Our Columbian Moment

20 November 2014 was our 12 October 1492 (believed to have been the date on which land was glimpsed by Columbus's forlorn sailors, on their seemingly hopeless westward voyage). Our Santa Maria, Columbus's flagship, was the less elegantly christened Lufthansa LH 422. Before then Mary nor I have never set foot on America - that land beyond the encircling sea which I hitherto knew only from books. Our San Salvador (where Columbus made landfall, today in the Bahamas) was New England. However, we did not arrive seeking gold and silver, and bore no baptismal flame in our hands. We did also acknowledge the great unknown into which we were stepping, quite unlike Columbus who died still utterly convinced that he had stumbled upon Japan when he arrived in the Caribbean.

Below: meeting the natives, the first an inhabitant of Boston Common, and the second a brief sojourner on most Bostonian plates.

In January earlier this year I was given the chance to participate in the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) Conference, which would take place in Boston between 21 and 23 November. Besides being a marvelous learning opportunity, for which I'm very thankful, it afforded us an opportunity to visit America (in case some wonder, I refer to the continent). But since I'm no longer teaching this year, I had to work right to the very day of our departure, and the excitement only became palpable as we queued to board the plane at Terminal 2 in Changi.

Our biggest fear en route was getting through the nearly 30 hours that stood between Singapore and Boston - Mary finds it hard to sleep if she isn't horizontal, while I find it a little harder to, if she isn't. But I purchased us some peace for about $40 - which gave us more leg room. After briefing American immigration on the details of my most distant relation, and picking up our luggage, we walked out into the bracing New England autumn (winter is late this year, apparently).

The NCSS Conference this year was, quite suitably, held at the John B Hynes Veterans Memorial Convention Centre, given its focus on Civics. John Hynes was mayor of Boston between 1950 and 1960, and was a key figure in the Boston's municipal modernization. The opening of the well-known Freedom Trail also took place in his time as mayor. The Hynes continued contributing to the city beyond John's mayorship - one son became a news anchor, another taught at Boston University and the last served on the City Council.

My one highlight was listening to and meeting Jose Antonio Vargas, introduced as a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who declared his hitherto concealed status as an undocumented immigrant in 2011. This was a hot topic at the moment, given President Obama's controversial announcement recently permitting undocumented immigrants to apply for work permits in certain conditions. He paid tribute to his ex-teachers, his ex-principal and colleagues for providing encouragement and support in those nervous years before his fateful 2011 decision. He called on the audience to empathize with many undocumented immigrants, some of whom have become American in everything but legally and whose families, like his, made painful sacrifices for them to lead better lives. And he delivered a rousing alarum - citizenship is not an entitlement, it is something you earn. Something for us to ponder, and to take back to Singapore?

Below: Jose Antonio Vargas, if I had to choose why this year's Conference was worthwhile it would be him; posing with Soon Leong after our last session at the Conference on Sunday.

There wasn't much in the way of sightseeing in those three and a half days, most of which were concentrated in the Back Bay Area between our hotel and Boston Common. We visited Copley Square, Newbury Street and Boston Common (as yet we did not have time for all that freedom stuff - oops). But it was sufficient to give us a sample of Boston's history.

Below (from top to bottom): Copley Square, named after the prolific painter John whose works depicted scenes from colonial America. To the right stands Hancock Tower, the tallest building in New England at 241 metres, one-time subject of a Chicken Little-esque hysteria about whether or not it was in danger of collapsing; the Romanesque facade of Trinity Church.

Newbury Street, as was the rest of Back Bay, was reclaimed from Boston Harbour from the mid-nineteenth century. That didn't explain its name though, which was derived from the 1643 Battle of Newbury, an engagement during the English Civil War in which the Puritan-led Parliamentarian (which came eventually under Oliver Cromwell's leadership) forces decisively turned back the tide of Royalist advance. Very little remains Puritan there today - the street has been converted into a shopping district which would surely leave the Lord Protector in apocalyptic apoplexy.

It was in Newbury Street where Mary discovered the joys of shopping in the homeland of mass consumerism - Banana Republic (I remarked to her that we were visiting the original ones in the following weeks) and Kiehl's ranking amongst the more memorable stops. Kiehl's prices in the USA were almost half that in Singapore. And fears of being robbed meant we never walked into Banana Republic back in Singapore. But the Newbury Street experience involved more than just mindless spending - Raven Used Books at number 263 offered knock-down prices for acclaimed titles, throwing wide open to all the doors of this temple of knowledge.

Below (top to bottom): these stately facades were built in the latter part of the nineteenth century when Newbury Street was a well-heeled residential district; the last ember of autumn; L.A. Burdick Handmade Chocolates and its chocolate penguins, even the exterior looks chewable; standing at the junction of Berkeley and Newbury Streets, what used to be the New England Museum of Natural History, today the flagship store of Restoration Hardware (which sells furnitures).

Our original intention was to just walk through Boston Common to get to the Downtown area. However, we ended up spending more time than we bargained for - thanks to the antics of overfed squirrels. Having spent four years in England, I hardly gave the scurrying squirrels more than a half-glance. Mary learnt she could entice with the promise of food. Not food, I must emphasise. But the promise of food. So we fished for squirrels with the single piece of Lindt Raspberry Truffle given to us when we visited the store earlier. Most were quick to lose interest once it became clear we weren't at all ready to part with the bait. One tenacious individual came a little closer, and wrestled the ball of chocolate from my outstretched fingers. No bother, we thought, it's wrapped. It was unwrapped within seconds.

Then Minh and Berto spotted us, and offered us some real peanuts. Minh was originally from Vietnam, Berto from Honduras, and both have this inexplicable connection with the squirrels. Berto would simply sit on a bench, click his tongue, wiggle his fingers and have squirrels all over him in an instant. Mary has this video of me trying to replicate what Berto did, though it made me look rather more like a pervert. The scent of nuts proved to be more alluring than that of Lindt, as some of the photographs below can attest.

Below: I thought Boston Commons was just another average park, and then I saw this tree (below). In a way a lot of other parks have what Boston Commons has, and more, but the real stars were the squirrels. Nobody can ignore the Bostonian squirrels. It seems, however, that they are most attracted to nuts.

We left before it got dark, as we planned to have dinner with Samuel early that evening and also as our flight to El Salvador the following morning was at six. We are far from done with Boston - but what are the chances of us being sucked once more into Banana Republic and Kiehl's after sixteen days in Central America?