Tag: China

Admired Adults

As Yahoo News flashes Most Admired Person of the Year, I can’t help reflecting on Adults I most Admired ever.

From a teacher friend of my mom to complete strangers in heartland America, from a relief worker in the Pacific to far-away Africa, I remember them not so much for how much they were giving , but for HOW they go about giving.

The troubling thing about our century is not only there exists huge inequity, but also the ineffective venues to bridge that gap.

I had a glimpse of hope when the richest men of our age (Bill Gates and Warren Buffett) went to China to take pledges (gone are the days that rich is equated with being white, and poor, color folks).

Then it has been quiet all of a sudden.

What happened to those pledges of  The Millionaire Round Table? Meanwhile, the best investment we can make as a society is school lunch program with good nutrition.

When I was growing up, there was bread subsidies distributed through my mom’s school. I can type these words today partly thanks to those surplus flour flowing our way back then.

When one is hungry, the only thing in mind is to go out and find something to eat. Heck with ethics, eco-system or e-government.

Adults just don’t get it.

And when they do, it’s too late.

The damage has been done irrecoverably.

Later in life, I tried to put myself through school, and not just one. But two Christian graduate schools. Still, my early formation had been solidified by the time I got through admission. How I viewed right and wrong, what’s cool and what’s not, and whom I can trust.

When one grew up in war-time, observing the said and the done, and how far they were apart, one quickly grasps what reality gap was all about.

I empathize with my children, with young people growing up in war, in recession and in debt.

They are the ones without representation, without lobbyist in the hall of power (maybe with the exception of Michelle Obama and her school-lunch push).

Asked any school kid today. Would you find they want to grow up to be a policy maker? To un-jam the process called gridlock and filibuster?

Japan itself has lost one generation to gaming, virtual reality and most recently Fukushima.

Meanwhile, Samsung has become the number-one global brand, surpassing Apple and Coke.

Maybe we can all use a little Korean discipline. But first, show me some models I can admire. Someone who takes the bus to work and cooks his own meal.

Then maybe I will pay attention to ethics, eco-system and e-government.

My mom’s friend whom I will never forget, came to our house on New Year’s day. Per custom, she gifted the children with lucky money (Tet).

But instead of using paper money, folded neatly inside those red envelopes like everyone else, she made me open my two hands. Then one by one, she filled them with shiny pennies until I could no longer hold them. The weight of coin currencies still impressed upon me til this day. It’s not how much or how often one should give. It’s the way we go about giving. And on reflecting about New Year and giving, I promise myself not only to give often, but to pay special attention to the way I go about giving. Make it worth their while to receive from you. As Thomas Merton says “the poor was given the rich a chance to give. Both need each other” (paraphrasing);, those who give have more options and time to go to the bank and exchange the money, in any denomination. The poor, on the receiving end, can only accept  payment without option (the homeless don’t have a home address to receive checks).  Just make sure by the time bread get to their mouths, it’s not stale. If so, it’s a poor reflection on the most admiring exchange between human being. Most Admired Adult of 2013? You, when you start giving in the most humane way.

Cyclo in the time of Google

By now, you can still see a few weather-beaten cyclos around albeit restricted to tourist quarters.

I still remember the sound of horse carriage in the streets of  old Saigon.

My kid will be lucky if she knows what a cyclo is.

She knows Google though.

Paperless and painless search. Now with semantic search.

My profile, age in particular, triggers online ads on retirement funds.

Each day, we clear out trash in our home office and online.

Meanwhile, cyclo guys paddle along, knowing that their trade is joining the ranks of old scribes, horse shoe makers and Kodak shops. And the cinema is about to close its curtain. My uncle’s cinema is now a storage.

I came back fully related to the character in Cinema Paradiso,  with nostalgia.

The underlining theme is still there: where is that old blind film projectionist/mentor ? Mine is a guitarist who has recently been out of work.

We both need a gig. Maybe it will work out for him since he has upgraded his play list on an Ipad. But not for the cyclo guy whose best day constitutes but a few passengers hauling bulky merchandise. Cyclo is now relics of a colonial past: white folks and colored coolies, on a leisurely ride along smoke-filled streets packed with motorcycles made in China. Future shock has moved on to its Third Stage (Muscle, machine and Mind), from cyclo to motor-cycle and onto Google. People are making money by a click of the mouse, and not by paddling those three-wheelers, using 21st-century skill set and not primitive strands of muscle.

Modern technology doesn’t come without criticism, starting with the Luddites onto soon-to-be-released Circle.

