Thang Nguyen 555

“It” here was the war, NAM.

My friend and I often chatted that had it lasted as its Afghan counterpart, we would have been long dead.

Our version of “It’s a Wonderful life”…we wouldn’t be around to affect changes, to do some damage or contribute to build others’ lives better.

The immediate next generation wouldn’t have known about our struggle and sentiment. Of calling today’s buffet foods – decades after the war – “Ft Chaffee” foods (one of the four refugees camps in the US in the second half of 1975, serving mess-hall style).

Like a line in “I don’t want to talk about it”…”If I stayed here just a little bit longer…won’t you listen…to my heart…oh my heart”.

We men wanted to get it over (even death)…Prolonging the struggle, the protracted conflict, the elasticity of limping through a field of unexploded ordinances… then the Killing Fields; all undesirable.

I have seen those skulls up close.

How could people got in line, stoically, for mass execution under the Khmer Rouge?

No resistance? No jumping out of the tower of inferno like the Falling Man on 9/11? No rushing the terrorists like one of my alumni on UA 93?

We would rather die right then and there.

But then, we wouldn’t experience first-hand decades of both pain and pleasure…What it feels like to be rejected, to fail and to compromise.

To see the depth of depravity and deception.

To know the kindness of strangers (letting me lay on his hotel’s floor to pass a cold North East Winter night).

Had it lasted just a bit longer….We would exist only in faint memory of loved ones, in Black/White altar photo.

Occasionally, or annually, in the background of incense smokes and fruits that last a while, like apples and pears.

Had it lasted just a bit longer, we wouldn’t endure the stagflation, inflation and deflation in the US. To cheer and to cry, the Fall of the Berlin Wall, and the Fall of the Twin Towers.

We wouldn’t receive scholarships or offer it to the next generation.

We wouldn’t pass it on ( kindness and cruelty – human’s mix bag of genes).

We wouldn’t be able to cheer others on, to comment or complain.

TO EXIST is a privilege.

And we have been mighty lucky that NAM, the war, stopped when it did as we skidded right into the thick of it.

I used to feel betrayed, angry and imploding. But of late, I realise how lucky we (my friends and I) have been to breathe free air, and speak freely.

Had it lasted just a bit longer…we would have been war invalids, war veterans or war dead, without a proper burial and remembrance.

Now, it’s our Afghan neighbour’s turn…to appreciate what they cannot see at this moment, as their war will soon be ended.

Everything has their beginning and ending: a story, a song or a war. Ours happen to be all three….”oh my heart:”…

Less than 100 days before the Fall of Saigon, like you, I was worried stiff.

Of course the American were slowly and steadily pulling out, so as to avoid a full-blown panic.

Equipment, man and materials – logistically retrieved…after years of build-up and mission-creep (3/4 of multiple Trillion of dollars were for logistical-robotic supports vs Taliban’s cavemen-like agility).

Your war has unfortunately been twice longer than ours, but similarly devastating and heart-broken: children orphaned, women widowed, limps lost…

As long as you still have hope, you should be OK. Out of the ruin, rises the phoenix.

Many of you are applying and anxiously awaiting for a visa.

Best wishes to you. (as of this edit, one of your pilots – featured in PBS Newshour – got an OK to enter the US as our latest settler).

I hope no harm befalls you after having allied with the US in our long war.

(Unlike many in post-Vietnam who died in closed camps or out in the opened seas).

Let’s entertain a scenario. Let’s say you get a sponsor and a visa.

Upon arrival, you will be culture-shocked…no matter the region of the US.

Let’s just say you are lucky to be re-settled in the Northeast of the United States…

Be prepared for news about mass shooting (last weekend, in Austin, Cleveland, Chicago and Savannah), about Pulse’s 5-year anniversary (49 dead)…

Casualties are nowhere near to what you have seen. But it should make you ponder: why a nation of peace always seeks a fight ( as oppose to yours, a nation of war, yet can only wish for a day without guns).

What exactly transpired there? The Pakistanis push? Chinese (rare-Earth) hunt? (or Russia return).

You wil meet the relics of liberals..academia or otherwise.

You will be mistaken for an Indian techie who help build our nation’s cyber-infrastructure (against the war on digital terrorism).

