Thang Nguyen 555

Cultures on Collision Course

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With some short-term relief work in Asia/Africa and long stint in Telecom, Thang also earned a B.A. at Pennsylvania State University. M.A. in Communication at Wheaton Graduate School, M.A. in Cross-Cultural Communication at Gordon-Conwell Seminary, Boston. In addition, he earned a CELTA – classes taken in Hanoi for cultural re-immersion.

  • The ME who could’ve been

    It’s Chinese New Year morning. Except there weren’t a lot of Vietnamese around.

    They were here yesterday, and last week. But apparently, on this cold Sunday morning,

    gym wasn’t their priority. Attention is devoted to festivals and festivities at the Temples, in the park and at the fair.

    Like in-country counterparts, they would put on new clothes and carry li-xi envelopes ready to be dispensed, like an eager college freshman with stacks of condom supplies.

    Here in Orange County, the festivities have only just begun. Bands were busy rehearsing, and bottles pre-ordered (up scale wine and dine).

    I thought to myself, what a wonderful world.

    Had I stayed my entire time in Vietnam, what the Me would have turned out?

    – I wouldn’t show up at the gym on the first day of Tet either (none would be opened) and

    would still fight the hang over from the New Year Eve’s celebration.

    – I would drink strong cafe sua da (iced latte), perhaps from the only Starbucks in town.

    – Sometimes people go the movies during Tet (since there aren’t a lot of entertainment venues that could accommodate an entire extended family). This year, Die Hard is opened on New Year’s Day in Vietnam.

    Ten days before, they showed “My Nhan Ke” (femme fatale), complete with sword fighting and Crouching -Tiger Matrix-like effects.

    – I would stay home early in the morning, for fear of being the first visitor to friends’ houses. Who would want to be blamed for the bad outcome of their entire year!.

    Banh Chung (green-bean cakes) and pickled onion would be my brunch, since restaurant workers also stay home to celebrate their own Tet.

    Then comes the dreaded part: the unwanted relatives.

    They would want to reorder my life’s priorities by matchmaking attempts.

    I would burn incenses for my deceased parents, offering fruits and flowers along with Banh Chung and confitures.

    Tet in Vietnam or in the US is the same.

    But the man I used to be (the Me in relation to others e.g. uncle, brother-in-law, etc…) has changed.

    I work out, I read, I blog and frankly, I have become atomized and adapting to both virtual and western world.

    My motto is to observe, filter and retain only necessary data (handling spam mail) for survival.

    I want to connect the dots or else others would do it for me.

    Instead of being the mini-we in We, I have become the Me on my own, with legs to stand on.

    It’s like the spirits of the Dust Bowl. Rebuilding after the gathering storm, all on one’s own.

    We are evolving into new creatures of the Web, where Who We Are is influenced by what we view, like and whom we share it with.

    It won’t happen overnight, but it is evolving. The same way our taste for music and fashion by osmosis once shaped by our next up of kin (or closest friends).

    Or else, how would we explain an entire generation falling in love with American Pie, Vincent, Say You Say me.

    My friend mentioned Lionel Richie‘s line “easy as Sunday Morning”.

    So it’s Sunday Morning. The Vietnamese who would otherwise show up at the gym, have taken it easy “like Sunday Morning”.

    It’s new year. It’s a celebration. Time for feasting and eating. To broker marriages and business relations.

    Even to forgive trespasses both from the religious (Sunday)  and cultural (Tet) stand point. Let us not fall into temptation. I am sure after these three days, (with gambling and drinking involved) many would find above prayer more meaningful if not personable. The Me who could’ve been should have taken it easy like Sunday morning.

    Instead, I end up going to the gym all these three days and only take small bites of the bean cake. It’s brand simple, but a winning entry for our national contest for the throne. Back when the general consensus was that the Earth was square. And that it’s not good for a man to be alone on this very day. He has to be a mini-we in the context of a larger batch that hatched into a tribe called Lac Viet, ancestors of today’s Vietnamese. No wonder those “Individualized” stairmasters remain unoccupied on this New Year’s morning: everybody is reclaiming what’s they once were.

