Tag: Asia

No pure love

I am half way through In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson. The book was set in the time of Hitler as viewed by an American ambassador’s daughter.

She seemed to have a grand time: dating all sorts of men , even of at opposite end of the political spectrum; shifting and evaluating them with a fine-tooth comb. What makes this book interesting is that while Evil was reincarnated in grandest scale , we follow this “naive” and novel socialite in her insulated circle. Will there be Love? Lust? or Liberty?

I can’t wait to find out the rest.

But then, like any work of fiction, we project ourselves onto it.

Will my life end on a high note? or simply fizzle out? Will I be stopped at One-Stop center in America. To learn how write a resume, to wear a tie, to shake hand, and pretend to exude confidence.

When Martha, our central character, met briefly with Hitler, she found him neither charming nor charismatic.

Yet as we now know, he personified Evil numero Uno in modern history.

Pure race vs chosen race. Let the game begin.

I am not sure who is chosen by whom.

I just know that besides those suitable criteria i.e. age, appearance and aptitude, female species negotiate within themselves to find suitors  before the age of 30. In Martha’s case, the married Russian KGB man was picked despite his previous marriage and hers as well.

I must conclude: there is no pure love, just as Hitler and Asia cohorts found out the hard way about pure race.

Sorry to bust the bubble.

Sorry to face this cold hard fact.

Sorry to lower the curtain on Romeo and Juliet.

People compromise standards previously set for themselves when a certain deadline occurs. Then, they hang “Sold” signs.

In a social auction, the deadline dictates who the highest bidder is at closing time.

Once on the hook, we got the salesman’s treat (to yesterday’s prospect): too bad, today you are our customer. Go see Customer Service.

Yet we still hum those tunes, of love and purity, of sacrifice to the highest ideal.

We long for yesterday (selective past) and better tomorrow (dream on).

People hurting people, which triggered a chain of downward spirals.

Those who try hard to Pay Forward, to build up a reserve of good will, often find themselves cheated.

They look foolish, defeated and rejected.

The heart is the last place we can see and understand.

In the Garden of Beasts, we find our Martha in tow within her circle of SS men, Russian men and US men. Will this beauty find pure love in the Garden of Beasts, whose propaganda extolled pure race?

Will we? Or should I give up and look no longer to the blue sky.

P.S. Martha ended up with a wealthy American widower with a liberal bent.

A synthesis between Boris and her Dad’s Privilege club. But then, they end up living in exile, on the run, in an European country she found estranged.  The End.

Love sees differently

It’s half past five AM. Outside the Women Association of Ho Chi Minh City, I heard music. Not hip hop, not trance. Jut Gold music “Gui Gio Cho May Ngan Bay”, blasted from a boom box . It’s dark, but the sidewalk hosted a group of women practicing Tai-Chi.  The music was about acceptance, about one wing drops after another. But here they stood, with graceful moves and fateful lives.

Their counterparts meanwhile distribute magazines, newspapers, meat, seafood etc.. for the city of 10 million. I struggled to find room on the sidewalk for the run, before hordes of scooters claiming their right of way.

Common city dwellers don’t seem to be able to afford living space. NUSKIN and new Life Insurance, big-box Fast Food and sugar-drink companies such as Coca Cola drove up commercial real estate prices.

As a result, the face of the city has changed, over the last six months (faster than in the US).

One can spot the need for women gyms, for skin care and cosmetic products.

But then, love sees it differently. Here were mothers of revolution . Of future leaders.

and of past glory. Still out there before dawn. Still guarding the age of romanticism (w/out make-ups or cosmetic surgery).

Still staying fit for the fight. Vietnam is synonymous with war. War against Chinese invaders, French colonialists,  American reluctant Imperialists, Cambodian “cap-duon” and now, in full circle, back to the Islands against the Chinese  industrialists.

Still “Gui Gio Cho May Ngan Bay”, still with that cigarette-hoarse voice of Khanh Ly, the exile folk singer, muse of Trinh Cong Son (and Trinh Nam Son will be here for just one night) known as Vietnamese Bob Dylan.

Love sees it differently. The same song could be used to soothe the soul, comfort the afflicted, or to motivate the team . At any age, at any time.

I blogged about the resilience of the Vietnamese women (Mom’s Ao Dai).

Now I realized I did not know what I was talking about. I barely scratched the surface .