You will “leapfrog” from tribal culture to cyber culture…

Brush up your math skills… attend community college (not ITT).. pick up an ESL class…

In short, your future is bright, as long as you stay head down, eyes opened.

You will meet a few gentle people, in San Francisco or San Jose on your trip out West.

But that’s about it. Just white folks and white lies.

Don’t take to heart everything you hear. America, had it been what it thought it were, it wouldn’t have left you in limbo (early settlers along the East Coast were known for feeding on dead bodies to thrive…not far different from a few of our Boat People survivors). People of colors were seen as ranch hands…despite industrialized farming and improved yield (social revolution hasn’t caught up with technological revolution).

Always out-sourcing (pain included) a nation, the US conducts its diplomacy and warfares via third-party cut-outs.

(Currently, whose armies are guarding your critical infra-structures? Turkish). Always efficient, yet unwise in world affairs.

So you know. Your future development will also be “outsourced” to educational loan institutions, financial institutions and hopefully, not mental institutions.

Everything has been tightly-established, nitty-gritty…to the teeth.

In awe when walking into a Walmart near you? I don’t blame you.

At your first job, blue-collar of course, you will meet even fewer “gentle” people there (ain’t Flower Power in the 60’s but a gladiatorial fight for survival at the bottom of the totem pole).

Then you will encounter with high/low religions mix with partisan politics.

You will be a poster child for what’s wrong with the world: a blood-thirsty race who worship other gods….

You are to be bleached inside out, to become “white”, to “confess” and ” be baptized” preferably in Nashville during the convention of America’s largest denomination…Your being a new convert will legitimize their Monotheistic stance – a nice distraction from their unbecoming conducts.

Oh well, my dear neighbour, you will become more individualistic as you travel up the food chain. Forget clan loyalty. Forget your mindset of kill-or-be-killed (zero-sum game). To get back on your horse you will have to use it (the loss and pain) to survive.

I know you have some English…as a translator…to be granted a visa…to be here.

What you bring e.g. desire to succeed….is just 10% of the work. The rest are uphill battles….

Think of the US as sports. You are to be eliminated….to be benched…to be de-listed….

Your mission is to survive and thrive e.g. school grades, credit scores and bank statements.

Things will change again, every two and four years…

People move on to other “distractions”….like the re-opening of Disneyland and Universal Studio.

Like Amazon streaming and Apple apps.

I know you have been on the receiving end of drones and rockets. ..

You might still have nightmares every so often.

And you will be looked at as a walking reminder of geo-political conflicts and doctrinal short-comings people prefer to forget.

Oh well, join us, the community of refugees…ethnic shops and exotic cuisine (as if culture could be deduced into cooking)…with tokenism and regrets.

In the end, you will accumulate enough “hit-and-missed opportunities” to constitute what you call life i.e. material gain.

Good luck my neighbour. Your story is America’s. Just like mine. Just like the Italian’s, the Irish’s, the German’s.

We consume, create and contribute.

Some build boobs, others bombs.

I notice your countrymen’s restaurants in the D.C. area.

Perhaps some corrupting politicians have managed to channel their funds overseas, in anticipation of this eventual end.

20 years have gone by since 9/11. Twin Towers. Boeings-turned-bombs. NYC knocked of its two front teeth per Tom Wolfe.

Human sacrifice. A One-World altar. Tombs of the known victims and responders. Of UA-93 heroic sacrifices.

What a waste. What a tragedy. Somehow, your fate and destiny are linked in with mine, here in America.

Land of the free and free-fall.

Less than 100-days before the pull out…heart-throbbing…tear-jerking….relationship lost, identity confused and future uncertain….

I can go on and on…but I want desperately to end with a hopeful note, for you my Afghan counterpart.

We are like inmates, awaiting a trial, sharing a bench…my best wishes to you is to be free inside out.

Head high, chest forward…walk in dignity and with a smile in your face. You are here – the other side of the pull-out, with me watching your 6.

“Want a Juicy Fruit?”

.

Empires ended. Products expired. People with own timetables…. with either sudden or slow deaths.

We can do without a lot of things, such as pandemic or climate change.