Consider a huge percentage of Search are on the subject of Porn, to shut it down altogether would present a dictator’s dilemma.

No turning back, or you will turn into salt. Gosh, I miss the sound of horse carriage at Ben Thanh market. I miss being skinny , vulnerable and trusting. Faith that can move mountain. That some day, I will see face to face, although only through a glass darkly in the mean time.

Wisdom comes from mistakes, not missed opportunities.

I’d rather tried and failed than failed to try.

Tell that to the cyclo guy, who ordered two glasses of sugar-cane juice, while I could barely gulp down one. All I did was googling, while he was cycling. Muscle man in the age of Machine.

 

Shared dishes

Suzie Wong. Suzie Q. Lazy Suzan.

All the S’s in stereotypes. All boils down to a round table full of shared dishes, each could easily meet  your dai;ly cholesterol quota.

Half roasted duck, half chicken ginger etc….

Hong Kong cuisine, served in Herndon (VA).

I thought about Nixon’s trip to China, and how many shared dishes he tasted then.

Now, we got Huawei branch in Herndon selling Symantec data storage equipment.

And Haier dorm fridges, well situated inside American campuses.

Right when Hollywood lamented the great days of “Emperor” (Gen MacArthur), the other empire has made inroads here, one dish at a time.

For here or for here?

It’s best to have it “for here” for these sorts of dishes (and fried rice to go).

Kids chowed down the rice, eyes glued to the I-pad’s screen.

(I-pad perhaps made in China also).

There you have it: the consequences of Ping Pong diplomacy (Ford exported – “ping” – cars to China, and Chinese goods “pong” back).

Those who trade tend not to fight (Bastiat’s Principle).

When we got here in the mid-70’s, there hardly was any “chinese” grocery stores. Now, several Lotte supermarkets are found in Loudoun Co.

Hyundai and Kia are sold side by side with Fiat and Audi.

Chinese buffet and American buffet. No ordinary Sunday.

Follow the money. Use all your resources. Cook up some secret sauce. Suzie Q, Suzie Wong, but be not Lazy Suzan.

Hard work and hard-earned money.

It’s all here, even in times of Sequestration.

Yes. There will be challenges in brand acceptance. Who wouldn’t! Ever heard of the horse-meat scandal in the UK and IKEA?

The story of WTO has many chapters, and each with its own sub-plots, full of conflicts. But in the end, let’s say 50 years from now, we hope to see a more humane and harmonious society around that same table, sharing dishes. Well, if India and China don’t go at each other in a contest for supremacy.

Same river twice

This is not about going back to your prom night, or re-entering the job market.

It’s about locality and landscape that have been gentrified and occupied by new comers as time passed. I happened to be by the old neighborhood where I used to live 30 years ago: same Peking Duck restaurant, same Post Office.

Even a bunch of day laborers standing around and trying to keep warm.

My parents however have passed away.

So the scenery and streets evoked warm memories.

What’s new was a French Restaurant which was staffed with recently arrived immigrants (while the speakers played French lessons, naturellement).

The neighborhood has taken on some wrinkles. So have I.

Especially on this first day of March (the worst of winter was now behind), and first day of Sequestration (even the country got some wrinkles).

People refused to break away from winter hibernation and spending spree.

Wish I could turn the clock back, to see myself receive my US citizenship again. That time frame would put me to the time waiting eagerly for my Dad to immigrate and be reunited with us.

That year (1983), I embarked on a long trip, my second one to SEA.  Only years later that I was able to attribute my hidden motivation: atonement. When we had first arrived, we were each man to his own, leaving our Mom behind in the refugee camp. My subsequent trips back to SEA similar camps were for carthasis, a counter-prevailing statement to popular  “habits of the heart”.

No fanfare. Just slipped out and away.

Trying to pay forward.

Among the Best-selling books after Habits of the Heart was, Bowling Alone, the logical next step. People turned inward, each man for himself (Ask  what you can do for yourself).

Conservatism got anointed by televised and telegenic preachers (who later confessed to unfaithfulness and unraveling affairs).

President, Pope and Pop star (j Lennon) all got shot.

Are you talking to me? For I am the only one here! Tony Montana wanted to “go to the top”, starting in Miami (after a brief stop at Indiantown Gap refugee processing center, same place our now scattered families had passed through).

I had blurry memories of the mid-80’s simply because I was concentrating on non-profit work overseas.

When I got back, I seemed to have missed a few beats (Boy George? Cindy Lauper?) and a few friends’ weddings.

