Tag: Extended family

Insights from the inside

This could also be titled “Full Circle”.

We act out that which triggered us from the inside. Stored up commands.

Encoded instructions (like our own software version if you will).

Years ago, we fled by barge.  FOB. Then when we reached safety, inside secured camp  boundaries, we started to fight our ways to survival: each man to his own. An extended family that fled together ended splitting up into four units: college-bound, work-bound and American-style nuclear family and my mom, left all by herself, a retired school teacher with no taker (sponsorship).

I was completely crushed due to my helplessness: a few months before that, we had already left our house and my Dad. Then my Mom (knowing that she got mess hall pass and a bunk bed to sleep in did not ease my pain).

That’s how dramatic the script was: I was detonated into adulthood with everything (country, culture and cocoon ) disintegrated all around me.

No warning, no orientation. In fact, I missed the pre-registration period when various student organizations recruit incoming freshmen.

No fraternity, no fellowship.

Years later I volunteered to be back at those camps in the South china Seas. Even then, I did not recognize that deep motivation  of ” no man left behind.”

This marine-like motto came from no where. I continued to come back the second time a year later upon graduation from grad school.

It’s a trajectory unavoidable.

The insights came much later. Like yesterday. All of a sudden, the past resurfaced and revealed itself to me. Ah ha.

One guy found me after 31 years. Full circle. I helped him, he now helps me.

Then I realized why I came to help him: I couldn’t have done it for my mom in the early years.

As soon as I could, I did, even for strangers I had yet to meet.

An act of atonement.

Guilt and shame.

How do I live down after the break down.

Now, with distance and time in between, I could connect those dots.

No man left behind.

That’s what makes us who we are: social beings. Yes, we should love ourselves.

But we should not forget those two commandments: Love God and your neighbors.

These actions are not mutually exclusive. Try it, and you will find there are plenty left for  yourself. You see, love is not finite. In fact, the more you use it, the faster it replenished itself. Infinitely. I don’t know much about life, how long it lasts, what does it really mean etc… but I know a thing or two about love, or the lack of it. Especially, when it shows up and plays catch up with you. It hurts. It was real. It exists. Like yesterday, suddenly, this insight came uninvited but got me teary. Then, I was freed.

The more the merrier

Next week, we welcome Earth’s 7 Billionth baby into our human family.

When I was born, relatives came to the hospital to visit (as commonly observed even today, in Vietnam). B/W photos were taken and sent up North for our extended families to “take notes”. The more the merrier. Nobody cared who Malthus was. If you showed up, one more bowl and a pair of chopsticks were all you need. In fact, the most common greeting was “have you eaten yet”. Memories of those early days came to me, often because of large family gatherings, with meals on the altar, and meals on the table.

We commemorated ancestors’ anniversary more than celebrated newcomers’ birthday.

In fact, I found out that my grandfather used to share lunch with more than a dozen people at a time. Obviously, he didn’t need “Never eat alone” advice.

Fast forward to our digital era with Siri apps and Google unmanned vehicles, we find a world obsessed with pharma instead of farming.

Instead of taking vitamin pills (whose latest studies have shown to be ineffectual), people are taking pain-relieving pills, sleeping pills and birth-control pills.

The Boeing 787 flight between Tokyo and Hong Kong inaugurated the Pacific Century, as much as Lindbergh’s American Century.

Population growth tilts toward BRIC countries. Yet in the US, there is a shortage of skilled workers since the babyboomers are retiring en mass.

BTW, to give credits where they deserve, trusted Sales Representatives are still in demand, despite recent push in productivity and automation.

People still buy from people and have lunch (connecting) with people.

Yet Sales has been and still is considered non-academic, hence it is excluded from the curriculum ( per latest issue of  theEconomist).

Back to 7 Billion of us whose life expectancy will be in the 70’s (hint, larger fonts and slower driving).

Besides strength in numbers, we live in the most open-minded global society ever. Even the cash-rich Kennedys had to face “religion” issue when campaigning back in the 60’s. Now, you can be openly gay, happily married and run for public office. What used to be “alternative” has become “conventional”.

And the new China’s middle class. Boy oh boy! When they shop, they shop till they drop. I happened to witness their Japanese counterparts in the late 80’s half-way to Las Vegas, at an outlet stop. I wonder how much more aggressive Mainland shoppers will act after their wins at the table.

Back in the late 70’s, after the Oil Embargo, many thought we had reached the “limits to growth”.  Somehow, we managed to clean up Alaska and Louisiana, Hiroshima and Fukushima .

The MIT and the MITI, Korean and Vietnamese, all work hard in a race against the Machine. When Malthus predicted that we had reached Earth’s limits, he did not foresee the coming of the Machine. German software engineers help VW propel  pass Toyota, while Samsung pass Sony and Apple in tablet sales. Bring it on, globally.

Long ago, when we commemorated our grandmother’s anniversary, my mom  always planned extra bowls and chopsticks . The more, the merrier; but I can now put away the extra bowl and chopsticks, since proponents of automation argue that machines don’t sleep and eat. Win-win. Will see.