Tag: Chicago

Slippery Saigon

I went out for my morning jog in slippery Saigon.  I was hoping for cooler weather. Now that my wish was granted, I begin to have second thought: if it’s cool here, it means somewhere up North, people are freezing, or boats and houses destroyed.

We live in a connected world and leave behind carbon footprints.

A cigarette tossed into the wild could ignite a forest fire. A harsh word, ill-thought-out and unsolicited comment could damage a child’s self-esteem.

Should they be protected, insulated and shielded from the pain-filled world out there?

How much “reality” should a show depict to open a child’s eyes?

When 9/11 happened, my then 10-year old could not comprehend its magnitude.

Now, my second kid and I are “following” each other on Twitter. Cool!

Back in my time, my parents hardly ever sat down with me, much less “follow”. I am a product of multiple generations, where an uncle, a cousin, an aunt and now nephew, all chipped in with unsolicitated advices. It’s our version of social compact.

But when this social compact broke down, it’s quite ugly e.g. to pay down gambling debt, a father/mother would offer their daughter(s) as payment (to be an unpaid maid or concubine – a phenomenon not unheard of in the bordering towns near China and Cambodia).

WE HAVE A BIG 21st CENTURY PROBLEM: TECHNOLOGY IS MOVING FASTER THAN OUR CAPACITY TO ABSORB IT, WHILE OUR CULTURAL MORES STAY IN THE BACK WOODS OF EMERGING COUNTRIES.  People are still auctioned off, raped, murdered and mutilated over a fake I-phone, for instance. In India, gangs raped bus passenger or Swiss couple who camped out.

Our Western liberal mind screams out when hearing about these incidents.

Then we shrugged it off when the Mafia in Chicago make their extortion route.

Hollywood even made money on these film-noir genre. Hypocrisy? Absolutely.

Who am I to judge? Who am I to carry the chip on my shoulders (Hey Jude).

In What the Dog Saw, Malcom Gladwell pointed out that although imaging and images have better resolution, our capacity to read them (intelligence) will have to increase ten fold to make it effective.

So we need to keep up with our own invention. The tool has become the teacher. This begs a related topic: our capacity to reflect. To think about our mistakes (committed or omitted), to change course. This integrative skill differentiates us from mere technologists (repetitive) order takers (reactive). Back when the 3 networks (TV) ruled, the anchor who could ad-lip was highly sought after. He/she had the skill to see and describe reality in context and in step with what were happening  real-time. Peter Jennings did that during 9/11. After having a smoke, he died of lung cancer. He crossed that journalistic line, from being an observer to being a participant of that same drastic event.

It’s still slippery outside. I promise myself not to slid and slide in the rain. Now is the time to reflect on slippery Saigon. On our capacity to keep up with modern technology. Just have to stay away from the clans who somehow manage to crawl on Facebook, trying to “friend” you with unsolicited postings. Something isn’t going to change, or avoidable. Just like the wet weather here today.

How do they know?

Have you ever wondered how some songs deliver just the right emotion? How do they know what’s relevant and resonating? Chicago‘s If You Leave Me Now, for instance.

On these blogs, we often mentioned the eccentric, the peculiar and oddities.

Rarely do we put much effort articulating those feelings and God forbid, meltdown or breakdown (Newtown, Conn).

This job belongs to recording artists.

In Advice to A Young Poet, Rilke was referring to being broken, being vulnerable, as prerequisites for being a poet.

Now, that’s painful.

To achieve authenticity, you to have to live through it. To pay the price (Eric Clapton‘s Tears in Heaven did not come about without his personal loss).

Who would be willing? To lose that much to gain that little? MBA candidates wouldn’t choose that route. (I was asked yesterday what’s the use of these blogs?).

Then, we touted creativity, inventiveness and “out of the box” thinking.

Serial entrepreneurs and lovers have one thing in common: they both tried and tried hard down that path (risk taking).

Without rejection, you wouldn’t get results (think of Marconi and Marie Curie).

Those in Sales know without Cold Calling, there wouldn’t be enough rejection to fill the sales funnel. Seth Godin wrote a bunch of unknown books before he got a hit (Linchpin). Colonel Sanders almost gave up as retirement was nearing.