So, after three decades, the memory gap is huge. Can’t seem to swim in the same river twice.

I have changed. The place has changed. It’s now colder than I remembered. Perhaps I have turned to be a “tropical species”.

Maybe I should be migrating South to Florida, and joining the “snow birds” .

Maybe a cruise ship, so I don’t need to belong anywhere in particular, or swim in any river per se.

The price of being a global citizen is the loss of one’s local identity.

I will never forget the punch line in Cross-Cultural class: it’s easier to cross the ocean miles away than the neighbor next to you. When I saw the new neighbors in that neighborhood today, the above saying seems to take on new meaning: they did all the ocean-crossing to get here. And to reach out across the aisle seems to be doubly hard, because of rules and signs that say “first comes first served”, “Do not trespass”, or “Do Not Disturb” “Beware of Dogs”. Maybe I should return in the summer, when the community pool is opened to all residents, regardless of color, race and creed. “Swim at your own risks”. Even then, you are lucky to strike a conversation across the lounge chairs. Be quiet! People are reading. Hope they don’t work on “Habits of the Heart” in 2013. Even Tom Wolfe has moved on down to Miami with Back to Blood, away from New York ‘s Bonfire of  the Vanities.

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.

Signs and signals

Jackie Chan delivered again in Chinese Zodiac. The 12 Animals.

The East learn to tell fortune from symbols. The West teach others to “read” people. Animals or People. We all want the advantage of foresight the next outcome.

People commit to New-Year resolutions: lose weight, take up lessons in this and that, get off a bad habit like smoking, shopping and swapping old wives’ tales.

Others use the turn of the calendar as a bookend to their failed relationship or business attempt (valley of death).

Good idea. It’s about time. Turn out the lights.

Something never meant to last forever.

Mismatched personalities, mismatched commitments.

The usual: people hurting people in a chain of downward spiral, of self-sabotage.

Those who last are those who never went in deep and are quick at damage control.

Pull out while you still can. Salvage and survive.

As long as you can read the signs and detect the signals.

People and events do send signals (favorable or unfavorable). Semiotics.

We need to know ourselves, when to hold, when to fold.

Enough hurt, enough loss, enough bad tastes in the mouth.

Unfortunately we can only “see” in looking backward.

That’s why people would rather invest in pre-mortem than post-mortem analysis.

That’s why people tell fortune by reading those zodiac, the Twelve.

With Jackie Chan, rumor has it that this was going to be his last picture (at least one which he did all the stunts himself).

For us, we still miss a sign here, a signal there.

Those who are skilled and savvy to detect them will reap a windfall. Others are still in denial even after the facts (that it’s over).

Welcome to the New Year, a bookend to all those missed signs and signals of year past.

Crying girl

I walked by a shop today and I saw a girl holding a knife, crying.

She was peeling onion for the restaurant.

Artificially induced tears. Not triggered by sad emotion.

Real, nevertheless.

It made me appreciate behind-the-scene people (since I happened to have breakfast with real onion, the same kind this girl was peeling).

Nickel-and-dime folks make a living by sweat and tears.

Or those who shed blood for our nation’s security.

Blood, sweat and tears.

My friend’s Dad who recently passed away, used to deliver a sermon on Jesus Wept.

The I-am-with-you gesture only God incarnatel can extend.

Go ahead and tell the Newtown parents to stop crying.

Tears from the onion peel might stop, but tears that well from within (induced by tragedy uncalled for) are hard to stop. Ever. They will creep up at unexpected hours, in the dark of the night, or in the middle of a crowded lunch hour.

I am sure the girl I saw had been doing this for a while, if not everyday.

She knows when to stop, but then, not stopping too long.

The mechanical reliability performed by human.

If only the owner went ahead and bought a machine.

Then the girl would be out of a job.

She would then be crying for real.

Some factory girl in China would dutifully ship the order, my job over yours.

Blood, sweat and tears.

We were “cursed” to toil the ground per breaking the contract with our Maker. For now, tears to make a living in Saigon, tears for neighbor’s kids in Newtown, Our Town, and tears in Heaven, as Eric Clapton put it.

Yes, we need perspectives and point of view to overcome tragedy. We also need help and comfort from one another (in Newtown, strangers gave each other a hug, very needed hug). No man’s an island. Many eat onion, some don’t. But someone got to peel the damn thing. What I saw today was real tears. What I saw on the NYT photos the other day, was digital, but real nevertheless. Jesus wept. Not just Crying Girl, but also Crying God.