  • Say “cheese”!

    I touched on this slightly in another blog. It’s about growing up never knew if my grandparents even smiled at all (I gathered this from the black and white photos in the family album).

    We are still shackled by the analog world which tells us to stand straight and stare straight into the lenses (36 poses max).

    Yet cameras are now built in the smart phones. It’s digital. It’s universal almost.

    So why not say “cheese”! Every moment is now an event… the outing, the posting caught on camera.

    Picture-taking used to be a Christmas event to document how babies have grown. To make post cards and greeting cards.

    With online convenience, we now send greetings digitally. It’s fitting that I pen these lines an hour before the coming year of the Snake.

    My parents used to whip up some poems to welcome the New Year and refresh our spirits.

    It’s a necessary reboot.

    Everyone works hard there in the East (more manual labor than Industrialized West). The hot weather makes you sweat all day.

    A/C is for the white-collar folks.

    If you were to document in photos a day in the life of an average worker in Vietnam, you would find that he/she gets up very early and tries to beat traffic and everyone else.  He/she either goes for a run before sunrise or not at all.

    Then strong coffee. Then chopping woods, so to speak . People either divide up a huge chunk of meat, or newspaper delivery folks a huge pile of papers, or lottery sellers got their tickets at predetermined gathering points.

    When the sun glistens, open air markets are already in full swing: fish and fruits, eggs and noodle.

    People have breakfast and people have fights.

    All in a life of an average worker. Traffic smog and traffic accidents. Back to and from work. Then the night life. In full swing. Snacks on wheels at night market. Bangkok or Saigon. On the waterfront, or back in the alleys. Life at its rawest. Capture it on camera.

    Let it go not. Why wait. Things won’t stay the same. In our life time, we saw this digital revolution. At least, future generations can deduce that their grandparents indeed say “Cheese” for the digital cameras. Back when I had my TV internship, that regional station was still hanging on to half film (with dark-room processing of news reels) and half tape. I am sure it has gone completely digital by now.

    Loosen those tight grips of the analog shackle. We have yet seen the full implication of complete digitization. Who would still laminate a classic book, knowing that it’s available on Kindle. Yes, we have seen rising unemployment, which was a result of automation and digitization, which in turn, is causing underemployment for others. The 55-hour work week will soon be reduced to 35, to accommodate incoming workers.

    Work less, enjoy life more. What else can we ask for standing on giants’ shoulders and inventions of the 21st century. Cheers!

  • Isolation, interaction and interpretation

    One person to himself.

    One or more chatting, arguing, agreeing.

    Then, a multi-lingual gathering, with or without a headset, with a bilingual person in the middle, trying to transport the weight behind loaded words. In Chinese Zodiac, Jackie Chan tried to smooth out intercultural tension by giving an opposite translation from the intended message.

    We also remember the scene from The Great Escape, where after each failed attempt, Steve McQueen, the King of cool, would be put back in isolation (at least fellow inmates still keep his glove and baseball for him).

    When you send out a signal, a text or any form of communication without getting any feedback, you are in isolation. It could drive one into despair.

    Marconi kept building taller towers near the seas, and sending out ship-to-shore signals in the hope that he could compensate for the curvy horizon.

    In Cast Away, Tom Hanks couldn’t deliver his message in the box (fed ex), or the bottle.

    Somewhere out there, there is someone waiting to receive your signals.

    Blogging has started to fill this empty space.

    A guy posted a picture of the Northeast, the gathering storm, or a nice trail.

    I share his cold, and his wintry isolation.

    Tet in Vietnam is warmer and with a lot more activities.

    Tet in Orange County Little Saigon is wet and isolating.

    And far away in Vietnamese communities such as Louisiana, Washington DC or Washington State, I suspect it’s even wetter and more isolating.

    Yet people send out messages, through Mai branches (equivalence of Christmas pine trees) and red-lucky envelopes (equivalence of red stockings). It says “we are here, the new American with our tradition very much like the early Americans with theirs”.

