Tag: Golden Gate Bridge

Where have they gone?

Subtitle “Time to remember”.

When I was in high school, the consumer society began to take shape in Vietnam: beer, cheese, cigarettes, toothpaste and vinyl music albums. Then we moved on to AKAI tape.

By the time I got to the US, the first item I purchased was a portable cassette recorder

(to record music from home, not knowing that someday, they could be digitized, compressed and downloaded).

We used Super 8mm for home filming, and Sony 3/4 inch field recorder for news gathering (some stations still hung on to 16mm film, but this required dark room, which slowed down news processing) while college roommates wouldn’t let their  8-track player out of sight.

Audio Editing back then required one to cut the tape by a razor and scotch-tape it back.

And computer time at the lab meant sitting in the hall with punched cards in hand. Those equipment are now museum pieces. Gone also were names like Zenith and RCA. (BTW Samsung is getting into Medical Device space ).

We have tried so hard to deliver goods and services from point A to point B.

Encoding and decoding the content, medium-agnostic e.g. tin cans, message in the bottle, pigeons.

(in today’s term,  “dumb” phones).

Learning in an analog age was cumbersome e.g. researching a subject (Dewey system) and tabulating the findings.

I posted a BBC clip about the Joy of Stats. The professor was able to show case 200 years of progress in 4 minutes. Comprehensive and captivating.

3-D holographic presentation sure beats the transparencies of the overhead projector (whose bulbs got hot and burned out quickly, often times, in the middle of the spill).

Or the slide trays which “sync” pulses on music tracks, and we called that multi-media.

It is hard for today’s teens to comprehend the pre-Google pre-YouTube age. And just for amusement, we can show them a picture of mobile movie box (often on bicycle). I spent a large chunk of my allowance on those Charlie Chaplin clips with head stuck inside the dark drape.

The kids I hung out with, Pierre, mixed French and Vietnamese, Ali, Indian and other half-breed French kids in the neighborhood. where have they gone? And the technology and tools I was used to, where have they all gone as well.

To be sustainable, we will have to do away with resource-intensive tools.

And to accommodate a larger crowd on spaceship Earth, we will have to learn to negotiate in this new economy of hope.  In San Francisco, they are now testing a car-sharing model with many benefits e.g. help pay the bills, reduce CO emission and require less parking space.

If you come to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair.

And marvel at the Golden Gate Bridge, which still stands uncontested throughout the rise and fall (and reinvention) of Silicon Valley. That I found reassuring. A bridge from point A to point B . It’s still there, so is my resolve to cross it.

 

Saigon upgrade

In 2000, I was sitting at Cadillac, a semi-enclosed bar, whose band played Hotel California and I Will Survive.

In 2010, I found myself at Rolls Royce, which also played Hotel California and I Will Survive.

2013, at Van’s Cafe, its band plays Bon Jovi’s number lacing with Santana’s classics.

Nouveaux riches, yetl good oldies.

The expats came and went. The FDI-enabled buildings and factories were built then abandoned. Investors fled, yet their dollars and euros stayed.

The spill-overs pay for the infrastructure upgrade and remodeling of multiple entertainment venues in the city. Saigon District 1 is still prime real estate. As a song goes, “Ngua xe nhu nuoc tren duong van qua mau” (Horses and buggies zip by on the streets of Saigon), it’s the kind upgrade once seen in New York of the time of Henry Ford.

Taxi pulled up, dropped off, especially when it was pouring.

And the youth, on motorbikes, couldn’t get enough of drag racing (richer counterparts have moved up to Vespas and Roman Holiday).

They did this during the World Cup. Now they practice for the next World Cup, keeping local police busy.

WIth all its pent-up energy, Saigon is upgrading and up to task. from Cadillac, to Rolls Royce.

Female singers with tattoos and cigarettes waiting for their gigs.

A  sequel of ” the girl with a dragon tatoo” could easily be filmed here.

And at the bus station, film crews were busy at work, with  PA’s in black T-shirts doing crowd control. With only that much space, and limited infrastructure – to get around, young people either have to wait until 2AM to race, or they go online during the day. By-pass bridges can’t be built fast enough to accommodate break-neck speed of urbanization and modernization (tallest high-rises, then, another taller-than-current-tallest is proposed).

Airport proposal and counter-proposals dominate tabloid news.

Digital content are thriving here. So have cosmetic surgery e.g. eye lash clip-on, hair extension, All things for personal-brand reinvention.

Those rock band members are splintering off only to regroup somewhere else. Bar ownership change hands as quickly as the names on the doors.

But “I still survive” if failed the US interview to live in Hotel California (background Karaoke screen often shows Golden Gate Bridge).

Those who were lucky to migrate to the West can’t wait to make enough money to return to the “village”. This time, to their surprise, the place has changed. From Cadillac, to Rolls Royce. And you can take a working elevator up to the joint as well. No more semi-enclosed bar (Cadillac) where rain would disrupt a fashion show in progress as often did.  Siting from the inside, you might think you are in a Vegas joint. Gaming and gambling are pushed to its neighboring Cambodia..

As of this edit, a legislative proposal is on the table to legalize sports betting modeled after Singapore recent successes.

With only eateries and spirits as socially acceptable vices, everyone  “dzo”, eat, drink and be merry. Tomorrow will take care of itself, that is, kicking the can down the road for younger population to step up and take up the torch. That torch might not be the same. This time, new issues have emerged: gay, abortion and single mothering. I hope they don’t carry real burning torches on their next drag race. Arson is a kind of upgrade no one needs. If upset, just go ahead and torch yourself.

Me, I will survive. With or without Hotel California.