We depart from Los Angeles for a five-hour drive. The desert we’re crossing slowly turns to night — and as we near the city, the glow from Las Vegas draws out the silhouette of the mountains in front of it. We’re driving underneath the stars and among other cars, and it feels like we’re going somewhere magical — but then I think about all the money lost in this place of idle pleasures. It’s a city made not for residents, but for visitors.
It’s my third time in the US, and I’ve looked forward to this trip. Everything here makes you feel good. The country is young and everything is huge. The big cars, big roads, big bottles, big plates — and the distance between the cities. Everything yells opportunity and freedom at you.
It feels special to drive into a street called Frank Sinatra Drive or Paradise Road. And having grown up watching American series and movies, everything feels so familiar to me, from the looks of the houses to the sound of a closing car door. Some of the glamour of those movies, you take on as your own and wear it on your skin. That’s the thing the United States does better than any other country: making things or people seem important, including yourself.
People unironically wear huge sunglasses and behave so exuberantly. The optimism of Americans is contagious. They’re just happy and friendly all the time, and I even start to talk like them, ‘alrite man’, ‘whaddup’, ‘you good?’. But part of the friendliness is for show, and it’s maybe not too different from how Chinese people hide their real feelings — only they do it by being overly polite and not giving direct answers. Being overly excited and friendly works the same way.
There is this duality in everything. It’s my third time here — and like when you watch at a painting for a long time, you start to see more details. Such as that the flip side of happiness and freedom comes from a lack of regulation, and this requires a different kind of compensation. Symptom treatment is what keeps coming back. I’m expected to tip in restaurants so that staff can make a living wage. I saw a GoFundMe poster for someone’s medical costs. Energy drinks are normalized, even in the morning, yet at the same time, heartburn and sleeping medicines are widely available. Uber is widely used because public transport barely exists. The city is full of billboards of lawyers. You don’t see this type of hostility in the Netherlands, the public urge to get millions back if you got injured in a hotel. The Thai restaurant lets me choose vegetables or chicken, but not both. The saddest place is McDonalds in the morning, despite them selling Happy Meals.
In Las Vegas, I hiked the Historic Rail Road Trial to get away from the crowds, and went towards the Hoover dam, through man-made tunnels and beneath electricity pylons, where you could hear the sound of electricity buzzing in the air. The huge dam was finished almost a century ago, and its art deco style filled with ornaments and inscriptions is such a contrast with the canyon around it. This, rather than the casinos, shows the American spirit of opportunity and progress. And here, rather than there, it’s only possible to admire this nation.
