Tag: Boat people

On being a sidekick

I was born late into the fold. My brother and sister had already been in college when I arrived.

So I grew up watching “chinese fire drill” around the dinner table: Dad chasing brother, mom trying to intervene and my sister, w/nothing to do, joining the commotion. It’s like Chevy Chase‘s National Lampoon Vacation in Europe, caught on the inside ring of a Paris turn-about.

Later, when my brother picked up his date for an evening stroll at Flower Street Fest (Tous les garcons et les filles de mon age se promene dans la rue), two couples lost me in the crowd (but I found my way back to the car, stood on the hood, and raised the balloon up high for SOS).

Sidekick!

Born into a wrong decade. Too young to be drafted, but too old to pretend I am “Tommy this, Tommy that” in America.

My generation was a hybrid one: grew up in war time (Vietnam), but reaped not the benefits of peace time.

I am aware of the legacy, the hidden tolls (the Wall and all the wasted lives).

But because of ill-timing, I end up assuming the role of a memory keeper  (of dramatic events).

Sidekicks aren’t those who impact or influence an event. They just remember and recall it.

Hence, I stand on the sideline, watching dramas in my family, dramas in my neighborhood (monk burning), and dramas in the US  like  Happy Valley (see other blogs on VN evacuation, Three-Mile-Island, Monk Burning,  Boat People exodus, LA Riot, LA Earthquake, 9/11 and Katrina…)

I am not addicted to hype nor am I a thrill seeker.  But, I begin to notice my penchant for witnessing more than a fair share of disasters. They take a toll on my personal life. A sidekick wasn’t supposed to be impacted by the events he/she observed. I should have maintained that journalistic objectivity instead of being affected by events. Who wouldn’t; seeing all those suffering, striving and struggling?

My siblings seem to be coping much better, partly because they are much older (thicker skin) and have a better support system: they blocked out memories of the separation between North and South Vietnam (which had uprooted them even before I came into the picture). BTW, I did not intend for this blog to commemorate the division of North and South due to some Indochina agreement among the post WW II Colonial forces. I think it’s the 20th of July, 1954).

Here is how I see it: you can live life on the surface, skimming just the cream on top.

Or you can dig deep, to see the rottenness at the core. Or somewhere in the middle.

As a sidekick, if I end up digging, it’s because I can’t seem to erase the tape (like they did in Watergate or White House tape which lately have been declassified).

At Penn State, they were hoping for the problem to resolve itself by kicking the can down the road.

But we are not National Lampoon vacationing in Europe, to drive in circle as time lapses.

We live our lives forward, with memories as our guide and the future, our anchor.

Someday, I will pass these memories on. Because one cannot just get “shipped” to another place,

like they do with jobs and merchandise bought via e-commerce. Logistically, the US pulled it off really well during Operation Frequent Wind. But the long-term consequences and unintended consequences are there, ever-present, and creep up when least expected.

Yes, it’s hard to play sidekick. It’s not an option for me. Hence, it’s pre-ordained that I keep on retelling personal and social history as I remember it.

Is it painful? Yes. Is it dramatic? Yes. But not that different from other US immigrant stories, of leaving behind the known for the unknown. I still remember that veil of rain and tears the day I left Vietnam. I don’t know if my brother and sister could even recall their first trip leaving North Vietnam, let alone the second one leaving the South.

To judge them as heartless is premature. Perhaps they have used to blocking out painful past.

Now it’s my turn, to do the same, to move on while playing a perfect sidekick i.e. standing on the sideline of history and recalling snipets of memories which hurt every time, though not as much as those who had invested in much more than I.

Start acting

After the trilogy: Start seeing, start hearing and start thinking, I am on the roll.

Behaviorists have debated whether action precedes attitude, or vice versa.

Nike commands: JUST DO IT.

Start acting.

Some guy somewhere mustered his courage to ask for a girl’s hand.

That girl after much deliberation, accepted.

Boom! Action. We are conceived out of love in action.

From conception to cremation, you and I are products of someone else’s action.

In between, it’s on us to act.

Quick assessment of the situation, weighing the options, pros and cons, Bang! Done it.

In case you are curious, I wasn’t born with silver spoon. Indeed, quite the contrary.

But I was schooled in French , then Vietnamese elite high school, then Penn State and Wheaton (private college).

