Tag: Cooking

Unlikely place

Ugliness and evil exist in unlikely places.

So are beauty and goodness. A vulnerable butterfly dancing in rush-hour traffic, an innocent child on the way home from periodic check-ups.

Life offers us not an a-la-cart menu, but a buffet.

Fill up not with french fries and jello.

Yet at the same time, eat not in full the dry roast beef.

Instead, try to sprinkle some ground beacons and top everything with raisins and sunflower seeds.

Who knows.

The beauty is in the combo.

Your combined choices make up life tapestry.

Mine has certainly been an interesting one: like a bouncing billiard ball, I went from boy-to-man, from being a Vietnamese college freshman, to an US graduate, then back to living and working in Vietnam.

I have built and burned bridges, and I have seen both beauty and beast.

Ugliness and evil co-exist with beauty and goodness.

Life buffet.

Choose wisely.

And make your combination a great one, uniquely yours.

Life is so boring with a bunch of automatons, all cut from the same cloth.

Campbell soup cans.

15-minutes of fame.

Go for it. Live a little and slow to die.

Assert, charge and fire (then aim).

While at it, don’t forget to notice the dancing butterfly in traffic, free of worry and free of self-sabotage. If  human, you and I, cannot live as free as those lower-species, then why bother at all. I learn this in the most unlikely place: while crossing Saigon traffic. Call me lunatic, call me poetic and romantic. Whatever you can label me with, just try it out for yourself: start flapping your wings. P.S. a friend mentioned that while jumping to their deaths, some 9/11 jumpers tried to fight gravity even for a few last seconds. This graphic scene wells up tears in me as I am sure it will in yours. I believe I can fly.

CWO – Chief Worshipping Officer

On my first week as CEO at UVT – I met an issue none of the Business School in the US had equipped their students for: to bow or not to bow at the Fortune–God altar in the school lobby.

It’s hard enough to know where the bathroom is – much less stumbling upon the Fortune Gods.

Yet I did. And handled it.

You see here in the East – one believes in not just skills – professional or otherwise but also in good luck and good heart. Without the blessings from the Underworld, no matter how hard you try – the results won’t be satisfying.

Yes you can manipulate or negotiate.

But human efforts don’t account for much (reverse 80/20 rule).

Hence the appeasement and appearance of compliance: to the authority and Higher Authority.

I feel humble.

I know there are forces out there beyond my purview and power.

I do my best and leave the rest to the Fortune Gods.

Power outage – gas price – typhoon.

Seeing students eager to learn  motivates me.

After all I still have my student ID card with me (University of Saigon 1975).  At their age – I did pray to the gods to protect me against the uncertain seas.

I was at the mercy of International waters and International Relief . I was at the mercy of prejudiced bosses at work and mean bumps on the street.

I have survived it all – unprepared or ill-prepared.

From this vantage point – it’s me who needs to burn that incense more than anyone else.

So I bowed and prayed.

I needed help.

I needed blessings .

I needed to taste sweat and tears – as cake mix. Then I can bake that cake of success. In Gates of Fire – the leader of 300 just responded after being warned that the enemy’s arrows will cover the sun: “That’s good. We will fight in the shade”.  Yes Achille Yes Samson Yes Pharaoh.

You will all die. Momento Mori.

But not yet. Not dead yet. Got to taste sweet success even when it is mixed with sweat and tears. Makes life more worth living. Rather try and fail than fail to try “and they bow and pray – to the neon god they made…”

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.

The P in Panera

Stay the course. Best time to invest is during the Recession.

Those are Panera secret sauce: persistence and perseverance.

I first noticed Panera on my way back from San Jose. It’s either a Starbuck stop or Panera stop.

But Panera has a fireplace. The place feels like home, smells like home-baked bread.

Panera won me over.

In fact, right after this blog, I am going over there to buy my multigrain baguette.

Heartland America (St Louis, OK, TX) showed us the “dust bowl” courage: rugged survivalist, in the face of bubble bursts

(2000 on the West Coast, and 2008 East Coast, dot.com and financial respectively.

So Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.

Dorothy, go home!

ET go home.

Everyone, go home!

Retrenching. Retooling. Reinventing. (Paltrow sings country music these days).

Back to the basics. Tackle, block, tackle and block.

The cycle will come back. But this time, it gets spread around in a globalized economy.

Look at the G-20’s. You got countries that weren’t there back in 1980. In fact, it used to be G-7.

Back to our secret sauce: invest during the downturn, invest in people and open new storefronts.