The Diary of Dang Thuy Tram spoke of a woman doctor who walked the Ho Chi Minh Trail, just to be near the war front where her lover had gone before. It spoke of the diary with “fire”. To others, war was hell. Love sees it differently (she died a martyr’s death, never to be reunited with her lover).

The irony did not escape me that, in contrast to Western sense of appropriateness,

here women could be warriors, housewives and heads of  firms, with no conflict.

Their ability to synthesize and compromise says a lot about how this society manage to gloss over enormous challenge.(see After Sorrow).

A city of 10 million or 1 million, it doesn’t matter.  What matter was how those women have taken over the education in public, and the management of the household in private. It’s they who make it happen. Just show up and see at 5 AM, the music and movement. Then you will see the tip of the iceberg. Often we don’t see those undercurrents. But love sees it differently. It got you up early and forced you to notice. I noticed. I learned.

Expired Empires

The Distributed Model has enabled the Rise of the Rest.

Capital, talent and market flow where the chips may fall. Apple courting China, China Africa, Japan Rest of Asia etc…

Everyone is out on the dancing floor.

Dance anyone?

The combinations are endless. Permutation and exponential.

Hard and soft powers, hard and soft currencies.

Exert that influence. Assert that strength. Differentiate.

Nations, like people, will have their 15-minutes of fame.

Advertisement section (like ones in the Economist) paints beautiful, picturesque locations, from Japan to Jamaica.

In reality, no one wants to remember Fukushima and Sandy.

Amnesia and amnesty.

Shelters from the storm.

America got its own set of problems e.g. FOR LEASE and FORECLOSURE.

There was a sign in Los Angeles that says it all. It was NOW HIRING, but the W has been whited out to be read: NO_  HIRING.

I got all sorts of CV’s (binders full of men). I feel the weak pulse of a declining empire.

We have squandered the opportunities this side of the Cold War (the US fared much better on this side of World Wars). Peace time problems e.g. Petro State (Dutch disease) to Penn State (low morale).

Meanwhile, the C in BRIC keeps growing stronger by the day. Scrapped metal scavenging, refined and remade into finished products, which got shipped back. In the process, this turns America into a Third-World nation by industrial standard.

China on the hunt for raw material, for petro, for talent, for know-how, for creativity. It has Soviet, US and Japan lessons to learn from. And it has Hong Kong and Taiwan as matchmakers. When a Taiwanese University came to Alhambra, CA to recruit students, we know the Rest is Rising.

And this foreshadows an expired Empire. Wake up Ivy League. Start at Little League. Math, Science, and English. 10,000 hours.

Perfection and Permanence

Right! We are wired to look for those two qualities in others, but we know it’s in vain.

Buddha realizes that by stop wanting, we found. Gandhi won by being after the path of  non-violence. Yet, we keep slaughtering each other, hurting people and writing them off .

In business, we took calculated risks, optimal ROI and voted for the most pragmatic of minds.

But humanity can only advance by those who follow a different drum beat. The “Yes, I can” kind of people.

There is a fine line between scientists and dreamers, poets and politicians.

They imagine the possibilities, while realizing that permanence and perfection are just mirage, yet one needs to reach out still. The paradox in life is to know, then to forget that we know, and before we know it, we end up knowing the truth for the first time.

Face-to-face. Out of the gate, into the sun, and keep following it. What happened before will happen again. But this time, we are all the wiser. Still with the half glass. Full or empty? Ask first of yourself the perfection you are looking in others. No wonder we all cried the minute we are out of that maternal bubble. From then on, it’s all uncertainty and unpredictability. The guy whose name is Murphy did not invent the Law. He just articulated it better than most of us. You and I are joined by the hips, commonly bonded with Murphy and might as well acknowledge that there is no Perfection nor Permanence. On that note, I am grateful for WordPress for being there, day in and day out. Reliable, but even then, I am not sure, it will be there permanently. As to Perfection, we are reaching for it, or else, there wouldn’t be new apps and themes, new ideas and content, challenges and overcoming.

the right screen

Smart phones got computer, TV and phone screens, all in once. The combined screen.

I was sitting in front of a lap top and an attached large screen. For a moment, I looked at one screen while the action took place at the other. To catch on, I  need to follow the cursor to know where the action was.

In life, we have looked in the wrong place for the right thing.

(to make friends while in prison, for instance).

