all step out and play tourist sometime, maybe this way we’ll see we are not that different after all.