Tag: Chinese American

Dakao vs Dalat

Both have open air market. Both got some body of water that defines the city.

But that’s about it. 6 hours apart, they might as well be worlds apart.

Dakao, even without the street construction, can test your patience.

Dalat, even with a new bridge construction, can afford its  lake water drained for months . People here are patient.

Dalat fresh produce, from ground to table, is a given.

In Dakao, you have to get these from an A/Ced hypermarket.

Ironically, as one city starts its third shift, the other goes to bed.

Dalat has red dirt and misty weather. Dakao on the other hand is always noisy, dusty and hot.

Yet more and more people are pouring into District 1.

Must be the opportunities.  Yahoo has a piece about more Viet Kieu are coming back to open restaurants, coffee shops or to make movies. These are cosmopolitan Viet Kieu, at least, more of risk taker than Dalat tourists.

In the US, we have model minorities stereotypes e.g. Philippino nurses, Vietnamese dentists, Chinese herbalists, Indian engineers etc… To defy this “box”, young Vietnamese Americans are breaking out to run for offices, to receive Math award, to author a novel or self-help book (Impressive Impression for instance) and to be a lector at Yale. And like their Chinese American counterparts, a new wave of returnees are opening up off-shored centers, or just to test the waters.

In my opinion, they are coming back to “Dakao-like” opportunities, but they long for “Dalat-like” experience. One is dynamic, the other unassuming.

The head analyzes carefully, the heart whispers carelessly.

And to complete the circle , Dalat produces fresh vegetables for Dakao consumption.

The manure that brought forth produce out of red dirt become the supply for vendors selling on cement sidewalks.

City folks or country folks, both bleed red and often are too busy to read.

I read more in Dalat than in Dakao, where the sound of people toasting each other for health proves to be the only local distraction. Yet even amidst Tet celebration in Dalat, completely furnished with gay troop peddling lotto game, Dalat still proves to be an attraction, away from a Dakao of distraction.

Gatsby in China Beach

I thought the USS New York was cool until I read about ex-refugee came back as US Naval Commander in China Beach.

http://www.omantribune.com/index.php?page=news&id=58579&heading=Asia

Same waters, similar vessels, but context and crew have changed.

Just like what we read today about a school teacher walking students on a day field trip to former East Germany.

What used to shed blood is now a no-sweat endeavor.

All you need is Love (Beatles) and the rest will take care of itself.

As of this edit, I would like to congratulate House Representative Joseph Cao on his historic Health Care vote.

I would love to project this good will into the future, and see if we can visualize pass Future Shock.

Year 2020. Open source and open collaboration will have been the norm (just like Open border in Berlin or Open Seas in China Beach).

EU-N-America-Asia will already have been the new pipeline of talent infrastructure, NAFTA gone horizontal, with combined resource and market.

Many N American professors (many of them had their origins somewhere else to begin with) will hold online classes for Chinese students via Tele-lectures.

(Back in 1981, my Marketing professor, Jim Engel, kept hopping on the plane to go teach in Singapore. I should have seen it coming).

Movies get watched on watches (Spectator Gadgets).

20/20, the TV magazine show, will be accessible in the USC Film School Archive by robot. My two daughters, Aimy and Maily, will be dropping  off their Amerasian or South Amerasian children for me to baby sit.

2020, the year Re-globalization takes off: trains, planes, automobiles, and of course, ships (for supply chain containers to be loaded at the Alameda Corridor). While proponents and opponents of re-globalization continue their debates, companies which try to evade the health care mandate will continue to seek off-shored “health havens”, just as they did with tax havens.

Companies like Lifan, maker of motorbikes, will outsource more of its manufacturing to secondary markets such as Vietnam (already did). Vietnamese diaspora will supply the talent and know-how. Like their Chinese-American counterparts, they will serve as bridges, not in terms of culture and language, but in challenging us with a different mindset and thought leadership (Net Neutrality). And they will in turn uphold and sustain new benchmarks in social concerns and environmental concerns e.g. bamboo housing, solar energy, nano materials.

One thing I am sure is that the USS New York will still proudly chart the heroic waters, and many more Vietnamese Americans will try out  various roles, beyond the traditional “model minorities” fields such as pharmacy, engineering and accounting. More will be in TV announcing, film directing (Powder Blue), US House Representative, and even US Navy. See, it’s not an individualistic culture .The community just wait for one early adopter to test the waters, than the rest will join in. I . I am sure the Commander did his dad proud. Who wouldn’t? Journey at seas is exhaustive. But when it exhibits the best of humanity and good will, it makes the traveling worthwhile. The Navy certainly earns points these days and that’s the best PR one can buy (It’s on NPR and ABC Person of the Week).

Gatsby is back in China Beach, just a ship hop away from his former home in Hue, in daddy’s navy-white.

The Tale of Kieu couldn’t find a better contemporary equivalent.

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