    So there are some interaction between the two cultures, East and West, the Lunar calendar vs the Solar.

    Those who live and breathe between two worlds are lucky.

    It is as though we barely cleaned up after one celebration before we start another. Once the cat is out of the bag, there is no end to it.

    Now it’s no longer the turkey and carvings, it’s the Green bean cake and pickled onion.

    The only shared sweet element between the old American native and the Vietnamese is sweet potatoes and boiled corn.

    I start getting mouth-watered. So counting down to Tet 2013, 45 years since Tet 68.

    The American public was more familiar with that shocking turn of event, and perhaps, decisive turning point of the war. You won’t find army flak jackets on the streets of Saigon as back then. You will find something very similar to the Rose Parade, except it’s stationary on blocked streets. And music is in the air, with ao dai floating and flirting . Take a picture, take a look. Be not isolated. Come out and interact, even if you need help from an interpreter.

    Isolation, interaction and interpretation.

  • Start-ups vs instutional memories

    Vincent Cerf is a case in point.

    He is perhaps the oldest employee at young Google. Before that, a lifer at MCI.

    But you need someone who has been there, done that. Who could connect the dots (or see them at all).

    Start-ups got money and the juice.

    Most of, start-ups got the goods and the guts to make it happen.

    Then when things fly, ROI positive and dividends paid out, things get complicated and dull.

    Start-up phase is giving ways to institutionalizing process.

    This is where precedent comes into play. Where expertise and wisdom are in demand.

    The White House employs a few Senior Advisors for this very function.

    Lately, news has a ring of the familiar: Saturday Evening Post gone, then Saturday Post Office closed.

    Instagram is taking over where it used to be My Space. Dell has outlived its just-in-time idea.

    And HP is HP (could have become another Lenovo).

    At least we recognize the telecom bubble (Enron and AOL). So this time, someone like Vincent is needed to give wise counsel.

    To see ahead of the curve. To go through the check list of that which quacks like a duck.

    We need a healthy dose of self-disruption. A life unexamined is not worth living. The same with companies, and start-ups.

    In the absence of wise counsel, institutions perish.

    What  you don’t need is a historian (who will do a post-mortem). What you do need is someone from the inside who was from the outside, and whose comments you might not like, but desperately needed. Someone with some institutional memories to serve up a healthy dose of “you might want to take a look at this”, ” I wouldn’t do it if I were you”. They might be that embodiment and personification of the impersonal beast we call institution. In each system, we need a living and breathing wise one to serve as a speed bump. Or that they can work from the future backward, to pre-mortem a project and visualize certain death to save it.

  • jet lag

    Jet lag makes you feel hallucinating. Your body clock is still in sync with the old-time zone, and so, your sleep is out of whack.  Brought back a memory of a minor jet lag (East coast, West coast), whose hotel bed could not even induce me to sleep.

    Then I visited my mom at her then assisted living apartment. As soon as I got there, I just laid down and took a nap.

    My most peaceful nap to date, and the  last time I remember ever be near the womb which had incubated me.

    We are defenseless against forces of nature. Yet we need to survive as much as ants in their colonies.

    Somewhere along the line, we learn when to push the limits, when to yield to Jurassic Park electrified edge.

    Aging is one.

    I could handle jet lag in my younger years much better (coming back from the East doesn’t help).

    I however use this time to recover and reflect, on lessons learned.

    I learned from people young and old, and not just old.

    I picked up a few tips from people of different personalities and nationalities.

    You can say, I try to cross-pollinate while cross-referencing my newly acquired contextual learning.

    I found out there are many ways to skin a cat, carve a cow and smoke beef.

    Just as there are many ways to love and express love. Betrayal however has only one.

    Even then, I learned. All along still trusting, still hoping there will always be next time. Hope never fails.

    And jet lag doesn’t last forever. Just like any lingering pain at the joint or the heart.

