Thang Nguyen 555

If 2.0 were the American me in the melting pot, 3.0 its machine-verified un-meltable, evolving and accidental. Life throws a curve ball: peak experience intersects decline energy. Yet I don’t expect a director-cut i.e. “one more” ride into the Sunset. Too cliche. Not me who grew up in our war-warped world with long ledger.

For instance, our country folks were herded in and out of villages in “forced draft urbanization” process. Nothing but upheavals: monk burning, currency tossing and babies dropping, survivors on the upper deck of Operations Babylift.

Then when things died down i.e. troops withdrawn and Watergate dust settled, those same country folks were herded in the opposite direction to clear the DMZ – with enough left to breach the Embassy (4/75) or the Capitol (on Jan 6) for catharsis if not Constitution.

Then herd 3.0 respond to upswing in urban manufacturing. Once again, young country folk’ hearts on the roam (leaving home and Green Field) for smokestacks, now seen in decay in Detroit and Baltimore.

When crisis struck, one’s knee-jerk reaction is to deny or assign blame.

“Let’s confront it” I said (after leaving home for God knows what).

Like an eager airline agent, my Penn State academic advisor tout-suite slid me in Speech with unmatched eagerness and enthusiasm of a bored airline agent (I see here, a window slot, still opens). As it turned out, that class was a favorite for football after- practice nap (student’s residual message is idea not worth sharing as in TED talks).

Neither a tourist nor an exchange student, I dove straight into the cold and damp current. Already late to Winter quarter (one of the coldest in 76, with Buffalo residents entered their houses via the chimneys like Santa), I had no reservation nor hesitation to surgically sever and culturally self-amputate. After all meltable me melted, it left me with no choice except to become sort of a Mid-West “white”. “Where?” down in my heart…I’ve got a joy joy joy down in my heart to stay…”: wearing Shaft long-coat with occasional Rolling-Rock buzz like Long Duc Luong’s “What automobile!” in Sixteen Candles (actually I only tossed a handful of rice during Rocky Horror Picture Show).

The 70’s last half saw a mix of fun and sadness (“Sorry” seems to be the hardest word).

I risked deformity for conformity. Survival of the most fit-in e.g. speech, mannerism, dress – even a photo bomb by one of the summer-camp kids under my bunk charge. Camp Akiba in Mt Poconos housed rich rebellious teens who, on Parent Day, received a trunk-full of candies, unloaded and “Prime” delivered from choppers.

Yet at a turn of event, 25 years out, as tourist/intruder, brought me back. Torna a Surriento – Tro ve Mai Nha Xua. Home coming. The old alley – with face shielded behind a moped “xe-om” driver. Perhaps Maggie Q, the Protege, or Daughter of Danang could do better visually. That was after Clinton’s Embargo lift: phone calls, phone cards, phone bills to Vietnam all skyrocketed high as massive outflux of Boat People, ODP and HO underwent cultural assimilation (their 1.0) this side of the pond. We’ve got “Unwanted”, “On Earth we’re briefly gorgeous”, “The Sympathizer”, “The book of Salt”, “When heaven and earth change places”, “Birds of Paradise” …loss worth sharing, diaspora not without a cost.

The rest of the population, after two more regional wars (Cambodia and China), settled down with New Economy (Doi Moi). Currently, folks are experiencing migration 3.0 to urban centers and industrial parks, made possible by FDI from Singapore, India, China, S Korea and Taiwan (Google phone, anyone?) to escape Middle-Income trap.

Back to my 2000 trip. I found my grandfather’s home, my roots. Supposedly former “enemy country” (falling far from the proverbial tree, I was an uprooted frenemy). Even my father and his younger martyred brother had once been on the opposite end of the war spectrum.

A quarter century behind yet war-torn landscape still felt eerie, Hanoi-Jane style. Left to rot, grandpa’s mandarin compound needed a new coat of paint, badly. Au Parleur was still blasting at street corners, London Black-out style. The siren was built to last, since it meant to alert more bombing than WWII Europe. By visiting distant geography, I betrayed ideology.

Meanwhile, the West was moving at breakneck speed per Moore’s Law (chip doubling its speed every 18 months) which triggers mega mergers in information infrastructure. Yet here, I was, sailing slowly back somewhere in time, dissolving from Color to Black/White scenery; as if a hundred years did not matter. I practically could hear happy echo from my parent’s wedding, the flash bulbs and music from France.

Hidden memories, Colonial and Cochin China resurfaced e.g. cone hats and “bo doi” hats (non coi). Throughout my childhood, all I knew of North were censored postcards sent South.

The ties that bind. Love. Unconditional. Bloodline, grandson, one of us albeit firewalls separated Military Regions like East and West Germany.

Since 1954 only family photos and open post cards were allowed back and forth. No wonder! I remember seeing someone’s kid’s photo, then for reciprocity, my own copy, the other way, a trophy baby i.e. Northern root, Southern born, French educated with table d’honeur for brag. Handwritings for humanity. See, we’ve born fruits here in the South! Propaganda mules we all are, posts or post cards by “women on the verge of nervous breakdown” i.e. self-inflicted and socially diffused. omg!

Machine is better at behavior modification (“Driver alert” to Amber alert). Over the Cold War firewall, we sent and received post cards sparingly. Over digital firewalls, per Metcalfe’s Law we share unlimitedly, exponentially and virally. Every man, woman and child is a self-appointed podcaster. A data-rich social media mule.