It’s home that we, wanderers, all look for in our long journey. Early imprints. Mother’s home-made soup. What do you think Campbell’s chicken and noodle soup is doing? Selling by packages of four. Might as well during this flu season.

Wait until Christmas. Then you really want to run home, where the fire-place is on and the oven has something in it. If you can’t make it, Panera will be your second place beats out Starbuck, your third place.

 

Unsung heroes

I channel surfed last night. C-SPAN 3 covered the Memorial in PA for flight 93, those unsung heroes who diverted terrorist plot 9 years ago.

The uncut shot kept panning the vast expanse of Pennsylvanian field, future home of Flight 93 Memorial.

Graphically speaking, it was boring. MOS (mid out sound) since the mike did not reach far enough to hear the VIP conversation (First Lady and former FL were among them).

In contrast, we could see and hear Terry Jones, instant celebrity for his threat and now recanted threat, just fine.

His Campbell-soup-like-15 minutes of fame.

An article in the Washington Post says it all “tyranny of the moment”.

The Web democratizes so much that the Gainesville pastor gains a PR upper hand (which makes Kansas pastor who has protested at military funerals envy).

He even grew his signature mustache to come across as credible (it’s a step up from preaching just to his extended families).

I am sure he will have fans and followers if opened a facebook page.

Meanwhile, real heroes who took action and paid the price with their lives barely got their names on the marble.

Such is the state of the world as we are living it.

Imagine flight 93 heroes debating the consequences of their action. No, there weren’t any time. They just went ahead and did the right thing.

Brought to mind my favorite quote: “he is no fool to lose that which he cannot keep, to gain that which he cannot lose”.  American martyrs don’t get noticed,

since it’s not in the US culture to condone and celebrate such an act. But it did happen, on that fateful day, which we often forget due to tyranny of the moment.

 

reverse culture shock

After a transitory lay over at a third country, I found myself in one of the entry points, in this case, Atlanta:

Southern hospitality, chicken recipe, and of course, airport price tagd. Ten bucks, with no drink. Welcome back, Mr Nguyen.

I prepare my breakfast now. No longer a Saigon sitting down on a low stool, ordering broken rice and pork chops (with fish sauce and hot chili pepper over it).

Instead, breakfast consists of oatmeal, coffee and grapefruit juice. All the supposedly healthy diet for sterilized living.

The news said we were pulling out of Iraq, but no we don’t. Thousands will be staying behind until next year.

Blair is still the un-appointed spoke person on the subject, and even foreshadowing the next war.

This long holiday will bring back workers who are exhausted, consumers who are burned out and soldiers who face labor-surplus economy.

Even the Web is purported to be dead (Chris Anderson of Wired Magazine). In its wake, we found thousand of offsprings aka apps.

In telecom, we thought caller ID was an intrusion. Wait until call centers crawlers pulled up every bits of credit info about you and I before we got a “hello, may I help you”.

It will be caller FICO.

It wouldn’t be strange if the fast food industry started to size their serving according to customer’s profile the way Coke added sugar according to regional preferences:

larger burgers in the South, trimmer ones for NY City, for instance. BK was sold for a whopping 3.3 B yesterday. Location, location, location. Instant access to thousands of location worldwide, near McDonald’s. K Mart, even during bankruptcy, still made a profit on prime real estate.

Back to reverse culture shock. I got up early, way early this Labor Day weekend. In the dark, I wondered where I was. Then I realized things haven’t changed a bit. All those awful stats such as 4% unemployment back in 2000, now nearing 10 in 2010 etc… Land of the free. There are tons of work to be accomplished, but Congress is not going to take on serious tasks before going home. So they say. I went to a Metro PCS store just to be sent home at 9:15 AM. Sorry, HQ won’t open until another hour (KS).

I understood Metro to be a MVNO, hence no instant access to Sprint central computer. I understood America original design of checks and balances. I understood the victimized mentality of citizens facing big bureaucracy. Speed of change varies according to institutions. But it is still a shock to come back to a place where services are not up to standard, but pricing remains at yesterday’s high. We are trapped in a time warp, thinking we are still in post-war period, when the GI bills will make everything OK for returnees i.e. a Chevy in the driveway, and a chicken in the pot. Well, look at car sales figures. GM predicts worse sales, and of course, BK was sold. It is the equivalent of Pepsi on the chopping block.  Give me a few more days. I hate it, but will have to get used to it. Remember 2000 and Y2K? Every decade comes with its own black eyes.