Speaking of on the road….with pot holes and parking tickets.

Speed traps and traffic schools.

No one wants to stay home. Even the PBS Newshour panelists, now debating in person in studio.

The dynamics of inter-personal face time, of reading the other’s non-verbal.

It’s beautiful when it’s voluntary i.e. re-union or celebration.

It’s a drag when it’s forced, or mandatory.

The play aspect of events and gathering e.g. summer camps, summer camping, summer road trips.

If it’s spontaneous, and more than likely, won’t happen the same way again, then it’s play.

If it’s repeatable, like a scientific experiment, then it’s chores.

We miss out our youth because we’re told to sacrifice for the future.

Now is that future. And it’s bitter taste in the mouth.

In war time, people got away with a lot of things (like fathering and leaving a child behind – interracial one – or rushing a relationship to its end stage because tomorrow, we would all die).

Our youth, our dreams and our longing…so elusive and always a mirage.

Keep pressing ahead, a long road.

To no end. God is dead since the 60’s. Let him find you. Don’t go around looking for heaven on Earth (where earthly things are prevalent as mentioned earlier with “war time” rationalisation.)

Although the end is not in sight, it will come to each of us when least expected.

Last Sunday it happened to a classmate.

Some years down the road, to my loved ones.

Can’t stop time.

Can’t turn back the clock.

Can’t help but moving on and on, six-feet apart or six-feet under.

What’s left, in my opinion, is compassion, empathy and kindness.

Those qualities are enduring and hopefully eternal.

All else is fake, with product life-cycle, with planned obsolescence and expiration dates.

In “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”, I noticed milk was still delivered at the front door back in those days.

Fresh milk. Expiration date: today.

Our lives will end on their expiration dates. But for now, we need to keep feeding it with healthy nourishment, a steady diet of vitamin combo and endorphin (laughters).

And yes, please cry. Grief and loss are parts of life. A life without pain is no life at all. So is a life without joy, its flip side. Until…

When it’s time.

When I asked for a driving tip (at night), Glen, a college roommate, told me: “just follow the painted line”. Given that we were winding through Pennsylvania mountains heading West, his advice was certainly heeded. Until today. Years later.

Glen was from N Hampshire, with curly blonde hair and rolled up his sleeves (short-sleeves to begin with).

I couldn’t remember whether he attended the other roommate’s wedding in Vermont, or at the time, he had already been doing geological work in Zaire.

Follow the painted line.

The road is winding, dark and deep.

We all got promises to keep.

Miles to go….

My daughter is following my footsteps….legacy admission, they call it.

Perhaps she would be sharing a dorm room with Glen-likes…trading stories, discoveries and disappointments.

Part of growing up. Part of life.

She plays an instrument. Perhaps that selling point will land her a counselor job at Mt Pocono’s summer camp.

She will have a few days off in the summer. She might go home to her friend’s town, perhaps Philadelphia.

I remember now watching the Bi-Centennial fireworks at the cradle of Democracy, by the people, for the people. This land is our land, this land is your land….

She will turn down an advance, get a few rejections of her own…heart-broken then healing.

Winter will be freezing cold. Summer muggy. Penn State in the Fall, with Alumni Day, home-game Saturdays…

The Creamery, the library and the Corner Room.

Old Main will always be there. To witness 3-day Spring outdoor concert.

“Here comes the Sun”

I know my daughter will be “alright”….

I was – even with a few close calls.

Despite all the hair, “down to his knees”….”Come together”….on the wall, facing University Boulevard.

The many hours of work-study, of reading assignment, of going to the Student Union movies (subsidized pricing), watching “Everything you always wanted to know about sex” by Woody Allen.

Late 70’s saw us question everything, embarking on our quest to ask “Why”….of listening to campaign speech (Udall), and Springsteen’s Born to run.

We reached out to the shut-in (before covid)…in nursing homes and hospitals.

We sang in choir, conducted by the late Andre Previn.

We sheered and jeered at games….WE ARE.

Later, when I got picked for an internship at WNEP-TV in Scranton, I left Penn State for the last time. Never had I come back, even for graduation.

Follow the guard rail….Part of life…Part of growing up…Pain and rejection, the warmth of other sun and personal Underground Railroad.