Outwardly, I could pass for a local. Yet I ducked like in the Deer Hunter in my old neighborhood. Something wasn’t quite settled (emotional ledger not settled up.) My stay-behind half-sister took sibling rivalry to the next level: accusing me of neglect (she was born much later like Princess Bride). As if war and displacement were not enough to torment my soul. Hey, I did not leave under a better circumstance as those exchange students or on tourist visa.

People think we’re machine to be culled and extracted, with efficient computing performance, tweaking and testing to optimal untilization (God knows they did that to animals in farm to fork cycle). When all else failed just kick the machine (have you been frustrated with pinball or vending machine?) when your proverbial coke can fails to show. “The fault,” per Shakespeare,” lies not in our stars, but in ourselves.” Nvidia got it right: we’re our worst enemy. Tell me about it (or the AOL/Time-Warner merger).

Promised benefits e.g. leisure time (machine washes, dries and cleans etc..) never arrived (at this edit, my A/C buzzes loud noise). Technologists live and work under stress and constraint just like academic counterparts: publish or perish. In Texas, huge trucks just sit humming, burning fuel for cool air, or power generators for AI consumption. Quite taxing on all of us.

Since the early 60’s then late 70’s, it’s always been future-forwarding, future shock and future dreams. We are busy upgrading our hard and software (the Code). From mainframe to mainstreaming of “personal” computers then mobile (I-phones).

Billboards once reminded us “Don’t drink and drive”. Today, “don’t text and drive”. No longer do we hear: “Operator, yes, I will accept that LD ‘collect’ call”. We want to monetize “followers”, turning attention to intention of purchase. Their time is our time. Our money uh oh, not theirs.

Progress and prosperity flow one-way and always rise to the top. A “Moore” future (of AI) and a less well-being (of all mankind). Where do you put e.g. remote controlled and drone-dropped bombs, spamming and phishing. 20,000 dollars drones took down 2 million-dollars bombers, to quote Friedman on Washington Week.

More electronics devices = less human contact. Everyone charges up their digital device, but neglect connecting with people. What happens to putting connectivity in the hands of the people? Where is the Whole Earth Catalog, or once promised counter-cultural soul of the spiritual machine? HTML?

From Bell Labs to Cable Labs, from Defense Industrial complex to Communication Industrial complex, we watch the boom of mouthpieces and earpieces, starting with limited choices of 6 o’ clock news (Huntley and Brinkley) and LOP (Least Offensive Programing) to billions of Gong podcasters on social media thanks to multiplexing and broadband build out. 21st century human attention span stretches and suffers. Torturous!

We’ve got a nervous breakdown. Centuries of curating have equipped and enforced slow and long tolerance level. Beyond that, shellshock! The triumph of low brow en mass and everywhere.

That’s what “technology wants”: fluidity. It’s un-American – not to capitalize and monetize, from tech to ties (multi-level marketing), from legal front (public funding) to privacy.

Uberizing and motorizing of everything. If legalized, they would bring back professional mourners (wedding planners, funeral planners…why not?). Anything for a buck, even tears on cue or ties for wake parties.

I visited my grandma’s grave in Hai Duong. Her ashes (from the South) had been hand-carried then reburied to join my paternal grandpa. I felt a tug in my stomach. War and displacement. The end of history and the end of the line. Yet it’s a highlight of my life, seeing grandma at rest, second and last time, in peace.

After all, she told me tales, among which, Jesus was betrayed by Judas, to ease my toss-and-turn mandatory siestas, like a roommate she practically was – first of many, later campus-assigned: Penn State, Wheaton and Gordon, white folk from New Hampshire, black folk from Nigeria. Like technology, I was on a proverbial white-water rafting, from Northeast to Mid-West then out West and beyond. Technology and me and the dog named Boo.

Me 2.0, follows the money. Like a rolling stone, an embedded chip i.e. faster, nimbler and generate less heat. To anglicize, Americanize, assimilate; part and parcel of one’s colonial legacy e.g. British accent (Hong Kong) or French (Indochina) or Vietnam with Nguyens and Trans (just to prove, in crisis, there are opportunities for M&A to self-advance and reinvent). Chameleon we all are, from IBM sales clones to Libertarian middle of the road positioning. Come by here my Lord… kumbaya. Jumping from hot oil to the melting pot, I shred my dogmatic core to the melting pot.

Not unlike the spy who came in from the cold, with new currency and passport. For machine (and man) to facial-recognize and let me through the turn stilt or: “Oh, you’re not in the computer, it says here”. Frisco kids, Harrison Ford and Gene Wilder crossing the vast of America (conned, aided, chased, killed, saved and wedded).

Could you imagine James Bond “shaken but not stirred”, chasing the bad guy by a pedicab wearing a cone hat. Yet somehow, seeing cone hats in hawkish OC felt more like spotting the “enemy” on patrol. That’s how Hamburger Hill and Hollywood Hill pre-conditioned us. Search, destroy then burn to save. Scorch earth strategy. Deny the enemy his sanctuary. Platoon and battalion, medic evac and final day evac.

“Horror horror!” (BTW, both Heart of Darkness and the Deer Hunter, for a post- Vietnam audience). Slowly my 2.0 Americanized version, evolved too, from hawkish to centrist/dovish, Tom Dooley to Tom Hayden, per propaganda “tranquilized” slow-boil effects.

War disrupts, destroys and dehumanizes.

Not just while it’s hot, but more so in its long post-event healing and recovery.

I do appreciate decades of containment, of pushing the conflict further up North of the MZ’s which bought me some time. When World Airways last flew out of Danang, we saw war orgy all spent (65-75).

