Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Where were you on 9-11?
There have been a number of good reminisences about 9-11 in the old JFK assassination where were you? mold. Here's mine.
For me, the attacks took place at night. I was living in Taibei at the time. A friend had flown in from Tokyo on a business trip with a colleague. A mutual friend and I were meeting them for dinner. We met up in the Taipei Hilton for dinner. We had a pleasant dinner, marked by good humor and a bit of politics. Then we headed to Ziga-Zaga, a bar within the hotel, for some drinks. The visitors headed up to their rooms to take a conference call. My friend returned and we started chatting again. A few minutes later, his colleague came down. He quietly observed that a plane had flown into a building in New York. The scene was surreal. People were drinking and chatting. A live band was playing. There were tvs hung behind the bar. I asked the bartender to change the channel to the BBC or CNN. He changed it to BBC. The first image we saw was a split screen. Both sides were a mass of smoke and dust. One side was labeled New York, the other Washington, D.C. I pointed at it to the guy next to me. He glanced up and went back to his conversation. We decided to retreat to one of the hotel rooms so we could hear the commentary.
When we got up there and settled in, the magnitude of what was happening set in. In fact, it seemed even worse. The first scene when we turned on CNN on was a plane hitting one of the towers. It must have been the second plane. Death tolls were projected at 10, 20, even 50 thousand. Luckily, this did not come to pass. But there was plenty of horror nonetheless. The scenes from the World Trade Center played over and over as relentless speculation about who, why, what went on. CNN was a babbling group of idiots. The BBC coverage was so much more adult.
We drank all night and lamented the end of life as we knew it. The next day, I went to work. There the tremendous outpouring of affection and sympathy began. To be an American overseas in the first weeks after 9-11 was to be the recipient of an amazing outpouring of compassion. It ended quickly enough, but I will never forget being hugged spontaneously by an Iranian friend who told me of demonstrations in Tehran demanding that if the Iranian government had anything to do with the attack that they resign. Or my German friend writing me to tell me that he went to a massive demonstration of solidarity in Berlin. It was a wonderful time. We all know what came next, but for that shining moment it seemed like everything would be ok. That is my 9-11 memory.
For me, the attacks took place at night. I was living in Taibei at the time. A friend had flown in from Tokyo on a business trip with a colleague. A mutual friend and I were meeting them for dinner. We met up in the Taipei Hilton for dinner. We had a pleasant dinner, marked by good humor and a bit of politics. Then we headed to Ziga-Zaga, a bar within the hotel, for some drinks. The visitors headed up to their rooms to take a conference call. My friend returned and we started chatting again. A few minutes later, his colleague came down. He quietly observed that a plane had flown into a building in New York. The scene was surreal. People were drinking and chatting. A live band was playing. There were tvs hung behind the bar. I asked the bartender to change the channel to the BBC or CNN. He changed it to BBC. The first image we saw was a split screen. Both sides were a mass of smoke and dust. One side was labeled New York, the other Washington, D.C. I pointed at it to the guy next to me. He glanced up and went back to his conversation. We decided to retreat to one of the hotel rooms so we could hear the commentary.
When we got up there and settled in, the magnitude of what was happening set in. In fact, it seemed even worse. The first scene when we turned on CNN on was a plane hitting one of the towers. It must have been the second plane. Death tolls were projected at 10, 20, even 50 thousand. Luckily, this did not come to pass. But there was plenty of horror nonetheless. The scenes from the World Trade Center played over and over as relentless speculation about who, why, what went on. CNN was a babbling group of idiots. The BBC coverage was so much more adult.
We drank all night and lamented the end of life as we knew it. The next day, I went to work. There the tremendous outpouring of affection and sympathy began. To be an American overseas in the first weeks after 9-11 was to be the recipient of an amazing outpouring of compassion. It ended quickly enough, but I will never forget being hugged spontaneously by an Iranian friend who told me of demonstrations in Tehran demanding that if the Iranian government had anything to do with the attack that they resign. Or my German friend writing me to tell me that he went to a massive demonstration of solidarity in Berlin. It was a wonderful time. We all know what came next, but for that shining moment it seemed like everything would be ok. That is my 9-11 memory.