I have many more roommates after Glen.

But his commitment to change the world, to follow the formation of the rocks, and to follow the guard rail forever inspires me.

White dude from N Hampshire, what are you doing in Congo. Still follow your own advice?.

I know, I know….I hardly am generous on giving out advices, for fear I myself can’t measure up.

Life has not been following a straight path. Instead, it’s winded after the contour of the road.

I have witnessed enough of suffering and sorrow, of Burning Monk to Bombing the Independence Palace (S VN)

Of helicopter’s blade wildly dis-attached from the rotor, of boat exploded, boat people dinning on the other’s dead bodies for survival, of Three-Mile_island panicking and 9/11 towers tumbled.

I have watched the Capitol attack attempts (9/11 hi-jackers did not make it, while domestically incited ones did on Jan 6).

I have grown up and grown some scars. Albeit not callous toward disappointment, I still am hopeful.

That when it’s my kid’s turn, she can stomach many more than I….(still with a lump in my throat come to think of it).

Parent cannot live their kids’ lives for them.

They will have to follow their own guard rail.

Toward a destined fate. Along the way, meeting the good, the bad and the ugly.

I shed an advanced tear for my kid’s future sorrows. Wish I could shoulder a few to lighten her load.

You bet I still am following the guard rail, since the road always has been winding as we traverse the hill of life.

Real news are much more painful than fake news. Real news shocked us, surprised us and spinned us in other directions. Real news are slower than fake news. But when they get there, they demand change and action.

In other news today, 8 killed in San Jose – on a day the rail cars were supposed to be back in business (as usual).

In other news today, Senator Mark Warner, Elizabeth Taylor’s one-of-many husbands, died. Senate Minority Leader eulogized him as “an old-school Virginia gentleman” (as he wished someday, someone like McCarthy would in turn sing his undeserving praises).

And so it goes, the way it is with the world, with news and other news.

We seek, search and savor those bitter-sweet happenings in the world, knowing full well, what happened yesterday, happens again today (mass shooting would stop? right, keep dreaming).

The world will join the EU in climate change, and everyone will buy an EV? Right, Ono…Dream on.

Nevertheless, we keep going, like an early-stage EV battery looking for its nearest charging station.

350 miles, and counting. (why would they put EV charging stations outside of Walmart? its shoppers can’t afford it to begin with. Duh!)

In other words, we play the game, while the x-Commander-in-Chief plays golf and plays the game (of bidding his time, waiting for an indictment – with plausible deniability and at tax payers’ expenses, as expected).

It’s the financial guy, it’s the fixer, the consigliere who will do time. Not me. I know nothing, see nothing, hear nothing.

Always 6-feet distancing from a crime, but crime nevertheless, in God’s eyes, in his people’s eyes and in his own conscience (if any).

Biden was known for empathy. His opponent for the lack of it.

All you have to do is carefully observe the upcoming meeting between Biden and Putin, split-screen it with that of Trump’s.

You will see the stiffened body-language, the gotcha moment of teflon diplomacy.

BTW, in other news, an openly gay, Black White-House spoke-woman today announced a window to finding out the origin of covid-19. Whether it “naturally” or “accidentally” escaped from the lab, or by evolution, just “jumped” from bats to “batman”.

Oh well, I have been tired just to follow main-stream media. At times, I want to take lonely walks in the wood, and heck with happenings around me.

During war time, our first-generation rockers came up with their own: ” I just want to be with nature, live like a wild flower, without stress and worries.” There are always “In other news”…such as stocks which are up today, just a little bit. And of course, 8 families (plus Senator Warner’s) are in mourning.

You see, Memorial Day cannot come sooner …for people like you and me…zombies-like to place flowers (sometimes plastics) on old graves. We who wake up to an un-reality, a new norm with shrugs! Just like us youth who grew up during war time, wishing for just a single day of peace, love and music.

I eternally envy Woodstock generation. Their festival lasted 3 days, with round-the-clock performance and play time. Heaven on Earth. Now, that trumps any three-day Memorial weekend when death, grief, mourning and loss are front and center. What’s the point of living, when the majority of the time are dedicated to loss and dis-continuity? Yet, good news don’t sell and certainly are not that “fake” so as to travel fast enough for a larger grab of social media attention. Our loss, their gain. Unsustainable.

