Role model

In high school, I worked hard and modeled myself after fame, fortune, and future-forward leaders. Aren’t we all?

Yet, this quest was more challenging given war throughout my youth. We learned about the Grandeur of France, Belle du Jour, and Breathless (smoking). We learned about WWII atrocities (famine which killed 2 million in the North of VN while 6 million dead in European theater). And we experienced betrayal by our Allies, whose leaders, most time, crouched behind the walls of the Embassy – and ours as well, during the Tet Offensive or the last days of Vietnam.

In fact, I found snippets about so and so, inside the Independence Palace, making some deals over tea and cigarettes (in the case of Mr. Nhu- our Robert Kennedy – it’s opium).

By the time VP Ky came to power, an alumnus of our high school, we read about his flamboyant courting of his then-girlfriend, Air Stewardess. Music from the Ministry of War Propaganda always underlined that now-or-never fear – soldiers away to the front, yet it’s their girls who died at home per sentimental “old sad song” Purple flower hill.

So much for the quest (meanwhile, Generals toppled one another, wives selling PX goods in black market, and Chinese Vietnamese in Cho Lon would price-gauge rice staples to manipulate and anticipate sudden turn of events, seemingly daily. Think Lebanon today. Think Ukraine today. Or Palestine or Iran.

Actually, not a day away, but a breath away we lived. We milked our pastime (not much): every ballroom dance, each slow dance, we made them last. Vietnam was America’s first Television war. US Correspondents attended Five o Clock Follies in Rex Hotel and filed their reports – filmed from Hotel Caravelle rooftop, to be over night-ed via third country e.g., Hong Kong or Bangkok (later, via expensive satellite uplink). It’s a race for ratings, of which NBC, number 2, was slipping (the first network to show Nat Cole – a person of color).

Guess who is coming to (TV) dinner? Kim Phuc, in her horror and “born this way” (without clothes).

Many reporters went on to prominence e.g., Dan Rather, Malcolm Browne and Peter Jennings from that era of Brave and Bravest. Meanwhile, female journalists e.g. Jessica Savitch (tragic death) Barbara Walters (just deceased), and Judy Woodruff (recently resigned) were rare species (No place for you here?

Those talking heads have journalistic integrity, as personified by the Most-trusted man in America (Cronkite). Then their ratings slipped. Then trust in institutions eroded. Top of mistrust list: used car sales, lawyers, politicians then the Press. From Television networks, we ended with Twitter, from medium shot we’ve got selfies.

Currently, Congress got a trust issue. Then the election process itself was brought into question.

Court was stacked. Judges are appointed in a hurry and out of political favor.

In full circle and 2 additional million deaths behind, I had my late-start. On an American campus, college kids were still believing in human goodness and simplicity e.g. 4-H (heart, hand, etc.) in rural Pennsylvania with its neighboring Amish community, the Italian Little Italy, and the Jewish congregation in Pittsburgh (Annie Dillard, an American childhood).

Our second migration found a bunch of “kim phuc’s” in S. California and Houston Vietnamese American clique and cluster. Still, with our VP Ky, and daughter who went on to MC an entertainment show, ironically, Paris By Night (we’ve got some issues with our own post-colonial identity e.g. beignet and beret. After all, on TV, the image of Vietnamese was a VC shot at gunpoint, a monk self-burned by kerosene, and most famously, a naked napalm girl (mirror image of that Wall Street brave girl).

Vietnam is equated with War. Hot war on cool medium (WWII, was the opposite: cool war on hot medium – radio, hence the notoriety of Edward Murrow.)

When I got to Penn State, I auditioned for the Penn State choir. I sang in black-tie at Heinz Hall in Pittsburgh conducted by Andre Previn. But deep down, I long for role models. Neither Vincent Chin nor Jackie Chan (albeit very disarming and iconic).

In Tech and Business, we barely got an NYC hotel owner (who purportedly turned blind eyes to tenants’ drug use) and another millionaire Hoang Kieu (plasma business) who donated a substantial fund to Katrina relief. That’s about it. Oh, of late, Ocean Vuong of The Emperor of Gladness.

My brother and his classmates got by, being Pharmacist, MD, and Dentist. But in the field of humanity, we’ve fallen short (John Yang at PBS and Andrew Yang, the presidential candidate).

Most Asian American or Asian authors commanded a tiny slice: Ishiguro (Nobel Prize winner), Steven Chu – Energy Secretary, and Elaine Chao, married to Mitch McConnell – stood still and did not roll her eyes right next to racist rant rhetoric.

Be the Change you would like to see. Greta and Malala, for instance.

Be the outlier, exceptional and over-performed in every way. Waste not each moment. Just a breath away, remember. Pride, not shame. Head high, not stoop low. Eye in contact and hand extended (View my previous blog on High Context). No more Oui Oui Monsieur.

Savitch was once viewed as breaking the Broadcast gender ceiling – higher ranked in social trust as compared to peers at NBC and CBS. Then her descend was quick… to the two-minute Digest segment, her last gig (before last seen dead in the ditch, literally).

With opportunity, there are always danger e.g. the nail that sticks up etc…you can finish this.

Still, I am on the quest for leadership role models. Per David Gergen, in Hearts Touched by Fire (re: leadership vacuum in the next generation), my search is in the Present Continuous tense. Last Day of Saigon, First Day outside of it, still searching, searching….even with Google, up until now.