Me 2.0 shared the grief and pain (War, Watergate and Woodstock). “How I wish there had been someone to whom I could say I was sorry” say I, one of the quiet American.

Meanwhile, loud Vietnamese victors, with 50-years’ worth of remittance behind, still live and die daily in 2-wheel traffic, never reached the Promised Land (the lucky ones in the US also die albeit more slowly in wheelchairs, never reaching the American Dream).

Instead, we now see defoliate patch of land after all the bombs from WWI and II combined, 400X Hiroshima – those eco-cide and ethno-cide. Expenditures that could have easily translated into many Tennessee Valleys. Torn between two lovers, between the rock and the hard place. LBJ LBJ how many babies you killed today!

Grief’s final stage: acceptance: inter-continental inter-generational marriages, international joint ventures and travel, foreign students and Fullbright scholarships. I used to envy international students who could repatriate.

Everything is declassified and normalized. From Vina Capital to Vina Milk, 136 billion in export goods. Yeah! Up there near 5000 USD per year per person.

Me 3.0 emerged amidst accusations of “Cai do mat goc” (uprooted traitor!) who was craving a Taco in the middle of Vietnam (Viet-Kieu, Vietnamese American, acquired Mexican taste or felt longing for a newly acquired US holiday e.g. Black Friday, Thanksgiving or Halloween).

Me 3.0 = set me free from gaslighted 1.0 (Phoenix program) and media saturated 2.0: “brought to you by” (The way we never were) described by Schopenhauer:

“He who lives to see two or three generations is like a man who sits sometime in the conjurer’s booth at the fair and witnesses the performance twice or thrice in succession. The tricks were meant to be seen only once; and then they are no longer a novelty and cease to deceive, their effect is gone. (On the Sufferings of the World).

For example: upscale Viet-American 2.0 then promoted to shift supervisor in the US to “train” Afghan 1.0-night shift workers how to adapt and work better with China-imported machine who will soon replace both.

Me 3.0 with its self-battling and self-recrimination, self-loathing and self-adulation: cursing in native tongue at congesting traffic or feeling nostalgic when watching Alain Delon flick, with English subtitles as opposed to Vietnamese as previous. A turn of a phrase, a lullaby and a face in the crowd “Ngay tro ve, anh buoc le…tiec rang ta doi mat da nhoa vi qua doi cho” (the way back, luckily there was the friendly and helpful buffalo to aid vet field chores).

I once took my dad to breakfast. He was still working on his- missing teeth and all- long after I had finished mine. Yet, that’s what happened to a senior survivor of that dark Cold-War 75-85 decade. Forgive Thyself! my P.S. to the Lord’s prayer.

Meanwhile our post-Cold-War world produces more casualties. From covid’s 7 million dead to the death of Skype – and decline of traditional society e.g. Confucian to Church hierarchy, Conclave smokestack to Rust-Belt smokestack.

My mom used to be a teacher with 57-1 class ratio. She graded papers late into the night. No tugging in, trophy child or not. Hence, my sister stepped up e.g. first day of school. Both female adults were way ahead of the curve, at least half a century compared to Afghan counterparts. Mom’s career spanned at least 1500 pupils who went on to raise good families with second-generation students came by accompanied by their moms to show respect.

Today, my kid’s school in Austin fortunately is run by a more diverse staff. Back in wartime Vietnam, we were taught by mostly male teachers (draft-deferred) at our all-boys school. The war was raging hot for my adolescent decade which saw more female widows than female teachers.

Traditional society relies on women to shield and shelter children: “Don’t talk ills of the death.” “Wipe your noses”. “Not with a mouthful, you hear”. (My cousin passed away without a scrap of news about her missing MIA ranger Colonel husband).

While in Me 1.0.” ignorance is bliss”. Happiness = a stroll in the park: unpretentious smile, handholding in all-girls or even all-boys school (no, we weren’t gay). Wartime (in Back Fire pg. 22, Loren Baritz mentioned how US Marines detested the hand-holding effeminate scene).

If leaving everything in under 2 minutes again, I’d prefer keeping my phone and passport, credit cards and Medicare. Like a spy who came in from the cold, I’d need new identity. hair color and contact lens, wearing a double-sided coat like Bourne and Bond to evade surveillance.

Why not hide in Schopenhauer’s “conjurer booth” to watch recurring Cinema Paradiso.

My depressurized de-acculturalization has been a blessing in disguise: technology progresses at break-neck speed, while the inner man like deer facing a headlight, holds on to meager core values. In Mr. Klein (played by Alain Delon), he was forced to flee in under two minutes, grabbing his fire-sale painting by fellow Jew, only to be herded into the death-chamber train himself for camp tattoos in place of artist’s signatures.

My American life was more like a chip set under Moore’s Law, home for 18 years, then forced to double in yield every 18 months. Use it (pain, crisis, danger, uncertainty and mishaps). Like a failed start-up (zero to 1) that promises the moon, one was to generate viable alternatives to appease investor’s ROI pressures (screw it, les do it), in utter disregard for unintended consequences and unforeseen costs e.g. Bad Blood, EFT and Alzheimer’s Cassava as written in “Doctored”. Instead of flying cars, we end up with TikTok.

While machine is trying to become more like us (nuanced) we are to emulate machine (more speed and less complexity), white Waymo vs yellow cab.

No wonder UVA mass shooter was son of a Korean high-pressure upbringing, or an Austin Vietnamese man committed suicide in his yuppie prime (in wartime, our lyrics were” wish to be born like flowers, fleeting.