In between school years, I raised my money to travel the world and do relief work.

Action.

A Newsweek article about Boat People dying at seas? Let’s go!

Action.

On the roof of an overcrowding prison-turned-refugee camp, there was space for worship?

Boom.

Let’s carry the amplifiers (heavy) and supplies to hold open church, open door.

People need to pass their time while awaiting resettlement to a third-country? Boom, let’s keep them busy with Present tense (English), and mostly Future tense (hope).

Action justifies everything: our existence, and out earning. While in action, we might face objection and obstacle. Bruce Lee said, “screw the obstacles, I create my own opportunities”.

Start acting. It’s scary at first. Like the first walk on our own, or the ride on the bike,  or that first stroke in the stream.

I don’t ask you to try extreme sports. Just to act on what you know needed action.

Please don’t wait for Superman.

Or like the invalid who lays around the healing pool, and missed out a total of 38 chances of getting healed.

Action also means positive: start carrying that tune in your head, energy burned is energy earned.

What’s your war chant?

Could you arouse people’s emotion and instill their confidence?

Start acting, and you may in the process, become what you are meant to be all along.

That guy who asked that girl for her hand, is not an unsolvable riddle. They are our parents in whose images we are shaped.

Team building

I invited a new classmate to join our volleyball team. Thought I kill two birds with one stone: we could use a tall guy, and I couldn’t bear seeing him unfriended during recess. Turned out he couldn’t play well, but we got to be friends for life.

We pitched in to buy a professional ball. Took it out for a test-drive.

Before I even got my chance at that spanking new white ball, it bounced to the street, ran over by a car, and voila! Memory of shared disappointment.

But Team!

Then we went out and had some lunch. The neighborhood gangs there just walked up and started to punch each of us to the ground. Back then, one of our oldest classmates had a brother in the army. He went home and took out an M-16 to scare away the hoodlums. Team!

Later in life, I have always been a team player: my brother got married, OK.

I would take care of mom, heck with my broadcasting career! Team.

The Boat People died at seas? I stood up and joined two other graduates. Together, we rolled up our sleeves, and spent our summer in hot, crowded and often times, violent (due to cramp living) prison-turned-refugee camps.

Team!

When it was my turn to lead, a joint Chinese and Vietnamese team (historically at war as nations) I made sure we spent a lot of time around food,

sharing meals and sharing deals. Team.

Families broke down because they forgot that Team came first.

Great teams just don’t happen by accident.

It needs everyone to commit to a common goal, and yes, it needs to define clearly who it is competing against (Apple vs IBM, MCI vs ATT or Samsung vs Sony).

Team needs various personalities to achieve optimal results.

But personality conflicts cause headaches.

Team leaders should embrace diversity of opinion, temperament and  ( emotional and social) intelligence.

Let conflict boil to the surface. Team’s fiber could withstand some strains and be made stronger as a result.

You know your team is fully functional when it moves as a unit: each knows his/her SWOT. Team leaders are not always right. They just know how to draw out the best in each member.

Team has its learning curve and maturity as well.

Even the best team can’t stay together forever. When you get teary at goodbye, you know you had a good team experience.

I would trade a B teammate over a A lone wolf any day.

No wonder Southwest Airlines consistently outperform its nearest competitor.

People who work there seem to and do have fun. They sing to, they smile at and they serve you as if each flight were their last. Because of this, we have yet seen SW last flight since their opening day.

We did not choose our families. But team does pick you as much as you let yourself be changed by it. Nothing worthwhile is accomplished without great teams. And no rewards greater than that of a team bringing home the first prize. Esprit de corps. That’s what it is all about. The high-fives or the tap on your shoulder when you are down and out (World Cup Final).  Come on! Focus! Next play!

Ask my tall classmate whose first handshake ends up lasting a life time.

Anchor kids

Although “Last Men Out” tells a story about the last Marines on the last day of Vietnam, readers still learn a great deal about the Vietnamese “group culture”. Many workers of the former US  embassy were on the list to be “chopper” out (Operation Frequent Wind). It just so happened that the gardener of the embassy came in the back gate (his work place) with a long rope that tied all his relatives so they wouldn’t be cut off. The marine could only authorize those on the list. The gardener’s reply: you chose for me.