    I have never come back to that Assisted Living since my mom had long passed away. But every time I got a jet lag, I do miss having that nap on Mom’s bed. Feel safe and accepted, no matter how far along you have been.

  • Go a bit more native

    In 2000, after 25 years of being away, I made a short trip back to Vietnam.

    What a culture shock (especially when I landed in Hanoi, where I had only heard about).

    Twelve years. A dozen trips later. A little deeper into the alleys and byways.

    I think I have touched on different parts of the proverbial Elephant.

    Vietnam now has malls that are as sterile as the ones in the States (on weekdays).

    The first Starbucks is having its soft-opening.

    Raybans, I-phones and Vespas are as common as the remaining rice fields.

    French colonial presence is confined in the centres with boulevards and sidewalks (just like in Cote d’Ivoire). But urban sprawl doesn’t stop there.

    At the outskirts of Saigon, shops after shops compete for retail customers.

    Fresh flowers are shipped in from the highland just in time for Tet celebration.

    Coffee shops with Wi-fi serve up tea to go with coffee (East and West blended).

    When you see a bunch of well-dressed Asian get off a bus, you know they are APEC tourists.

    Or else, backpackers would try to hopelessly blend in with flip-flops and shorts. Lonely Planet. I read that guide on my first trip. Now, I rely on instincts and instructions from my taxi and scooter drivers.

    Like any city, Saigon is divided into various social strata The upper crust lives behind iron-gates and tinted Mercedes.

    Everyone else, crowded flats and scooters, wearing required helmets and optional surgical masks.

    Fortune are made and lost here. One bubble after another. 1997 and 2008.

    Not as severe as in Thailand. But the poor have always suffered, below the radar. They will probably continue this trajectory for a while, even with more foreign investments. With brands like Nike, Intel, Starbucks, KFC and Jabil , change is undeniably in your face.

    Vietnam has grown out of the “war” box. It has evolved into an emerging market and “Happy” country (behind only Costa Rica). It is worth visiting and studying.

    While people are increasingly materialistic, that alone is not what makes them  happy. Perhaps with the right mix, one can be content.

    Let’s not forget, people do share the spoil, which makes them materialistic, but not yet individualistic.

    To give is more blessed than to receive. But not for long since the mono-chronistic, individualistic and modernistic cultures are invading, and people start putting up fences and walls. Fences make good neighbors, as Frost put it.

    But it also slices away those invisible connections people are born into for centuries, before the French, the American, the Russian and the APEC people arrived under the pre-text of global village. In truth, what do we know about life in a village? I certainly don’t. The US arm forces didn’t. Nobody did, except the people who had lived there, and now are living in the city. They too wouldn’t tell (I found “After Sorrow” by Lady Borton quite informing).  While I try to go a bit more native, they went the opposite (urbanized). Somewhere in between, we cross-path like two ships in the night. Oh, don’t forget to bring cash if you want to go a bit more native.

  • Retreat, retrench and return

    40 years on since the last US combat boots pulled out of Vietnam.

    Today, Starbucks lady returns, luring passer-by amidst the town square. Senator Kerry is getting his confirmation while a 40-year-old Vietnamese couldn’t tell an American from a Russian.

    Vietnam is just a name, like Iraq will be 4 decades from now.

    Vietnam today has Vespas (Italy), Mercedes (Germany), Honda (Japan), Kia (Korea), Haier (China) and La Vache qui Rit (France).

    I enjoy reading translated literature from all over the world (sometimes direct translation without going through English).

    40 years on.

    The cyclos used to be common. Now they are relics of the past, confined to tourist districts only.  Machine is replacing muscles.

    Then we buy gym memberships to exercise those sedentary muscles.

    Talking about machine. News have been trickled in from BRIC nations: clubs from Russia and Brazil were burning (smoke machines for real, not just for special effects). The flip side of prosperity. Just like crime rates have been down  in NYC (people went online instead of walking the streets. 60% search inquiries were porn).

    Home alone with hormones.