When Nixon first coined “Vietnamization of the Vietnam War”, he wanted to pass the buck (to get himself re-elected “Bomb the S.O.B. back to Stone Age”. Inadvertently that set in motion my own self-exfiltration: skipping 10th grade then skipping town. Permanently.

America and dreams are synonymous. You are what you have. At times, it’s Woodstock nude in Upstate NY or burning man in Death Valley, Apple in the orchard or Apple soon in Kentucky. Xanadu dreamy and circuitous that promise an alt+ctrl+del. Then back to the business of America, which is business. Smart Carter (nuclear engineer) lost to Reagan, the GE product pitch man.

Give me your tired and poor (say not, the KKKs in Mississippi). Early adopters among us already special-ordered shirts with monogram as if that would go far to cover our “tattoos” shame. City on the hill, Disney down the land, charter cruise from sea to shining sea.

If 2.0 were the Americanized me, 3.0 its data-rich upgrade: like AI, ever-learning, ever green. Any pilgrim on path of soul search deserves my empathy and respect. We’re after all Frisco kids – sojourners, and the road is long. The opportunity cost quite inflated, paid by being far away from home and more often than not, losing oneself in order to gain it.

Get set! Spring forward.

Have faith in the future. We’ll get it back in the Fall. If.

Plant a tree. Raise a kid.

All faith. All future. That is if fossil fuel fumes don’t get us first. Before the Fall.

Before the time we get back that hour. I have seen people who left us, just in time. Like a Dell lean production line. Like Toyota kaizen. Like Hollywood and Detroit.

Assembly line. Pipeline. Production and forecast. AI-assisted. Assisted living arrangement. Then Bang. Never live to see the clock turned back, to get back that one hour we all faithfully executed this weekend.

Oscar time. Tux time. Bow ties and cuff links. Hankies and Tenu de Soiree.

Everyone wants to be on the front page of the next Variety.

Of getting out in front of “personal branding” (like a Tomato Campell soup can).

Down the red carpet, juice oozing, breast is shown, wardrobe purposely “malfunctioning”. Click, click, click for the paparazzi, for papas, and for papers the next day.

Dream on. Death on the horizon. Living on borrowed time. Our children’s time. With weather misbehaving, social unrest, and bad actors plotting their next moves (as if we all were made of wood on the chess board).

In Gravity, Clooney decided to unplug himself, to drift literally into oblivion, into Infinity of Space and Time, so Sandra Bullock (with misty eyes seen through Space Glass wears) could get pulled back to shores via gravity, the weight of her own survivor’s guilt.

I sure hope we all have a great time watching this year’s Red Carpet. After all, it’s the post-Covid era and we’re still here (minus a few oldsters). Dream on. Live on. On borrowed time (with faith that in the near future, two seasons from now, we’ll get it back).

If not. Then so long. Farewell. Make it count. When desperate, just unplug. No sense of burdening others, younger folks who continue the chant, le chanson “Un-stoppable, I am unstoppable today…” If anything, the moral arc of the Universe always grinds, slowly, justly and just in time. Infinity in our hand (to let go) and Eternity in one hour.

Tolstoy once said a man’s life were like a fraction. The larger the denominator (delusion) the smaller the sum of his total (self)….or something like that. The point is: concentrate on expanding one’s numerator, not denominator.

I went back to old movies and watched them with new eyes: old B/W ones (Paths of Glory, High Noon) or color ones but not too recent (Color of Money, BareFoot in the Park).

From this “sociological” research, I conclude that;

• the poor (recession) are always with us
• self-projection plays a huge role in isolating us from each other (we identify with ideas and folks of same feathers)
• a failed idea today might be a winner tomorrow
• lucky event doesn’t repeat itself
• it’s easier said than done when you have PTSD
• actors are the most adaptable creatures
• America leads the world not just in weaponry and education, but also in image
• crooks always get ahead of the crowd
• we’re cogs in the wheel, suckers for the taking

There might be more, but God knows I am working on it (to reduce my personal denominator, and increase my numerator).

Besides three meals a day and a bed to sleep on, we rectify and rationalize our ways to “greatness”. In the sixties and seventies, we’ve got Sidney Poitier, Sidney Sheldon and Sidney Pollack. Then Alain Delon, Marilyn Monroe and Farrah Fawcett: all well-dressed, well-groomed and well-applauded. We’ve got network anchors, cover girls and models. All well-groomed, well-paid and well-liked.

The public, we, used them for self-projection, to expand our “denominator” (someone we aspire to, root for and wish someday, become them, even just a fraction).

Then we’ve got Presidents: crooked one, clumsy one and cheater-type (Nixon, Ford and Clinton).

Most recent, we’ve got “A Very Stable Genius” (after a book title) and a Baptist with dangling tool-belts.

People are born and died, every day. It seems as if it were yesterday that Earth had 4 billion. Today, double that (give it some time). The sheer amount of population that need to be bathed, fed and funded should humble us. Think of the war in Ukraine, the earthquake in Syria etc…

So we shut our door, close our eyes and dream. Get passed the Copyright warning, get to the intro and establishing shot (for context) and sit back to self-project. On the screen, to be heroes again, (like Kirk Douglas) barking at the corrupt generals (Paths of Glory) and in the final moment of pure empathy “Sergeant, give the men a few more minutes” (before getting shipped out again to their certain deaths). Sh*t, it was nothing but “All quiet on the Western front”. You must be kidding! It’s Hollywood, all dreams, whether in B/W or color.