Like you, I was young once.

Barely speak, barely walk…barely able to join others. Of course, join others I later did when we moved a few blocks up the street.

Geography and growth curve aligned to make a perfect storm i.e. two dozens kids share one alley (my “cinema Paradiso”… when my cousin brought his home movies out to show in public…against the wall in his backyard…the crowd increased exponentially with friends of friends…like social media network effect).

We blossomed. We learned to make friends, to make up and to trust.

All sorts of kids: half-breeds French-Vietnamese, Indian, Southerners and Northerners (post-Vietnam partition), middle-and-lower classes. Little did I know, I was thrusted into a multi-cultural environment, with French teachers at school and internationally diverse neighbors at home.

Later in life, I hesitated not for a second to join roommates from all shades and walks of life.

I learned that people were like trees i.e. grow, hybrid, wither and die…all the while change colors seasonally (part of growth).

We live in a loop, rinse and repeat…death as the next phase as we outlived our existence.

I fear not what’s coming, just as I once anticipated change in my new neighborhood. It comes second nature.

Of course there were bullies and beauties – with whom I exchanged “love letters” and tossed condensed milk cans with strings attached from one balcony to the other for landline connection.

It rained six months out of a year. So we revert to plan B.

Reading cartoons (Tin-tin), tinkling with self-made toys (kites and paper airplanes) and learned to play the guitar.

Small fingers started with D chord and associated harmony e.g. G and A7.

My parents did not push me to read, but they showed their affinity for poems and foreign languages.

In short, with new neighbors, new tongues and new skin tones, I learned to appreciate a more diverse society. A society that flows with the natural order, with various hues and colors.

Food, flowers and flood made up our beautiful world. Why not? Why rip-off the Creator? Why short-change ourselves of diversity and tapestry? (even white made for multi-colors when passing through a prism).

I wish I had more “lives” to fully exploit what’s in nature. Rome was built at the center of all the cross-roads. Perhaps we are like little “Romes”, with happenstances and “choices” called life, to have criss-crossed us throughout our lifetime, albeit unrecognized or unrealized as gifts e.g. adversity, loss, rejection, grief, hurt, pain and bitterness.

Bullies, bombs or bubbles. We cope with adversity, grow in our resilience, and flow (not be floated) in a loop. Told you, I once was just as young, naive and idealistic. Now I resign to maintenance, to sharing and to conserving…to choosing my own battle and next phase of growth and grief in all its five stages.

I am not worried a bit. See, I always am curious, and not afraid to make mistakes…and most of all, be myself albeit in an older version, unlike Explorer which MS is trying to get rid of…(See, we need to be at the Edge. It’s quicker and more agile.)

If history is any guide, I might end up “browsing” and searching for my old neighborhood. Looking at it “looks back” at me will confirm that both of us (me and the landscape) have changed and gone through many wash/rinse cycle.

This moment, the now, however, doesn’t repeat itself. Each unit of time is so simple and small yet significant, just like each of those nano dust that constitutes you and me. Friending? We are cut from the same pulp. Flamingos are for display, trees shade, rivers run, sun warmth, moon dream, and you? my friend. To have and to hold….oh well…till our next phase in the loop of life.

I once grew up without a lot of contacts and connection. Until we moved to a new block on the same street. That set me up for the loop of life….non-stop.

When I died, I would throw a ball (after all, I have organized a bunch of them in my youth)..for all who had gone before me…people who sat under scorching heat in Nam’s jungle, listening to “Reflections of my Life” (before they themselves got on the Vietnam Memorial Wall).

I would put on music we once loved, meet all the people we had missed so much whether in passing/on line or related by blood.

I would make sure the floor is sprinkled freely with Johnson & Johnson Baby Powder so the Tango dancers won’t trip over (heck, I will throw in those customized pairs of dancing shoes…since we have all the time in the world).

I would apply “stirring & settling” technique I learned in CELTA to hold everyone’s attention even “ghosts”.