    It’s easy to look at a poverty-stricken nation and make moral judgment (while a convict in developed nations would wear suits-and-tie sitting on the defense side of the bench, trying to deceive the jury just as he had done with thousands before).

    40 years of regress and progress (Watergate to Bill Gates).

    Good-hearted folks can’t help but see poor ROI the US have spent on arms.

    Russia at least refused to play Russian roulette, so instead of pushing ICBM‘s, its leader went private, pushing Pizza (Hut).

    We are evolving into a post-hardware era: software and soft power.

    Those with thought leadership and social influence rule. And not for long.

    Think not of the pyramid model. Instead, it is a kaleidoscope which keeps changing (the good side of this is if we can reinvent ourselves, we can reappear multiple times, like associates in Cirque du Soleil).

    I am glad to see Starbucks here. I heard it is also opened in Forbidden City.

    If Friedman is right (two nations are least likely to be at war when both have a McDonald) then perhaps Vietnam and China can avert another conflict, over coffee. American quintessential Starbucks coffee.

  • Clearing the deck

    In about ten days, the world will see an exodus of millions. Chinese New Year.

    Workers and students on The Last Train Home.

    First day of the New Year (Snake) will be dedicated to ancestors e.g. visiting their graves or wherever the family altar happens to be.

    From then on, neighbors visiting neighbors, catching up on latest gossips.

    Saigon is about to be emptied out. Students have just finished their exams.

    Workers party on with co-workers while try to save up for their home-bound trips.

    Companies pay out bonuses. Not nearly enough. Hard times.

    Money from the common pot, just changing hands.

    Even Vietnamese American from overseas try to find an envy seat on those East-bound flights.

    Back in 1975, some of them got experience, but at the opposite direction.

    This herd-like movement is as predictable as the Muslim and Hindu pilgrims.

    However, their sons and daughters have changed. More adapting to city landscape  and playground, with more mobile phones and supermarkets.

    Even clubbing, an urban phenomenon, now a common practice in second and third-tier towns.

    Parents put up one last-ditch effort to hold on. Who want to be an empty-nester!

    Where have their children gone? Eyes glued to the screen, racing against the machine (virtual combatant).

    This is not the first time parents learn to let go.

    But it’s the first generation of parents who fail to understand the force of modernity whose grips are so strong on their fast-growing children.

    We used to place blames on cultic figures (Jim Jones) or gang leaders (Hearst syndrome) who gather and garner followers.

    Now, who can prosecute animation and urbanization.

    A force of change here,  an adoption there. Before you know it, kids are strangers in their own homes.

    They want to connect as they used to. But have lost the keys.

    Alienation and estrangement. Celluloid and chip set. Instruments of change, but also instruments of divide.

    I am glad people still go home each year. Keep them sane. When seeing yourself in the faces of others of common genes set, you can’t help questioning yourself.

    No one comes out a winner. It’s not a race. Modernity and machine just keep going unstoppable. Up to us to regulate our internal filters and rate of adoption.

    Last Train Home. There might be both blessings and curses awaiting at the last stop. Ironically, the symbol is that of a snake, which keeps you guessing, and sweating at the edge of your seat.

  • Learning as motivator

    From papyrus to paper, from microfiche to microphone, we use technology for knowledge transfer.

    Learning is a great motivator. Once started it never stops (in my death-bed, I probably still ask the attending nurse what all those charts mean, and why not this and that).

    Don’t believe in learning curve (as if once you got over it, you own it. There will always be pace learning i.e. know, forget, know again as if for the first time).

    Politicians on their first term barely learn how to get back from the underground of the Capitol or stay out of SE part of town (I heard it is now quite gentrified).

    Coursera has been a great success. It harnesses technology to extend learning to the mass. Technology as slaves, not masters.

    Lift them up, not put them down. I enjoy reading about the Indian IT and call center folks enjoy their night out at a disco, Chinese tourists flocking the streets of Paris or Vietnamese students coming to CAL State. Let them come. With traveling comes learning. With learning people are more open-minded.