The longer I have lived, the larger my shadow/denominator. After a while, I learn to accept and live with my fractured self. Maybe Tolstoy was right after all: our lives are like fractions. Growing the denominator could only make it worse.

What happened before will happen again (comes back in a full circle). Maybe not. Something that has never happened before might occur someday e.g. singularity. The speed of change, our ability to cope with it (speaking in shorter sentences, if not binary: Yes or No).

I grew up waiting for frequent trips to visit our grandpa. Mom and me. We went, up the Y bridge, then made a right, toward Chanh Hung. You can always smell it from afar: the pig pen.

I watched and learned. How relatives related. Relationships.

In the end, my mom, on her meager salary, always handed over some cash ( a little something).

Love = rhetoric + reality

Words and action. Real meaningful and tangible means to lift someone’s life up. In this case, it was my Mom’s stepmom and step-siblings.

That’s how society transmits its “genes”. Loyalty, commitment, and compassion.

I have barely drawn up our family genealogy. It took a few phones calls back and forth, to my much older brother (oldest sis already in dementia stage). Every child dreamed of a glorious past. One which dwarfs all fairy tales. Legends that got blown out of proportion and passed on (we bought into it because we were hoping for “what happened before will certainly happen again, maybe skipping a generation).

Aristocracy was and still is. The elites. The “chosen”. Sun gods, Moon gods, and High-noon gods. N Korean leader was seen with his heir apparent on his side. 4th generation. In Britain, King Charles.

In the US, segregationists and secessionists, found their mouthpieces and reincarnation. Divided States. Circular in thinking. In motion. And in place.

Meanwhile, the atomic clock is clicking. People are born and dying.

Even worse, people are getting much older (I am looking at a LIFE magazine from 45 years back: the High Court was packed with White, Male, and Caucasian w/ the exception of Thurgood Marshall – the same time as ROOTS popularity, not to mention Star Wars).

What happened will likely happen again? Winning the lottery twice?

Good luck. With Fox news and fake news. With acronyms like AOC and MTG.

Since when are we afraid of pronouncing someone’s name? Or do they all have to be brands and acronyms for the sake of Twitter’s 140 characters.

The algorithm rules. Our life and society are heading more towards singularity, at which time, machines and man are indistinguishable in speech, thought, and perhaps action. Yes or No? Not maybe. Not wishy-washy. Not hesitating, of two minds. Or changed minds.

It was the Y bridge all right. Where we made a right turn, then headed towards the pig pen and factory. The neighborhood thrived on raising them, selling them and subsisting on them.

The smell stayed with me years later. So was the kindness of relatives, relationships, and bloodlines. I know I can draw up on a board who is who. Perhaps one or two ended up millionaires. The majority were successful and accomplished. Early deaths and longevity. Forgetful and resourceful.

But those were human beings who carry with them a certain amount of dignity, besides dollars.

There is always a trade-off as I see it from the chart. And how politics and migration affected multi-generations (my brother left his home twice, the first on a French ship, the second on USS Navy 7th fleet).

What happened before seems to happen again. At least from my own experience: I too left home on a foreign ship, to arrive on foreign soil and now, write in a foreign language. Did I choose to make that right turn on the Y bridge? Or fate intervenes?

When on that Y bridge, even Robert Frost has to ponder before making his turn, towards whichever road with less traffic, and less traveled. To him, it made all the differences. To me too. Can’t be of two minds too long. Or get run over.

I wasn’t stupid. Something was going on. Something happened. Didn’t know what it was. “What’s going on!” “Something is happening here,….what it is ain’t exactly clear”.

In the dark. Kept there. Even to the last minute. People were climbing, pushing and shoving. Babies crying. Adults in tears (separation, fear of the unknown, fear of danger, of forever be changed).

From one geography to another, with different climate, culture and currency. In the dark, even day time. Hence, the Dictionary. The guide and words that mattered.

Words of encouragement, of admonition and of resignation “what can you do!”.

The crisis and the cause – bigger than any of us. For context, everything happened that year: class of 1974-1975 . From HS graduation to Pre-Med admission, then boarding a barge, a boat and a bus to new life. At the camp (transitory) I looked at the bulletin board, to find lost friends and relatives (to see who made it out), then I caught site of an ad for a voluntary interpreter, Bureau of Child Welfare.

Lost children, lost cause (those not in a plane crash the previous week).

So I showed. Then showed up for work. Every day, like clockwork. No commute since the makeshift office was set-up in another barrack within walking distance. Hi, I am Thang. And you are?…Mary Ann, John, Greg, Steve, Jean ….Pardon me? etc… The tempo went on. First day at work. The routine. Showing up. Hi and bye.

Then comes lunch hour. A toss of football (so, you’re sponsored to go to Penn State? Gotta to get used to football). You might want to change your name into Thomas, Tommy etc..

Boom! Toss, run and catch. Your birthday is coming up? The office chipped in. A sheet cake, perhaps brought in from nearby Lancaster or Lebanon, PA. A Webster’s dictionary, perhaps from a Harrisburg bookstore, with a brief well wishes by the office manger.

Appreciate you guys. Then the trip (with day pass) to court “All rise!”…Yes, your Honor. So and so is willing and is in the affirmative to accept said foster homes. Yes, your Honor.

The court cut me a check. Wished I had framed it for souvenir. My first pay ever.