It’s the numbers game. The Beatles logged in 10,000 hours bouncing around from Hamburg to Liverpool to become who they were.

To close : How do they know? They don’t.

They tried and failed. Then try again. Until they got it just right. It hit the spot . Think of Stephen Bishop‘s It Might Be You.

Maybe it’s you. “Wondering how they met and what makes it last”. Keep trying. Don’t give up on us, baby. It must be you. One-hit wonder is OK. As long as it’s the Whiter Shade of Pale.

Try until it’s right. How do I know? I am still trying. It’s only my 900th blog.

Enduring trends

Technologists are enthusiasts. Their progress are documented in hockey-stick trends. Meanwhile  we as ordinary human are still reacting out of fear as if we were still living in caves. The reptilian brain vs rapid rise of chip speed, guns vs germs, technology vs anthropology!

As early as 1950’s, graduates would hear something like: “boy, you get that desk job, stay there, work your way up and cash out . You will be set, boy.” In short, seniority and being an institutional memory keeper equal “iron rice bowl”.

Not in the 21 century. Take Yahoo. A darling of Silicon Valley (I am still using yahoo mail, reliable), but increasingly, moving into the slot left vacant by AOL. (Facebook, if not careful, might fall into the MySpace hole).

When I took Science, Technology and Society at Penn State in my senior year, I realized then that not all technology were meant to take off, or were a blessing. They are both blessing and curse. (I must give the US Post Office some credits for converting its entire fleet to Electric Vehicles a years back).

These trends will stay with us:

– socks (short or long)

– jeans

– baby pics, mobile apps

– slow rock (romantic)

– sunset, virtual or real

– kind words, kind gesture, roses

– birthday cakes

– tomb stones or equivalent if cremated

– shoes, shorts and sandals

– contact lenses (as flat screens)

– vitamins, although God knows what they put in there.

The Economist has its cover story this week about our human body, as composed of bacteria cells.

But how come those bacteria got vibrated with Streisand’s Evergreen? With Nocturne? Chopin and Bach?

Until technologists learned that we are more complex than the mind can understand, then they get somewhere.

Invent only that which benefits mankind, stuff that people can use. Don’t chase lab stuff only. Solve  problems:

how to get your hair done the quickest way in the morning, how to get to work using the best route, nearest gas station that charges less (or use EV) glove compartment that can store today’s aviation sun glasses, games that kids can play and learn something while at it, profile  algorithms that make friends out of strangers. Science, Technology and Society. When they plugged in the electricity for the first time at the Chicago fair, many thought it had been Heaven. Now, we took it for granted. Let’s hope for some break-through, even when many will fail. Try again. Keep in mind, the reptilian brain. How we still react like cavemen. Still love like cavemen. And yes, jealousy still is a big part. Those are enduring trends you can bet on.

Parting

Chicago‘s If you Leave Me Now is easy to listen to,but  hard to sing.

“You take away a part of me”.

Changes are necessary.

Progress and modernity.

More convenience, more amenities.

Full service.

One-stop shop.

Once we have upgraded to some fancy levels, our memory muscles kick in full gear. Gotta get back on top.

Taste of success.

Gotta to do it again.

One more time.

Meanwhile, it’s hard to say goodbye.

Even mediocrity has its values: that of security and stability.

But progress is triggered by self-disruption. A new way of doing things, of looking at life.

Stripping and dethroning.

The emperor without his clothes.

Hail to the chief, say the Yes men.

The right road often times is a lonely one.

Every generation got its victims (sacrificial lambs) and victors (Jay Lo  or Jay Leno).

In Oprah, we find both .

Well deserving.

Unquestionable success. Can’t argue with it.

So we leave things behind. When I was a child, I spoke like a child.

Then in parting, we reunite. In leaving “a part of me ” now, we soon find it again, face to face.

Mom’s Ao Dai

When I saw a Vietnamese woman on motor bike with helmet, mask, sunglasses, messenger pouch, gloves and Ao-Dai steering scooter while holding a baby on her way to the sitter, it brought back memories of Mom’s dress.

