najla mutiari

On her 75th birthday, Ah-ling distributed her wealth among her four sons and announced that she would spend three months of the year with each son, in turn.  The arrangement worked well for a while and then the old woman found that the welcome she received at each son's house was becoming less and less cordial. Finally she began to feel positively unwanted. Now she saw her sons in their true colors. Money meant everything to them, people came second.  One day, Ah-ling's friend, Jing-mei, came to see her. Jing-mei was distressed to find her friend in such an unhappy state and advised her on what she should do. Afterwards, Jing-mei tearfully embraced her friend, and left.  A few days later, towards sundown, Ah-ling went out without telling anyone where she was going and returned an hour later, her clothes covered in mud.  "Where did you go?" asked her son, and then seeing that she was holding a small ornamental chest, hurried to her, his gaze riveted on the casket....

Located at the mouth of the  Hudson River  in southeastern New York state, New York is one of the world's great cities. It has the largest population of any city in the United States, and it is unrivaled in the diversity of its neighborhoods and their often-colorful residents. New York runs the gamut from great concentrations of wealth, epitomized by luxury apartment buildings and hotels and mammoth corporate headquarters, to the grinding urban poverty of its ethnic and racial ghettos. A major financial and economic center, it is also a cultural mecca that has attracted generations of artists and intellectuals and draws millions of tourists every year. In its 400-year history the city has grown and changed rapidly, repeatedly renewing itself through successive waves of immigration and urban development. As a new century approaches, it remains, perhaps more than anything else, a city on the move. New York is made up of five districts, called boroughs. Manhatt...