I asked for a stop at the nearest Montgomery Ward to buy a cassette player and some Sony tapes. That night, I put it against my bunkmate’s player to tape all the songs I thought would be lost forever except in memory. Faded one. Until today. Ben cau bien gioi. By the bridge too far, I listen to the flow of time.

Feeling melancholy. Feeling sad. Friends and father left behind. Objects of desire too. Poof! Gone. Never to be regained. All lost. In one felt swoop.

That jump over the sandbag onto the barge. To “listen” to the flow of time. The Y bridge of fate. At Penn State, it’s another world in itself. Lillie white. No mass shooting. Snow and foliage. Friends and (new) families. Lost in translation. Every day was like Groundhog day.

Now, cassettes gone. Music is still in my head. And the memory is securely locked in the recess of my mind. Pardon me! Appreciate it. Thanks. Where words failed, I rose to the occasion: giving context and nuances to the endless search for those dynamic equivalents. Yet No language can depict the contrast between Dark and Dawn.

That’s why we failed. At a war of deception and descending intervals. That’s why we were scattered into the four winds: from Norway to Norfolk. Foster homes and nursing homes. Here we find ourselves still wanting. Still searching. Still listening to the flow of time. Toss and run. Never catch. In the beginning was the Word, then from A we proceed to Z. Dark slowly gives to Dawn. Yet, it’s always a work in progress. A constant revision of our life as a draft. God our Editor. And Judge. Your Honor, I rest my case.

It happened. Oil and water. Mixing. At the tail-end of the war, Vietnam War. Fifty years on. Still, like yesterday. In-class Tet celebration. Co-ed senior high. My last year in Vietnam. Senior panic. Every moment matters. Knowing we would never see each other and be the same. A sense of premonition. An instant reminiscence.

As Class President, I produced an event: the decoration, the human assignment , the theme and the music. Wait, we don’t have the bass guitar. Send someone. Even the fat guy. To the music store. To rent one by the hour.

I overlooked a small detail (which often comes back and bites you): I did not give him pocket change out of our petty cash. Only that I would pay the rental fees after the event. Lord and behold. The guy took his time! Where was he? Next door, you could hear music and their celebration/dancing. You felt precious time passing. Opportunity missed. Opportunity that would never come around ever. Our equivalent of prom.

When he finally showed, carrying that rental piece of instrument that looked like a big violin (all good ones had been rented out on that busy day), we hurried to put the band together. The mike, the amplifier and the works.

Testing. One, two, three.

Before we knew it, it’s time. Noon. Time to clean up for afternoon classes to set up their celebration. The Head Master went around, unplugging our power chords. Then that didn’t work. He shut down the whole school, leaving us packing.

Had the fat guy not taken a cyclo. Had he hitched a ride on a bike (as I did every day). Had I given him petty cash for the taxi (even then the round-about, conceived and constructed after French urban architectural model, wouldn’t have shaved off much). The split screen would have seen me pacing on the left, while on screen right, my beloved “retard” shielding his Paul McCartney’s-like bass guitar from aggressive traffic.

In looking back, we often remember the good, the bad and the ugly. One of the uglies was at another dance party where it’s my turn to sing; a slow number to give our rock band a break (stirring and settling). It so happened, my girlfriend’s x asked her to dance, leaving me stuck on stage to awkwardly finish out my number: “Love me with all your heart…as I love you, don’t give me your love, for an hour…”

Mark Owen’s 60-minutes interview on “the Killing of Bin Laden” : “here is a guy who told other people to kill, to die , yet he himself did not even put up a fight in the end”.

The point is, it is very disjointing between words and action. I might say, it’s the easiest thing in the world to rent a bass guitar, then hop on the horse and bring it back here. After all. it’s only a mile and a half . Yet it did not happen given Saigon traffic.

Like our Master Mind of the 9/11 attack. When it comes to actual fighting and dying, our strategist and rhetorician found himself short. Quite short, compared to Seal 6.

Those cyclos are now relegated to and pedalled by ARVN vets for US vets to tour, leisurely through Saigon congested streets. Museum piece. Like horse buggy. Like hot-air balloons. Never supposed for timely “Prime” delivery of musical instruments.

Shortly after power got unplugged at my school, the city itself got unplugged at the hand-over of the Independence Palace. Tanks on the street. Cyclos hid behind shady trees. Advancing army, most of them young, real young, marched in formation with heads turned, quite taken with the Pearl of the Orient and its trapping: round-abouts, billboards and trees. (like the Times Square sailor famous kiss). The same scene which my fat classmate took in, I am sure, while holding on to the bass guitar, on his leisure ride, now afforded only by Western backpackers and G.I.’s (most of whom had come home the year before).

The cyclo and the guitar. In my mind. What song would have been played had it arrived as planned? Perhaps “Oh mon amour” by Christophe. I sang that at a previous gathering, on my own, with my guitar and without the acoustic fanfare. Just me, without the accessories and access to an amplifier. That 11-12 noon hour stayed on as one of my longest hours. I could still hear, even now, the sound of my heart-beating without bass guitar. Oil and water. Cyclo and guitar. Words and action. Don’t mix.

It fell. Gravity. Weight. Collapse.

Same with lies and hypocrisy. Hand-me-down and revised version as the Like new norm of “untruth”.

One day, all on their own (weight), they collapse. Like a Ponzi scheme. Like Enron (among its mission statements: “respect” and “integrity”). Like 2008’s derivative packaging (S&P at 666 bottoms). Like Theranos (Steve Jobs re-incarnated).