Story like that repeats itself on Pan Am last flights (three-fold increase) as well.

Later, we saw the waves of Boat People in 1980-1990.

And finally, just an “anchor kid” here and there to send home money.

I did not think of my now divorced wife as an “anchor kid” until it dawn on me, that’s what happened.

Inadvertently, I was pushed into playing the benevolent, guilt-ridden 7th fleet which I had once been on.

We have come in full circle.

Now, she is free to go “black friday” shopping (for an I-pad).

I meant to title this blog as “I hate Steve Jobs“, but in the Vietnamese tradition, we try not to speak ill of the dead.

So, here I am, on the clock at a neighborhood Internet gaming center, next to rowdy kids, while my wife, having spent ten years in the US, called to ask how she could get wi-fi in our home in Palm Beach, FL.

Again, I have to play the role of an remote IT administrator.

In the tradition of “tech and multi-cultural marketing”, this blog is both personal and reflective of a larger trend: people will do what is necessary to rise to the next level on the Maslow scale. Next year, there will be another version of the “Ipad” probably in a Palo Alto garage, in time for Black Friday.

Being savvy and quick to adapt, Vietnamese families barely finish wiping their tears at the airport before sending their next “anchor kid”. It’s both a burden and a badge (of honor).  Escalade, Lexus, and Camry will be bought on installment, not to interfere with set allowance for families back home.

Mexican, Filippino and Chinese workers in the US follow the same immigration pattern (wage arbitrage). The US costs of service and goods are subsidized by millions of personal stories like my cousin’s.

She saved up to send her oldest boy to America.

I first met him back in 1990, as a bus boy in Orange County.

Next thing I heard, he already turned manicurist, then he and his wife, owned a nail shop in Chicago.

Later, his wife died, left him with a pair of twin daughters, and a life insurance compensation. He then upgraded to a plush salon in Dallas, TX (and remarried, perhaps to another “anchor kid”).

With his income, he sent home to bring his youngest brother to the US to complete his PhD in mathematics.

Next thing I know, his youngest brother is now full professor at a Vietnam’s private University (all in English, I believe).

Anchor kids. Lifting one boat at a time. Some want I-pad, others PhD.

Unstoppable.

Same people who pulled the heavy canons up the hill of Dien Bien Phu.

Same people who would not leave any relative behind at the back door of the US embassy.

Same people who fended off not two but three wars with next to nothing to eat.

The US has bogged down in two wars at the tune of Trillion Dollars. Maybe there are some take-aways here.s Just imagine how humiliated for privileged boy to start as a bus boy and nail boy. Then, the anchor kid serves as a monkey bridge for next kids to cross. To their credits they don’t burn the bridge. As of latest figure, Vietnam now ranks 8th highest number of students attending US colleges and universities. The line for foreign students’ visas now stretches long and winding at the same spot where  “Last Men Out” was depicted. At least, this time, they are not tied together by the gardener’s rope. But still with the same script “You choose for us”. Anchor kids.

Easily swayed

According to social scientists, any two people are only separated by 6 to 7 degrees of connection. Last week I put it to test.

Surely enough, the quake victims in Japan somehow are separated from me by only three degrees. My niece’s friend had relatives who fled Japan and came to stay with them. Two short introductions and a short ride stand between us.

We are living on a planet of 7 billion people, 2 of which are online.

The cumulative brain powers are enormous. For the first time, it seems as if a lot of things are now made possible, from wikipedia to wikileaks.

Thirty years ago, I gave up my summer in between school years to do relief work. The only resources at my disposal was an address book of friends from college and a roll of stamps. I copied fund-raising letters, sent out to my “network” and waited for donation. Quite a risky adventure, both on the funding side and visa turn-around time. But we pulled it off. The summer turned out to be a highlight of my life.

If we had the online resources as currently available, we would probably have uploaded a Youtube clip of boat people cramped and confined in Hong Kong prison facilities, women who were raped and turned cannibalistic to survive….

You know the drill. My contention is, we are now resource-rich, but are we becoming more compassionate ? In other words, does the good-will increase proportionately with the tools to express it? Or precisely because of information-overload that led to compassion fatigue?

To sell something people need and want is easy. Costs vs benefits results in change (buy).

To sell an idea that people can become their better selves requires enchantment.

