• The Great Gatsby got another round of remake, this time in 3-D. With help of steady cam, we are invited into his mansion of many rooms. This should give a feel for the place and Gatsby’s desire to revenge through success. We too ,with IT 3.0-enabled, can take our “Monte Christo” acts online. For years, we were passive…

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  • Jobs’ off switch

    Steve Jobs hated the on-off  switch. Perhaps more so because it was a relic of electricity (Edison) and automobile manufacturers (Ford). He did not like old wine in the same wineskin, given our always-on Cloud Service in  A/C data centers. Apple chose North Carolina as a site to store music, video and the rest of its customers’…

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  • One-legged work-out

    Most people are out to celebrate the upcoming New Year (Tet). Dzzzzzzzzzzzzo! Heineken toast! Except for one young man, crutches aside, lifted his body (one leg dangling, the other with flipping blue jeans) up to train his upper-body. Now, that got my attention. I complimented him on finding out the right angle to wrap his hands around…

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  • Less is more

    In reading Steve Jobs, a theme keeps emerge: less is more. He cut out the fat and all its distraction. (being a veggie, he stayed true to form). His closet was full of the same long-sleeve stretch shirt that defined his personal brand. His take on wealth and money was also consistent with his 60’s philosophy. Steve…

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  • Flowers on concrete

    Flowers on concrete

    It’s time to celebrate. Harvest time. City folks here in Vietnam go home where beer and Banh Chung (Bean Cake) are waiting, while country folks truck in their flowers and fruits in the opposite direction to sell in the city. This year, we don’t see the return of H5N1. So eat on. Chicken and ducks. A…

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  • My Turn

    For years, Newsweek had devoted one-page My Turn for reader’s Op-ed. This move paved the way for crowdsourcing and blogging, which are both technology-enabled (same way the Karaoke machine let the audience to have their turn at the mike). We will come to a point in the future where past practices (museum, musical hall and magazines) criss-cross with…

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  • un film de Coppola

    I heard “Bonjour Vietnam” again last night…”un film de Coppola…” http://stanmark.multiply.com/reviews/item/9?&show_interstitial=1&u=%2Freviews%2Fitem It evoked psychedelic images and texture of horror (adapted from  Conrad’s Heart of  Darkness.) Yet we were sitting in a boutique studio, with aged ladies sang along to Le Uyen Phuong’ s Last Word to You , equivalent of Bono and Cher: “let’s lay down one last…

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  • Orhan Pamuk must be born of “Other Colors” and in the “Snow” who later built his “Museum of Innocence“. He got the Nobel Prize for his unique perspective and perception on being in the middle of things: Istanbul. Pamuk invited us back to his childhood, to view changes through a child’s eyes “when we watched the…

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  • I have heard about TMA Solutions new building in Quang Trung Software Park, but I have never got a chance to stop by, until yesterday. 1,200-strong, TMA begins to look like an army of engineers (my friend and guide showed me a beehive behind the building, after we had toured their lobby where Vietnam‘s historical artifacts…

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  • Mom’s Ao Dai

    Mom’s Ao Dai

    When I saw a Vietnamese woman on motor bike with helmet, mask, sunglasses, messenger pouch, gloves and Ao-Dai steering her scooter while holding a baby on their way to the sitter, it brought back memories of Mom’s dress. She was a schoolteacher, deeply committed to and consistent in her multiple roles: mother, teacher, wife, daughter-in-law…

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