Social media in contrast thrives on Network Effect, regardless of content ( by nature, it tilts more towards visual, short, crisp, and cryptic sound bites ).

Should we go Luddite on it? Pack up and go off the grid?

Even nature has its short-fall (or a tree falls). So we bid for time. We do time. Serve time. Scroll the feeds. Waiting for the Uber ride.

Waiting for the last ride, ” a motorized Trinkle between the crematorium curtains”, (courtesy of “Sense of an Ending” by Julian Barnes). Of course, we are entitled to feel morbid. Trees fell. Buildings collapsed (Turkey). And women returned to water haul in Kabul.

The world I have come to know has constantly changed: from one minute to the next e.g. the Challenger burst out in flames on live TV, the burning monk in front of my eyes at the intersection of Le Van Duyet and Phan Dinh Phung, or the planting of “triumphant” SVN flag on top of the Capitol (cathartic Iwo Jima) 2 years ago.

Vietnam, the victor, is meanwhile moving its economy to be more aligned with its nearest neighbor, itself had aligned its economy more toward Capitalism (“black or white cat, as long as it catches the mice”). Meanwhile, the US SOP still very much reflects Fordism after the automobile inventor (“you can buy any model-T you want, as long as it’s black”).

This year is the year of the Cat (Rabbit in China). Yet it seems as if it’s always been the year of the Dog, who wags its tail. A shot was heard over there. A shootdown of a balloon over here. How dare you!

Playbook at the ready. Inventory and supply chain under control. Re-shore chips manufacturing. Recode our IP. Leave the spies in place. The post-war cost-accounting Dept never fully factored in the long-term effect and hidden cost of post-war recovery (humanitarian donation, volunteer hours and labor, time to heal if ever to integrate back into society).

People who are hot-blooded. Trigger happy and wanderlust. Take a hike. Hit the trail. Work it all out of your system. But think hard and twice about the countable and uncountable cost of going to war. Young men/women are thrust into playing God.

Shoot’m (anything that moves). Demonize them. Divinize yourself. Please come back. But never in one piece. And know the place for the first time. And to find out, the enemy is you. This applies to both sides. Since veterans often times turn against themselves when it’s no longer clear-cut who the enemy was.

It takes much longer to rebuild what’s been destroyed. Same with multi-generational hypocrisy e.g. KKK family rituals, embedded in our current culture, where lies get rewarded, and truth sneered (let’s go hunting! oh, here is a jogger, a n***** who doesn’t belong in our neighborhood, a new face sitting on OUR lunch counter).

But then, all on their own (weight of sin) they fall. Rome, Munich, Enron, Ponzi, Madoff…. the list goes on. Yet we still are gullible. Self-delusional and self-deceived. That’s why it takes dying (to bad habits) to live and stay sane in an insane society.

At times, I wish to crawl back into the cave and live off-grid. Off-road, Off social media, and off hearing/reading about people’s parading their supposedly shameful posts shamelessly. Theatre of the absurd. Gong show was recast as fashion show. Criss-crossing and circulating the red carpet, with wrong name tags on their chests. Until, on their own, in front of the mirror, when suddenly they come to know themselves for the first time.

Not yet dead (by a thousand cuts). Not yet been jailed (despite multiple lawsuits).

And not back down (despite death threats and business shut-down threats).

A while ago, I was thinking about female journalists eg. Barbara Walters, etc… who blazed the trail. The ERA struggle back in the ’70s. How women wanted to have it all.

Now, in the person of Maria, I am more convinced of that possibility (for my girls).

My daughters saw a Dad who couldn’t type and couldn’t write (in Journalism 101, I handed in a blank sheet of paper). Only to turn down a broadcast ENG (electronic news gathering) job 4 years later (putting my life on hold for my Mom who had been an orphan since birth).

Back to Maria. Her pointing out technology, social media (harms), and the new politics of divisiveness (algorithm that recommends more “friends of friends”).

I was in the Philippines back in 1983. That year, in Manila, we learned there was an assassination going on at the airport.

I remembered thinking “can’t be” (earlier, it was a Congressman, on a fact-finding tour who got killed in Guyana, a Jim Jones incident). People outside of the Western World think they can just get away with the murder of political opposition (Abe in Japan, for instance). The same with the mass shooting here in the States (6 years old?).

Something about Maria. Princeton, CNN, and Rappler. She does make waves.

From “pajama party” to “Nobel Peace prize winner”. What a journey, despite all the FUD’s (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt).

When I grow up, I want to be like Maria. By that I mean, face the fear. Stand up to bullies. And speak up while growing stronger together.

Maria couldn’t have made it without the help of technology. Without the rise of CNN (imagine her at FOX?).

The fight is still on. Just like the Marcos are still here. Still shopping for shoes in Makati.

Something will never change: they smell your fear. Just remember, they are ONLY THE BULLY.

That’s their lot in life. We should feel sorry for those whose ill fate obviously limits their full potential. Like mine, in the alley, who once beat me up bloody (because I did not stay down), has died of a drug overdose. They get high by intimidating others. Then Noses up, they go in search of the next “fix” (victim). Endorphin factory.

When they run out of “fun”, the urge drives them to fentanyl (fantasies?) or the like.

How to stand up to a dictator? Either wait him/her out. Or keep standing up. If you don’t die by a thousand cuts, you are destined to survive. Even to receive the prize as in Maria’s case, envied by the very bully and dictator she was fighting against. Did the Nobel Prize committee take side? Absolutely. So should we. Unless we want to leave our fate and future in the hands of others’ algorithms or urges.