And of course, those who died unjustly would have free passes (unlike at Studio 54 where you were given a bartending job based on your boyish looks)…as long as they could show me their wounds e.g. war wounds or 9/11-like wounds (no need for vaccinations or masks).

The ball I have in mind is for the Fallen, falling men and women. Dance away unhindered, for the worst of fears i.e. Death, is behind us.

I cannot imagine the “vibes”….”I see “dead people dance”….

Music is loud, jovial. People (ghosts) laugh and cry at will, uninhibited (we’re all in the same “boat”…)

The other side of death should free us unlike any other.

Artists seek to die daily ( or in one instance, cutting off his ear) in order to live and produce their “immortal” works for mass consumption.

All things must pass (George Harrison).

We all know this, but live on in wishful thinking.

On rare occasions do we reflect on life and death, just for a second before reverting right back to our perpetual denial.

One thing I would not allow in: people who were deceptive and fakes (to spare them the awkwardness of not knowing how to behave and be their forgotten-selves).

This ball is one for keeps: the night, the ambience, the congeniality, the eternality of it all: we are talking Woodstock and all the concerts ever thrown: Gatsbyesque… weekend at Bernie, Sixteen Candles, Super Bowl’s half-times, Inauguration lead-ins, …..every which way imaginable.

Who says the dead don’t know how to party.

It’s the half-dead who lack the imagination, hence tribal-ized, dis-connected, and out-of-touch with one another (while working in the same chamber, living in the same household, and breathing in the same eco-system).

If this Climate Change keeps up, my ghost ball might be extremely crowded and hot. Turn up the A/C . Full capacity – f**k the fire code we’re already dead, burning with unfulfilled desire to ..oh well, live. We’re….covid’s, cancer’s and (hate)crimes’ dead.

Oh, in case you didn’t get the invitation, because of digital divide or covid divide, just come in. I will vouch for you. After all, the floor is less crowded during those “settling” inter-ludes with French love songs….”S’i tu n’existais pas”….or “Dust in the Wind”). It’s designed for bathroom breaks and refills at the bar where you are more than likely bump into your ex’s…

When we’re already dead, we don’t need to be reminded of co-morbidity, of futility, of temporal relationships. Heck, I even invite my ex’s to dance (only if it’s a stirring song – like “Let’s Twist again”). We are by then existing in eternity, not Alpha-Omega flow.

Everything then is in Kairos (the Greek’s equivalent of our Chronos, but more circular and it lasts forever).

You may want to bring your own booze, guitar picks and strings (since your nails no longer grow due to the lack of nutrients).

It’s gonna be a long ball without the need for video streaming. We would be in an ever-present, with no need for memories. You would be in good company. I would make sure of that. Much more than facebook AI’s shopping and friends suggestions. Oh, don’t worry about how you look or what you would put on. We will be THE first ever most democratized ball and concert ever thrown outside of Albert Hall or Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Toss the tuxes. Join me. Be free if you have never understood what that word means.

P.S. on second thought, perhaps I should let it be recorded for the living’s sakes? What do you think? No? Let’s keep it a secret between us. See you at OUR ball.

Been laying and waiting to be discovered. No none remembers me. Even when they occasionally do, in passing, it’s their mental image of me they think of, not my current and actual stage (rotten to the bones, meatless hence brainless).

I am a brainchild of sciences in my days e.g. herbs and preservatives, nice clothes and coffins. Still rot I.

For eternity to come, perpetually irrelevant and insignificant.

What advices can a Mummy offer to grads (as if it matters from my P.O.V.). My fellow mummy Steve Jobs once said “Stay hungry” and his crowning achievement was a team of likeminded individuals (the irony is that, individuals who think different, come together for a common project…may end up taking quite a bit long time to reach cohesiveness).

Alright, alright. I know your time is short, your patience thin (unlike mine). So I get right to the point.

You need to immediately cross-out what’s on your “to be accomplished” list – after having questioned what’s on the list in the first place.

From what I have gone through and now able to look back, many of the so-called “trends” and “triggers” don’t mean a thing i.e. hair and shoulder pads (80’s), knee-high socks and disco (70’s).

Two words : “scarcity” and “values”.