Penn State commissioned JoePa statue in front of Beaver Stadium, just to now debate whether to take it down.

The Christian in Asia a few centuries ago, were told to remove ancestor’s altars, traditionally placed at the center of the home.

The FEDs keeps reducing rates. Should we look there for future directions? Unemployment indicators? Housing and foreclosure reports?

Never have we been tested as during the past 4 years.

Am I looking at the wrong screen?

Prophets have arisen, and more shades of truths have been made available.

Which way is the wind blowing?

Put your money in Macau.

or in Manhattan?

Google Glasses or JcPenney?

Pick your people right. Business model can always be modified as we go along. Often times, it’s on the wrong screen anyway. Keep the statue. Make it a teachable monument. After all, JoePa had always championed scholarship and athletic pursuit hand in hand. Institution for higher learning should at least have intellectual honesty and moral conviction to defend its mantel and mission. Especially when it is now looking at the right screen not smokescreen.

Shore this!

It’s not good enough with automation.

They need to combine that with outsourcing, off-shoring, in-shoring and now, near-shoring.  The idea is to line up the  Filippino call-center workers at mid-night (to go to work, not in line for next-day Black Friday sales) to make a go at scripted greetings like “Have I done everything to your satisfaction”.

Now Google wants to be unique: back to using the shop down the street so Googlers don’t have to fly to China.

Meanwhile, Africa is buying in to the Chinese Dream.

What happened to California Dreaming? To the Mamas and the Papas.

Aren’t all the leaves brown any more?

(I definitely need to “walk into a church, and sit down and pray”).

Industrial might. Pressures of automation and legislation.

If one can get the right mix of technology prowess, regulatory compliance  and market demand, he/she  rules.  The kids are playing with the I-pads instead of cabbage dolls.

All the powers to them.

More information, hopefully leads to smarter and more compliant kids.

Not so sure on that last point!

When honeymoon is over for off-shoring, and inflation takes its toll in wage-pressured China, we will see a sad wave of unemployment and unrest there.

Of course, they can then “sub-shore” to Africa, to be evangelists of the new Chinese Dream.

Sort of Chinese Peace Corps. Know-how in exchange for rare earth. Fair trade.

Trinh Cong Son (Vietnamese Bob Dylan) had a line “Why travel to and fro so much, to tire your life out”.

The thing about companies and market is that they often don’t know what they want. A few years back,  focus groups said they wouldn’t buy a notebook (today’s I-pad). Go figure!

Use it

Hard times push people to diversify, retrench or change.

My friends turn organic farmers.

I have tried the road less traveled (although there were many scooters on it) and early morning gym (also less popular).  Honing and toning.

Just another way to react to hard times.

It will make us stronger, wiser and more creative.

I was asked “do you bring any agricultural products” at custom.

Being a city boy all my life, I failed to register the significance of that inquiry.

Perhaps there were others who tried so hard to transplant those tropical fruits from Asia.

Or the exotic fish.

Whatever the case, let’s enjoy what abundant America has to offer, from sea to shining sea.

When hard times are looked at as opportunities to reinvent, to retrench and relaunch our new and improved SELF, we have made use of it for what it’s worth.

Companies and countries are doing the same thing. Just use it. Press Reset!

Social dynamics

Like aerodynamics,  social dynamics involve working with conflicts, not avoiding them.

Since we are all made differently, we accept change at various speed.

That’s why some ideas are voted down immediately.

Others might take some arm-twisting.

For instance, it took a while for some emerging countries to introduce the condoms. Used to be a cultural taboo to mention the subject of sex.

Now, you can find Condom Store in Vietnam.

Years ago, people there were rushing abroad to seek better life.

Now, they would rather see returnees marry them and settle there: best of both worlds.

The West has lost some of its luster.

Besides, “Western” draws have made their ways there: KFC, Carl’s Jr, Domino Pizza, Hard Rock Cafe, Starbucks and LV handbags.

Why not stay home and wait for it (the West) to come.

I came back to SF airport and found on my flight mostly of Asian origins. Are there any Westerners touring Asia these days?

In Asia, people tend not to disagree with you out right.

They accumulate the points of differences, and give them back to you in one fell swoop.

Ouch!

You thought silence was consent.

People skilled in diplomacy anticipated opposite reaction and worked that into their presentation. It’s called getting the buy-in.

But in the end, it’s all in the relationships.

People-people bonds are stronger than idea-idea boundaries.