She was a school teacher, deeply committed to her multiple roles: mother, teacher, wife, daughter-in-law and friend (to other teachers who had graduated from the same French Lycee, which in her time, was a big brag!).

Having spent her semi-orphan childhood in dormitory, she made sure we have what she had not: a loving home with home-cooked meals.

Not a good cook, she tried most times, without even taking off the Ao Dai she had on from work. By design or default, she had a good assistant: me. Here, hold the live chicken legs while I slit its throat (all the while, she would pray for its soul).

Then she would place the boiled chicken on the altar – an offering to our ancestors on the day leading up to the New Year (Tet).

I learned by observing and via osmosis (run to the market and get me ginger) and by cleaning.

And clean I did, on the cusp of New Year. Mom would put on her Ao Dai right before mid-night, light up three joss sticks and pray to the four corners of the Earth. There was something very sacred at New Year countdown: inspirational enough to my parents who often competed to compose and read aloud a stanza or two to each other (both were well-versed in French …Lamartine, Chopin and Flaubert etc..).

I meanwhile tried to finish up the last rinse for the floor in anticipation of throng of visitors.

Back then, you could hear occasional boom and bang (Chinese enclave was known to spend a fortune on firecrackers e.g. shades of pink and red – color of fortune, evident in spent shells which carpeted their lawn, our version of ticker tape parade).

The whole region threw a big New Year party that makes even the dead want to join.

Years later, Ao Dai evolved in style (Madame Nhu), hence rid of the collar.

But not for my mom.

She stayed on in that teacher’s style all the way to America, where once again, she trekked snowy roads to the Temple on New Year’s Day. I knew then and even now, she had prayed for me, her youngest who has never traveled traditional safe path.

In contrast, the Road Less Traveled took me far from the proverbial tree. The first few feet were the hardest, seeing her wave from my rearview mirror.

This made it hard the whole way to Chicago, to grad school and to an uprooted life.

Her picture has been on my altar. I wonder what gift I should buy to make it worthy a Tet offering (bean bun, bouquet and beer?) Banh chung, bong cuc va bia?

Perhaps the best way to honor and keep her memory is to be the best son/student.

I don’t want to see in the rearview mirror shadow of regrets. I realize the only way she could have let me go was for furthering education. Of any one in my family, she would be the one who understood it best.

When seeing a younger version of herself in scooter, mask, glasses and helmet, but still in Ao Dai, holding a baby on her way to the seaside babysitter, I was reminded of her: sacrificial and selfless, a role model with near spot free existence. Her contribution made my and our human family all the richer.

Si tu n’existais pas, I wouldn’t be here. As keeper of fine and fond memories.

Mom’s Ao Dai.

Man who reads

Joan Didion‘s latest book about the death of her child has landed in the top ten of TIME magazine.

Her earlier book, “the Year of Magical Thinking” recalls the death of her husband.

By penning these experiences, she invited us, readers into her private chamber of grief  (saving his shoes, wishing he would come back).

Man reads in order not to be alone.

Reading is listening.

One night, I was alone with Steve Job’s biography whose cover had his blank stare. It felt eerie!

Then on rainy nights, books keep me company.

I could put down one book, just to pick another (then I will be in Peru, with conversations in the Cateral or travel back in time, to Chicago in late 19th century or French country side with Bovary).

It’s all there in black and white.

From Westminster to Wikipedia, we are the most blessed generation, not only for the abundance of  searchable literature, but also for living longer to enjoy them.

Life long learning.

The worst tragedy in life is a wasted mind.

I have no idea how a mighty country like the US  could feel impotent and watch its people (8% at least) sitting idle.

At the very least, get them a library card and have them log in the 10,000 hours (threshold to acquire a new skill set).

Local libraries order mostly low-brow  hard-backs , which perpetuate the cycle (Daniel Steel).

Three cheers to MIT for its radical free online University.

As “rad” as anything has ever happened since the 60’s.

Now just make sure rural broadband and fiber built out be completed.

We don’t want Earth’s billions live longer while remain isolated and ignorant.

In fact, world peace depends on shared assumptions and common ground.