Both are inter-related i.e. when you’re locked up, freedom is scarcity – an hour out in the yard for instance. Or when you need to get on that last seat before the plane takes off, the airline knows its elastic value, hence high-price.

Never ever allow yourself to be turned into a commodity, even with your un-alterable traits. You are a unique combination of millions of evolution years, of science trying to perfect itself, and of your ancestors (hunters/gatherers) surviving scarcity of foods and limited life span.

So toss those silly hats in the air (those hats are commodities, like a Hallmark card, but priced high due to their sentimental and celebratory values).

Take off your shoes and feel the sand of the sea shores at ocean temperatures. Allow yourself to be bathed in what the Universe is trying to say to you…i.e. you are increasingly irrelevant as time progresses (like musicians of the 80’s or oil in the near future).

I am a Mummy. I leave behind a large footprint and a damaged environment. What I touched died. I am very sorry for my existence then extinction. My only Mummy’s regret is – I should have planted more trees, whose shades I would never sit under.

Grads, Be Glad, for a life ahead, not a rear-view mirror one like mine since they mummified me. When you are “deleted” from the space/time continuum, you float for an eternity of nothingness and regrets (visualize a George Clooney unplugging himself to be dissipated in space – making it possible for Sandra Bullock to come back to Earth).

I root for you, am your fan, and wish you always are of values to your family and community, a scarcity to be valued, not a commodity to be exploited.

Signed, secured and laminated. My vaccine card.

My pandemic passport.

Years ago, it was the draft-deferral card.

Times change. New world order, still with enlooming Trump’s shadow and a lesser Liz.

Soon, we’ll see the interpreters, the contractors and the educators fleeing Afghanistan.

History has a funny way to repeat itself.

When researching for her book, “The Rape of Nanking”, Iris Chang fell into a deep depression. Perhaps about the human condition i.e. human inhuman to one another….the deaths and destruction, the heartlessness and pointlessness of it all.

She ended up killing herself, never lived off her royalty.

Past atrocities will be repeated if we don’t remind one another the evil side of humanity. It may re-incarnate, sugar-coated and plastic-dressed…yet still the same script.

We need to soul search and soul-dress.

We need to get rid of its outer layers, to re-discover for ourselves and our times ( the naked truth has been there all along, screaming to come out).

Tending to the soul.

To our inner health as a spiritual self-defense (against un-truth and indecency). A vaccine card for our spiritual immunity against attacks and invasion (mostly sugar-high with bell-shaped curve).

Much has been said about the sleep revolution, the feminist revolution, the Industrial revolution.

It would be so strange to hear your grown-up child decide to be a priest (you’d rather see him a gay ballerina).

To look inner vs outer, to tend to your own garden instead of global events, sounds selfish and in vain.

But may I remind you, it’s the soul that makes us wholistic….languages like soulmate, soul music, soul food …and Black church as keeper of Black Soul.

When I first arrived in the later half of the 70’s, there was a music program on TV called Soul Train, a Black answer to Midnight Special….where black folks were dancing and enjoying themselves.

Tight clothes, wide smiles and great soul music.

From Sly to Aretha Franklin…. oh my. “Killing me softly…”

See, there is such a thing, called …Soul.

And it’s invisible, colorless, nevertheless, real.

Soul search, you will find.

Google search,…you may not.

Machine and Artificial Intelligence have gotten there yet.. That’s what makes soul so special.

I wouldn’t dwell too deeply into the Dark side of humanity….I want to tap on the better side.

Of me, of you, of us. There are plenty of things to do, music to hear in the light of Day, “Blinded by the Light”…for instance.

Although the darker the night, the brighter those stars,…we still have plenty to exploit and to explore given those daylight, the times of our lives.

Breathe the air and the virus…goodness and evil….all there in one mix bag.

Up to us to embrace our brighter side and make it viral.

Saw a bunch of rough-looking…in goatees, dark T’s and caps…milling about the Hallmarks section.

It’s Mother’s Day.

In my telephony days, Mother’s Day was the busiest. Network planners worked over-time load-balancing the circuits and CPU’s.

Even during Operation Frequent Wind – later re-branded as “Honorable Exit” – one of the code phrases was “Mother wants you to call home”.