Let’s build more bridges than barriers.

Knowing in the absence of conflict, we don’t have real dialogue.

Differences define us and strengthen us as people living in a pluralistic society. Like aerodynamics, social dynamics need to face some headwinds and opposing ideas to rise.

Saigon siesta

We used to lie on the floor (absorbing the coolness from the tiles) and listen to “Y0ur Song” , theme of that time’s radio broadcast. That’s my siesta as I can recall.

Older brother used Hit Parade, with Elvis Presley  on the cover.

My friend, meanwhile, laminated his vinyl album (James Taylor).

We have just met over lunch today. He mentioned his 3-year old boy who listened to While My Guitar Gently Weeps.

Rock lives on. So does Saigon siesta.

People find shades.

Some cafes even offer hammocks instead of chairs.

Self-created summer breeze.

People move about between two extremes: fate and future.

Aren’t we all, living in Saigon or South Central.

Still, there is something about growing up, lying on the floor and listening to Soft Rock.

It’s truly a Wonderful World, where “the dog says goodnight” and the rooster crows, always a bit early for city life.

I can’t recall how I  pick up a date, while attending an all-boy school without a cell phone (and SMS).

But I somehow managed.

At work, in Santa Monica, some inshore techs couldn’t open their eyes after a lunch of heavy rice staple.

They probably stayed up late for conference calls anyways , living in our 24/7 connected world.

Siesta: a must at my friend’s work place here in Saigon.

Might as well work that into company policy.

Just that it’s hard to have tile floor at work similar to my “your song” experience.

I hope you don’t mind, I wrote down this song. I hope my friend’s kid grow up liking this song . It’s for him as well.

Saigon alley

I left W Palm Beach where some called “paradise” for Saigon alley.

Going from beach to bunker, I got a bump up in  the Happiness index.

Costa Rica for example has led this chart for quite sometime.

Vietnam, according to latest survey, ranked behind Costa Rica. In fact, having moved up on the Happiness  Index, it is de-listed from Singaporean Hardship Index (expat executives are no longer granted extra compensation for coming to work here).

Saigon got seasonal fruits, sea foods and sunshine.

Its nearest beach, Vung Tau, is quite crowded over the big holidays.

People in the alley know one another. They hang out at the corner coffee and eat the same meal.

District 1 and its alleys are geared for backpackers and tourists.

I had ended up first at the outer skirt then moved closer to city ‘s center.

Landlords are nice and respectful.

Neighbors are caring. Strangers leave you alone, although gossip behind your back.

Once in a while, a white-face is seen on scooters, with helmet and all.

A Viet Kieu from Australia told me after more than two decades, he could barely crack the culture code.

One dollar is still equal roughly 20,000 VND.

But aside from that, nothing seems easy. I miss the cinemas. Those old facilities have been turned into textile factory, print shop or opera school.

Valuable real estate.

Live shows here could be heard from the street. Some even stood on their scooters to take a peak (coi cop).

Karaoke houses still make money.

On summer nights, lovers  just ride around for ventilation .

They do that year-round, since it’s hot, flat and crowded here.

Neighbors would ask me to come over for tea.

Children run around, and young parents struggle to contain them.

Raising a family on two-wheelers is of course hard.

Worker bees know they have to show up on time, rain or shine.

Wages barely cover the essentials.

So coffee, coffee and occasional “ken” (Heineken) is a treat.

Birthday celebrations have become more prevalent. This is to show Vietnam’s transition from the old (memorial for the dead -a collectivistic and clanish event) to the new (futuristic and individual-oriented occasion).

Young students are catching on with overseas peers, at least in appearance (T-shirt and jeans).

IT workers at software parks also try to catch up : LTE, 4-G and IPV6.

The best about Vietnam is that it rides on two horses: the venerable and heroic tradition ; and the insatiable desire to integrate globally.

No where explains this better than Saigon’s latest tourism expo.

It’s held in the city’s water park, to show case local cuisine and at the same time, destination exotic.

Individual cubicle at work blends perfectly with shared rice cooker.

Saigon, the city, and its alleys, home to many extended families.

Pax Saigonese. It’s peace time, so don’t send war journalists here.

Just move about, and enjoy the counter-intuitive trends that co-exist.

Saigon alley, my home for half a year. Paradise or purgatory? Hardship or Happiness? Or just Peace inside out.