The normalization of the abnormal

Some of us who still remember the Cold War remember how easy things were: black and white.

Everything else “Third World.”

Now, the Third World has emerged. Hence, we live in a multi-polar world.

More complicated world. More are at stake.

People wheel and deal.

Purchasing parity has become less of a parity.

Trading up and trading down. Things and places are interchangeable (Banana Republic , despite its name, used to carry made-in-India or the Philippines – no banana republic there).

Marijuana used to be a taboo. Now it’s legal in some states.

I am confused. My moral sense (put there by my parents who were born early in the 20th century) has been challenged and put to question.

Those foundations are constantly revised and compromised.

First by others, then myself (or else, I am looked at as a loser or an outsider).

Sounds like a teenage phenomenon. But it’s real. Flight or fight.

Cavemen syndrome still.

With technology moving so fast, energy consumed at break-neck speed, our sense of the world and how it should operate needs a relook.

The enemy is now our friend ( for example, Russia as supplier of oil and arms).

Our friend has become enemy (by abandonning us when the coalition calls for joint troops in the Gulf Wars).

What was abnormal has become normal.

In this multi-polar world, China, now the largest automobile market in the world,

doesn’t discriminate imported products, but its export ones are.

For the right reason (unsafe, copy cat etc…).

We have an image problem.

We need to improve our relations with others (who have also changed).

We need new friendnemies.

We need to normalize that which was considered abnormal.

Gay is the new straight , the pheripherals have gone mainstream.

It’s late-stage now for a lot of things such as globalization and world trade (finished products get shipped back to the US and Western countries, turning the US standing into a Third World status by definition).

I am glad we still agree on grammar points and earning points.

Do unto others as we would like to be done onto.

The only thing that is constant is change itself. Grow up!

Spending spree

Right about now. If the economy is going to pick up, authorities should push spending. Credit card spending.

Gadgets are out. Electronic devices miniaturized. Skirts cut shorter even when it says Winter Clothes. Victoria Secret pulled Native American outfit from broadcast. Planned controversy or not, we don’t know. We just know that things are back to its normal pace.g. Windows 8,  I-phone 5 release etc…

With Halloween behind us, Veteran Day being celebrated, what else to look forward to besides Turkey and Tree.

We got the calendar seasons, then we got shopping seasons, but for centuries we live with only a few seasons (until they made up Fall and Autumn).

Seasons are good for the Soul. They roll in cyclically, to remind us there is a rhythm of life: hard times and good times.

Unlike compound-interests chart and monthly bills. These come in under a different chart and graph.

We still respond to seasons in awe: autumn foliage, first snow etc..

When something like Sandy screw up our lives, we are at a loss (blaming it on those new voiture in China and Brazil?)

Meanwhile, those with or without money still have to spend. For loved ones and for oneself.

Gotta get those midget gadgets: i-pod and tri-pod.

Who would find out that our taste for music has been the same for decades? or what content women read on airplanes (E-readers).

Something strange has happened  lately, but then nothing strange has happened lately (covert ops but overt affairs etc…)

Banks and retail stores are still into collecting ROI perentages. And we consumers still fall for it, willingly.

We are creatures of habit and of harmony. We put on warm clothes and winter clothes. We feel a warmth in our hearts when we see Christmas decoration  all around us. We  miss that fireplace scene and the gathering of the faithful. We long to belong and to be home (Train, plane and automobile) . We long for rest and comfort.  The world knows this. It will offer a different version of our hopes and dreams. It will instead offer false hope and unreachable dreams. It will in fact give us the opposite of what we hope for. In the race to embrace our dreams, often times, we have to outsmart those who claim themselves to be dream providers, of essentials that we need like homes, health and happiness. We gotta to own the process of attaining them ourselves. When we do, we will be rooted firmly in that which we can call home, that which anchors our restless feet and soul. True happiness lies in the heart of those who feel content and are not in denial of death, the only reality that matters most. So spend, spend, spend. But keep in mind that those gadgets will be obsolete next year. In their places, are successive versions and newer generations. That’s what keeps us awake at night.

Progress has its pain and price to pay. To stay in the game, one needs to constantly pedal forward and uphill.

Again, I admire people who stay up all night out in the cold for a shopping spree phenomenon we call Black Friday.

Just remember to leave those pepper sprays at home this year. Walmart is trying to outsmart the competitors by opening early. Thanksgiving night as a matter of fact, for your 24/7 shopping need.

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.