I was in the City watching the Broadway show "fiddler on the roof" on
the first weekend of spring.
It was a cold, rainy day. Our seats were in the last row on the upper
floor, and a young lady sitting next to me joked we were sitting on
the roof watching "fiddler on the roof". She was an american of my
age.
It was a wonderful show, much more affecting than the movie made in
the 70s. I watched the movie about eight year ago when I just arrived
in the States. I was 24 then, a newly wed to my wife and to a foreign
land.
But eight years later, why I am feeling I am also a fiddler on the
roof?
For I remember, when the lights darkened, a man's voice started out as
if from within myself:
"A fiddler on the roof. Sounds crazy, no?
"But in our little village of Anatevka, you might say every one of us
is a fiddler on the roof, trying to scratch out a pleasant, simple
tune without breaking his neck. It isn't easy.
"You may ask, why do we stay up there if it's so dangerous? We stay
because Anatevka is our home... And how do we keep our balance? That I
can tell you in one word... Tradition."
Or, I am a fiddler on someone else's roof, also trying to scratch out
a simple tune without breaking my neck. But why I am staying?
Underneath it's not even my home.
Tradition? Do I know what that word means? Or I know it too well?
Maybe they shouldn't allow a boy at the age of 24 to leave his
hometown, because he was already too old to leave, and now he is here,
tears in his eyes, lost in the cheerings for the villiagers of
Anatevka.
The day cleared up when I left the theatre, and as every weekend, the
42nd street at the Time square was packed with people coming from all
different kinds of shows. The New York City has 8 million citizens and
3 million immigrants, and I am one of them.
A fiddler on a big foreign roof.
¸è´Ê£ºProlog: Tradition, Matchmaker, If I
were a rich man, Sabbath Prayer, To Life, Miracle
of Miracles, The Dream, Sunrise, Sunset,
Now I had Everything, Do You Love Me
The Rumor,
Far from the Home, I Love Anatevka