Much has been focused on Mothers.

How about taking it one notch up, to the future (I hope Climate Change doesn’t do us all in) when my daughters and yours become mothers themselves…(Hope they don’t do it all at one time as the Malian mom last week).

I’ve got friends who on top of staying home due to the pandemic, double-duty as first-time grandpas.

In case I don’t keep up with these “Jones”, here are hugs and kisses to my daughters, future moms. ________________________________________

These are for you. Happy Mother’s Day, signed and sent through the nodes, 21st-century version of a time capsule.

My mental image of a mother goes like this, in case you’re interested.

She rises extremely early, gets herself presentable, gets foods on the table and prepares to greet her students who are charged with carrying piles of graded homework to class (she finished them the night before).

She teaches in school, long hours of instructions in all subjects (Vietnamese schools back then did not have speech specialists, music specialists, arts specialists and P.E. coaches).

TIEN HOC LE, HAU HOC VAN.

She models both civic life and intellectual life. The attitude and gratitude, reflect in her hand-writing, her oral and written communication; how she interacts with colleagues and relatives (in-law side) who got nothing but praises for her.

Then she puts dinner on the table and labors deligently at those assignments late into the night (I know this all too well, since I did not have the luxury of being “tugged in”).

Mothers. Old-fashioned? No yoga spandex Nike outfits? No women nite-out? No pepper spray in her purse?

Yep. I grow up quite conservatively. The unselfish genes. Encoded with millions of nomad years, hand-me-down.

She took it all with grace: twice a refugee (even from Northern to Southern Vietnam, it’s quite a world away by her standard)

Then North America, without knowing a single soul native much less Native Americans.

That’s your Grandma. Be like her. I would gladly give parts of my body for her since I know she would me.

Your children will know you by your deeds more than your speech (the louder the less effective).

So, what to do to de-code those “unselfish genes” ( in today’s dynamic equivalent – where if one loses, it’s the other side that was cheating.)

You look deep into yourselves and your souls. Grandma will be there to speak to and through you…Moana….just kidding.
That quiet strength is in you. You are now mothers… with encoded “know what to do” depends on the circumstances.

You can join the Army, Be All You Can Be.

You can apply to Yale…think all you can think.

Or you can stay home, and be the best Home-Ec your kids could ever dream of .

No right or wrong answer.

Just beware that the genes and instructions, the algorithms, are encoded in you, just like that accent you struggle to rid of or the eyelids that brand you as Asian.

Asian Heritage Month.

What is that??? Like Earth day, Native American Day? Teacher’s Day. It’s on the Calendar, but is it at the bus stops?

Celebrate them with vigor and vibrancy. Know you have every right to be here, to thrive and to fight for what’s yours.

Hard work, determination and a sense of mission: we are not here to feed the payload, ours or others….No no no. We are here as a MESSAGE. There is no need to re-hash and re-brand betrayal as “Honorable Exit”. Just thrive honorably, live compassionately and speak with confidence. That message is encoded from centuries through you onto others, yet to be born. It’s human, albeit a bit nomadic, but it’s compassionate and creative.

Someday, when we all meet again, on the other side of the de-coding process, we’ll know…Right now, all are fuzzy, as if looking through a kaleidoscope distorted ( we need each other to help us “see” ourselves, since none of us by design ever saw our faces with our own eyes, only their reflections).

If current data hold, I might still be around to help watch your kids once in a while, like my friends, who double-up as a filial son and grand-father.

We’re all hyphens, to help transmit values (source code) from one to the next version 2.0, 3.0 understandably not without bugs.

It’s best that way and the best way to humanize the message. Being both a message and a messenger keeps us humble…and not high-heeled like little Hitlers running around.

My mom embodied an important “feature”: what constitutes a woman in her time, in war and in peace. She is buried now (Serenity, a section of the cemetery). Many are taken away pre-maturely during this pandemic: moms of all colors and stripes. But you Moana (kidding again) are still around, to take up the torch and run that race toward the Sun.

I so am glad to be an active participant in your lives, your children’s future lives – my mom’s version 4.0.

Happy Mother’s Day , my daughters – future mothers.

I will be right here, at the Hallmarks section, picking out the card.