When people agree to disagree, it’s a good thing. At least, they read and understand other’s views and values.

If they read at all.

Man who reads is man who makes peace.  I hope this year is “our year of magical thinking,” i.e. keep the books and lights on, wishing our man would come back and pick up reading where had left it.

Chicago’s former self

I finished the epilogue to “the Devil in the White City” longing for more.

That’s how good the read was.

The architects and builders reached out to the sky, and in Ferris’ case, taking the people up with him for an amusement ride in 1893.

The Fair (DreamLand) later inspired DisneyLand.

But not all was quiet on the lake front.

We had a Jack-the-Rippper type abducting and mutilating women orginally drawn to bright light and big city.

Near the closing of the Fair, the mayor got shot, turning the Closing ceremony into a burial and burning of man’s monumental greatness

(White City turned Black City).

White City as it turned out cast dark shadows.

America in the Gilded Age.

Full of ambition and aspiration.

World leader in manufacturing and masonry.

Builders and dreamers.

The sky was the limit (not credit limit as of late).

Later, we had the Wright brothers and Frank-Lloyd Wright.

But during that period, just Westinghouse and Edison (GE), birthers of electricity.

Just Buffalo Bill and Fair builders trying to “outEiffel” Eiffel.

They had a race of a thousand miles, preferably to arrive at the Fair on the same horse.

One fair attendee from Poland who had used kerosene lamp all her life, upon seeing the city of lights, uttered “It’s Heaven”.

Unfortunately, only the train track remains (with dark fiber routes lay dormant). The rest was burned to the ground, with no regret. It was not  the first time the city was in flame. (Mrs O Leary’s cow would kick the lantern later to cause the Chicago Great Fire).

America’s second largest city has its current mayor who left the White House for the White City.

Chicago who hosted the Democratic Convention and its bloody confrontation during the Vietnam War.

Chicago with its boderos and board rooms.

Chicago, a school of economics, which favors “Adam Smith‘s invisible hand”.

Chicago South Side, in contrast to the White city.

Chicago, the band, with “Doesn’t anybody know what time it is”.

Chicago Chicago, the musical and Chicago World Fair, a memorial of America’s Imperial Past.

Its future and America’s are so inter-twined that its leaders had once been a community worker before entering the White House.

Chicago, my first great city outside of the insulated Happy Valley. To have finished “the Devil in the White City” to me was like to have my first taste of that Polish sausage and sauerkraut, or like that Polish girl who first saw electricity: it embodies human greatness and its possibilities (and its need for redemption as well). If only we launched another mandate to complete a World Fair with ensuing deadline, or “ask not…what your country can do for you”. In both instances,  Michigan Lake or Moon Landing, America rose to the challenge and out-shined its own complacency and comfort zone.

Art expressions in most unlikely places

You would have never thought of running into people ballroom-dancing in the park. But here in GoVap new park, where the young trees are still being nursed, and the lights barely lit up, people came out and did just that. Young and old, male and female, they came out when the heat started to ease. Reminds me of a line in Saturday in the Park, by Chicago (people dancing, people talking, a man selling ice-cream).

Meanwhile, the Prime Minister said 42,000 people still died from unexploded land mines (see Huffington Post).

Perhaps the late Princess Diana would have grieved in her grave.

That’s amount to a lot of dancing feet, had they remained above ground.

Someone was practicing the violin tonight . Last night, I heard a flute (which reminded me of my daughter). It’s soon be time for me to pick up the guitar again.

Survival instruments.

When it’s hot, crowded and polluted, you just don’t go out and buy Friedman’s book.  You learn how to cope with realities.

Young students got used to taking the bus. It saves time and money, although in this culture, or even in the US, when you wait for the bus, you are either homeless or down-and-out on your luck.

Public transit somehow was played down by the likes of Ford and GM, when gas was still cheap and the streets spare of traffic.

Those dynamics have now changed, especially here in Asia.

People had resisted the helmet law for a while, until they became convinced by the saved lives. Brad Pit and Angelina Jolie were here to adopt their Vietnamese child.

They had ridden the streets of Ho Chi Minh City right before the law took effect.

