I got back from Vietnam last year around this time, hoping against hope that the US economy and job situation would improve.
It hasn’t. And this year, after spending another 4 weeks in Vietnam, I have just returned to Florida to find a deja vu.
How long and how far more will I have to go (deep freeze) before seeing anything resembles “normal”?
Wall Street and Oliver Stone. The return of “GREED IS GOOD” character. How about the return of Dot.com boom?
We find version 2.0 for almost everything: PR 2.0, Sales 2.0, and Social Networking 2.0.
Sounds to me like lagging 2.0 (tomorrow’s job indicators are highly anticipated).
Vietnam is trying to tame inflation, as it has done well in absorbing the impact of current global recession.
Night clubs were empty (they would normally cater to Viet kieu, coming back from abroad) and less people at
the Starbucks equivalence.
The consensus has been that America has won the war although it lost its battle in Vietnam.
Peace-time generation just want to have it all: LV, Gucci, Hard Rock cafe and Mont Blanc.
They are selling “seen on TV’ types of products: exercise accessories, interior decorating stuff.
And hair dressers try to catch some TV news on their cells in between appointments. You can’t even do this in the US.
With progress, comes its unintended consequences: students who stabbed their teachers, young people who did not finish
high school. Educators complain that these students weren’t competent in their first language (Vietnamese) let alone trying to
pick up English.
But urbanization, consumerism and digitization are obvious. Vietnam is a society where everything is going at once: leap frogging the costs of R&D, bridge and road building, cable laying, fire at factories etc…
I learned how to navigate a motorcycle through unpredictable traffic jam. My noted achievement.
A Viet Kieu told me it would take 4 years for someone like myself to get back to the swing of things there.
I said this would have been more difficult than Vietnamese trying to make it in the US back then (1975).
Maybe because of the pace of dizzying change. Maybe it was progress lag.
Or maybe because of Lag 2.0 in the US which drove people like myself to consider alternative care, alternative career and alternative country.
In the US, you know right away when the going is good: Can’t stop illegal immigration at the border. These days, visitors are hardly found coming, let alone
illegal workers. To work in Construction? Where have all the Indian IT engineers gone? Long time passing.
I will need some sleep soon. I hope by the time I wake up, the Census 2010 will show a different America. One which is desirable, and beacon of the Free World.
Thang Nguyen 555 