    Here in Vietnam, cable TV shows Hollywood car chase, guns blazing etc… With exposure  comes the exercise of choices.

    Tolstoy doesn’t believe in true freedom of choice (free will vs predestination).

    Still, the urge to learn, to discover, to connect and to advance one’s self is innate

    The only difference between acquiring information online vs at Ivy League institutions is the socialization of knowledge. Upper-class kids would meet and marry (imperial alliance model) one another, hence perpetuating the ruling class.

    But in those far-away lands (Timbuktu), with internet, who can stop a genius from acquiring information about protons, neutrons and electrons. Physics is physics. International grad students might stick out like a sore thumb given their speech and dress code (formal).

    I saw kids in the Mekong Delta riding bikes, then crossing a river on ferry to get to school. And that’s on a sunny day. When it rains, I don’t see how they can get to school in dry uniforms (one heart-broken story last year. A boat full of students sunk and students never made it to school).

    Learning as motivator.

    Then, shoes and broadband. Thomas Friedman, author of the World is Flat, had similar ideas in the NYT today.

    Learning as motivator.

    The things they carry. Turn those swords into plowshares.

    Angel of Death into Angel of Learning, Agent Orange into Agent of Change.

    Broadband for rural, broadband against ruin.

    Nobody can stop a man from learning. Not even in the confine of a prison.

    Senator McCain was detained for a while in Hanoi Hilton. He now sits on Senate committees. Tell me he did not learn a thing or two while being detained.

    Learning takes many forms and takes place when least  expected (even from the bottom).

    To learn one must first be humble and teachable. One must be motivated even on a ferry-boat or one’s death-bed.

  • Faith as motivator

    Faith not fanatic is one of the strongest motivators.

    Fanaticism is one-dimensional one-upmanship taking to the max. Not worth paying attention to (that way, it deflated on its own). But faith propels a man beyond himself. Take Cold Mountain for instance. It gives you a chill just to relate to the character (during the Civil War, weather-beaten just to drag himself back home, to love awaiting). Or that which drove a widow with child to drop in a backward tribe to learn their native tongue and ultimately translate the Bible into that tribal language (Elizabeth Elliot).

    He is no fool to lose that which he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.

    We wake up each morning (some of us wake up each evening) counting on the rising of the sun, and neutrons, protons all held together. That gravity still works.

    Faith.

    We read about the Crusades, the battle of the faiths. The force of beliefs went astray.

    While the future pulls , faith pushes.

    The challenge is to walk the tight rope between belief and reason. When discussing the Rise of the Rest, we don’t really expect to see our own Gospel of prosperity applied to all.

    Tolstoy touched on the conflict between public good vs private interests (while Moscow was burning, the rich and the rest only worried about what was immediately relevant to them).

    Public good and personal gratification, when conjoined, makes for a happy society.  When in conflict, hypocrisy. Instead of planning for the future, we kick the can further down the road.

    This is why we cannot solve climate problems or other issues on the commons. Politics at its worst got in the way, instead of being a way. We “bowl alone” , close our doors and our eyes. Down the street, it’s someone else’s problem. (Conversely, when the Evangelicals try to play politics, they barely get pass first base even with full-page ad on the NYT).

    With no institutional memories (church history was quite skewed) and talent to navigate the modern world, men of faith simply see his strength dissipate, leaving the mike for fanatics whose agenda are too distorted. The Bible wasn’t intended to be a substitute for the IRS tax code.

    To decode God‘s instructions, one needs a set of “braille-like” keys, whose main code is faith, besides love ( Him and one’s neighbors). To own up to that takes up a life time.

    Major not in your minor. Focus on faith, but realising that it’s not the only motivators. Other people have their own ideas of faith besides their universal and inalienable rights to pursue happiness.

    From that common base, we can go ahead beyond gamesmanship. While being dogmatic, we should know that those 9/11 fighters were just as fanatic (and barbaric).

    Faith remains important but needs a dose of relevance and verifiable reality, called life.

    Though now see through a glass darkly…oneday we may see face to face.