Something about Maria. About you and me. Deep down. We are entrusted and encoded to expect a world that is fair and nurturing.

Live on in the face of a thousand cuts.

At the end of Steven King’s Shawshank Redemption, we find our character laying on his back saying “I’ll be damn!”. His partner in crime had pulled it off. Not a small feat. Papillon’s worthy. One handful of limestone at a time. Sprinkled around in the yard during break times. Unbroken. Maintain one’s sanity and sense of self.

I have a dream. Well, I had. When I was three. Seeing the adults in my family fought over dinner, watching the flood water rising, and neighborhood thieves chased by my father/protector. I had a dream. That I would never grow up to avert those mishaps. Human hurting human. Nature punishing humans. And family quarrels over meals.

Our larger human family has done just that. Assassination. Revolution. Extermination. Defoliating (“denying the enemy’s sanctuary”). We have gotten good at the art of deceitfulness. First, learn the ABC’s. Then the D’s (deceit, deny, and deflect blames).

I have a dream. For real. Last night. That I finally came with money. And I threw my hands in the air, declaring to those in the room (my classmates, majority of whom have been looking down on me) that we’re all on a flight, mine, to Paris.

That’s a kid’s dream.

Not MLK’s one. His was much grander, more encompassing, and harder to actualize.

Redemption? Not enough. Back in the summer of 86, I went to West Africa. (That put me near the “action” of Apartheid, I naively hoped).

Made some friends. Visited Joe from grad school for instance. And of course, I learned another lesson: it’s possible to live in harmony, outside of the Coca-Cola’s commercial, with folks from multiple nations.

But it takes work. It takes sacrifice and self-examination. For me, redemption is not enough. We need to deconstruct ourselves and our society (larger self), before putting them back (like refracting through a prism).

Why and how did we get to this point? (Judy Woodruff is trying to answer to that). Lack of education (proper one)? Respect? Or it’s self-evident in human nature to associate in groups, then get united by “hating” others.

The answers lie in those in power, wanting to control and leverage their time (short) on Earth to stay on the throne (or keeping it within the bloodline e.g. N Korea).

Zoom out, and we will see the arc of history. It will right itself. And if I still am around to see Paris, I would lay on my back, like the guy in Shawshank Redemption, ” I’ll be damn!”.

Very rarely in one’s lifetime, do we see and honor people like Martin Luther King or Nelson Mandela. Beyond their darker skin lays a brighter soul undeterred by outward and unjust treatment.

Everyone has a choice between birth and burial to live a just life. Treat others fairly, the way you would like to be treated. When that’s so, “I’ll be damn”.

Before 1968, all I knew of Tet was new clothes and new outlook. It’s been around like clockwork, with foods, festival and fun. Per legends, 1600 BC, wikipedia has this

“…Tết, whoever could introduce the most delicious dish for the altar would become the next ruler of the country. While other princes tried to find the rare and delicious foods from forest and sea, the eighteenth prince, Lang Liêu, who was the poorest son of the Hùng king, could not afford such luxurious dishes and had to be content with everyday ingredients, such as rice and pork. He created one cake in the square form of earth called bánh chưng and one in the round form of sky called bánh giầy from these simple ingredients. In tasting the dishes offered by his son, the Hùng king found bánh chưng and bánh giầy not only delicious but also a fine representation of the respect for ancestors. Therefore, he decided to cede the throne to Lang Liêu and bánh chưng, bánh giầy became traditional foods during Tết.^[2][3][4] Lang Liêu founded the Seventh Hùng dynasty (c. 1631 – 1432 BC).”

Key words: “content” “respect”… In short, make the best with what you have. Symbolism with substance. Beauty in simplicity.

Thousands-years lineage and code of honor as hallmarks of a nation: respect for the elderly and (soon) for nature (Mother of all).

The three cards monte also looks simple yet takes skills. Like the J6 scheme of selective slate of electors.

From “So Help Me God” by Mike Pence, to Bill Barr’s “One Damn Thing After Another” and Bolton’s “The Room Where It Happened”…Everyone profits. A lot of wheeling and dealing, from Saudi to K Street, Washington D.C. not unlike a “3 cards” monte on our city sidewalk.

When “crooks” are protected or pardoned, they can leverage their positional power. Not for the guys on the street, chased by cops and put behind bars. On PBS, and I quote, they mentioned “the political utility of shamelessness”. (There goes the 4th “S” after Symbolism. Substance and Simplicity.)

We live in a time when we can not afford to call a spade a spade. Santos or other name (s)?

Not without a slant and a spin for future denial ability. All the while we miss the Elephant in the room (where it happened).

Crookedness, white or blue-collar, in the Hall of Congress or at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, is only a matter of degrees. No differences. The lower rung, who, when caught, got sent to jail (without bails).

After 1968, symbolism of Tet shifted. “Tet” in the news, no longer bore any resemblance to my Tet of previous years. It was synonymous to 3,000 buried in Hue mass grave, a failed “uprising” in multiple cities. and a successful anti-war propaganda campaign at Kent State and Jackson State.

People took a symbol, be it a traditional Holiday or a card in the deck, then flip its meaning (one man’s terrorist is another’s patriot, 69 or 96 ? all situational ethics).

Glad to celebrate an evolved Tet this year. My hope is in plain and simple language, people can explain the symbolism and substance of Tet to their kids. Beauty in simplicity. Stay content. Always be respectful and mindful of those on whose shoulders we all stand. Throne or trash, it’s our treasure.