The last of the Mohicans.

f it weren’t for the computers, we would see more youth troubles on the street. As it turns out, they are sitting right next to me, and behind me.

I am staying out of trouble too, even at my age.

Social media, blogging, and gaming.

Some companies (French ones) went ahead and forbade employees from using email. They prefer instant messaging for quick results.

Facebook was prescient on this, when its CEO announced the death of email as we knew it.

Young people communicate instantly without format and formality.

Just a quick question.

Here is a quick answer.

Boom!

Hurry up and get to the park, where people are talking, people are dancing, a man selling ice-cream.

Any day in the park.

A platform, a boombox, a partner and there we go.

One and two, one and two.

Dancing under the stars.

The good Lord rains on the field of both the good and the evil.

He gave each a longing for beauty that transcends place, politics and power of the purse.

Who says poor people are boring? I think the opposite is true.

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.

Mathmatically Vietnam

Berkeley is popular with Asian students. Last weekend, I heard that an acquaintance got accepted and would be travelling to Houston to start college.

But many young Vietnamese study abroad chose University of Chicago.

It is no surprise  that Ngo Bao Chau, the math wiz, pitched his tent there.

Windy city. Cold. Home of Oprah and Ebert, the late movie critic.

I spent two years in a Chicago suburb, with my long coat in tow.

And one of my recent jobs was with a company based in Chicago.

So, Chicago, Chicago. Memories of jogging along the railway, in freezing temperature. You got to be there to experience heartland America. You have to read “The Devil in the White City” to understand Chicago’s place in the scheme of things.

Sears tower is no longer called Sears. Nor is it now world’s tallest.

Chicago itself used to be America’s number 2 city.

Now, at least, U of Chicago might, in a few hours, have its Vietnamese faculty receiving the highest honor in Mathematics.

I blogged yesterday about “revving without a cause”, about urban youth in Saigon. Today, I feel proud to share the heritage with one of world’s math treasures.

I ponder what makes someone a genius, while others would flush their lives down the toilet. Don’t they know, life zooms by faster than the speed of their bikes?

Even the author of Future Shock (Alvin Toffler) admits that his prediction wasn’t nearly “fast” enough for today’s speed of change.  Bill Gates, author of  “the Speed of thought”, missed the importance of the internet and the web (I know they are playing catch-up with cloud computing).

Energy, matters, and motion.

Cultures and technology converge and collide.

Generations with restless dreams, and unmet aspiration.

Fashion TV fuels the fire, while in reality its audience couldn’t afford a decent lunch (which is better than its models who mostly starved themselves to death).

So young Vietnamese girls try out for Vietnam’s Next Top Model.

The drop-outs packed up to work as “PR”, nothing to do with the profession of Public Relations.  Tuoi Tre, syndicated through Yahoo Vietnam, ran a nine-part expose of the trade. Mostly about how young girls having to endure trade abuse just to get some tips e.g. old foreign man, putting kleenex in their chest, and pulling the tissues out as if their bras were a tissue box or the infamous tale of a gangster who used $100 bills, folded, to shoot at PR’s like young brats would at birds.

In this boiling hot-pot, I have found mixture of the good, bad and ugly.

Math wiz, born to be wild, and modern-day Geishas. All here, and now.

Some thoughtful folks would chuckle, yet end up de-sensitized because life is what it is. Yesterday’s enemies become today’s best friends.

And most surprisingly, it’s not our friends who know us best. It often is the opposite. I am thinking of the McCain (warship) once docked at China Beach.

I am sure someone on that carrier know the ins and outs of Da Nang’s terrains.

All quiet now on the Eastern front. For now, the nation stands still awaiting the news. Big news. All of a sudden, numbers and math become chic here.

And for once, I breathe a sight of relief. The audience is tuning in to a show other than Fashion TV or World Cup. They are tuning in to await Nobel-equal Fields prize for Math. It may very well be one of our own, Ngo Bao Chau.

http://vnexpress.net/GL/Khoa-hoc/2010/08/3BA1F68C/

As of this edit, Bao Chau indeed got the prize which mathmatically puts Vietnam on the equation (better than known for beer consumption).