People died in mass protests (herd instinct) or annual Run-of-the-Bulls (even cheese rolling downhills). But to spare a change for the guy holding the homeless sign takes a lot more. He will need to sing and dance. He will have to put on an act of desperation before the lights turn green.

We act differently in public vs in private.

When survival instinct kicks in, self-preservation is above all else.

Multiply that 7 billion times. Then we get the picture of state of the world.

How does the quake in Japan affect our lives: a lot. Someone relates to someone who knows my relatives is suffering. He/she is doubling up in a house near ours.

Then the Toyota dealers in town won’t get foreign parts etc… Go Hyundai, this is your chance in this no-hire-no-fire economy. Sometimes people change because they are forced to, not because they would like to. But change is as sure as the sun that rises tomorrow. You don’t see it because you are not 30,000 feet above ground. Those who are at the executive level know to expect change, prepare contingencies for it, and profit from it. Same crisis, but it is danger to some and opportunity to others. We will learn to make use of the Web from sharing cute kitten clips to vendor’s immolation clip. Welcome to the age of participation/consumption. It’s never been more exciting and dynamic than time present, when both push and pull technologies are vying for our attention, swinging and swaying our votes and demanding our devotion. Hold on to your wallet while keeping an open mind, to quote Buffett.

Unfortunate guy and the happiest place

I still remember Sang. He helped me set up sound equipment on the weekend (my attempt to crowd-source and create an open-air coffee-house for refugees), and attended my class on weekdays.

Sang was in that transition camp in Hong Kong, on his way to Norway, his new home.

I was feeling sorry for him, an unaccompanied minor, who only knew the seas and spoke no other language besides Vietnamese.

Now he is in the happiest country on Earth perhaps with a fully paid house and a steady job.

http://images.businessweek.com/ss/06/10/happiest_countries/index_01.htm?chan=rss_topSlideShows_ssi_5

You will never know.

I thought of Nordic countries as being very cold, isolated and their languages incomprehensible. While in Hong Kong, I was taken to New Territories, on my day off , for a peek at then inaccessible China. That same view, today, looks out to Shenzhen. Back then, it was the equivalence of standing at the Korean DMZ.

Back to Sang.

He got to Norway safely, I learned from a few letters, one of which had a picture of him with sun glasses and cigarette.

Cool!

I was impressed with Norway then, because they took on Sang and others in their most unfortunate of circumstances.

Norway had nothing to do with the wave of Boat People, risking pirates and prolonged processing at camps.

Yet they pitched in because their ships picked up refugees at sea.

And now, it’s voted the happiest country on Earth.

A lot has changed since. Back then, I read the Boat People story on Newsweek. It struck me.

The ordeal and the odd (1 in 2 survived. Survivors might resort to cannibalism at worst,

or got raped along the way, at best).

Now, Newsweek itself got sold off for a token $1.00

And “Ladies and Gentlemen on both sides of the aisle” actually sat together, from senior level on down (Kerry and McCain).

Sang looked up to me, naturally. Now, it’s my turn to envy him.

I wish I were the happiest guy in an unfortunate place instead.

So he projected himself on me, and I, with a delayed reciprocate response years later.

Back then, CNN was a novelty. Today, the President takes his Q&A on YouTube.

My hope is for the last of those “boat people” to find their happiest place this New Year (another wave has ended up in Australia).

Many have posted sweet memoirs about Tet and places they once loved.

It’s a culture which holds high regards for the collective memory (sticky-rice cake, moon cake etc…).

Allegorically, those symbols resonate even and especially for those who now live comfortably in Nordic states.

It will be so strange, if one day, I ran into Sang here in the States, or Vietnam.

And we will exchange notes, how much (the price) we have paid for progress.

We know there is not much room at the top (the Mayan pyramid steps got smaller as you climb higher).

And the way down has always been much scarier, because it’s counter-intuitive for us to ever look down.

Who wants to go back to school like that laid-off textile lady at the age of 55. We were toilet-trained and mentally trained for a one-way race. No one seems to be able to recall more than three top winners in each sector. Hence, it’s more than necessary to attain and sustain the top place.

Just make sure, you have ownership of the climb. For Sang, then, it was a very sad journey he took to transit camp and onto NORWAY.  As it turns out, he was an unfortunate guy in the happiest place on Earth years later.