Tag: Great Escape

Isolation, interaction and interpretation

One person to himself.

One or more chatting, arguing, agreeing.

Then, a multi-lingual gathering, with or without a headset, with a bilingual person in the middle, trying to transport the weight behind loaded words. In Chinese Zodiac, Jackie Chan tried to smooth out intercultural tension by giving an opposite translation from the intended message.

We also remember the scene from The Great Escape, where after each failed attempt, Steve McQueen, the King of cool, would be put back in isolation (at least fellow inmates still keep his glove and baseball for him).

When you send out a signal, a text or any form of communication without getting any feedback, you are in isolation. It could drive one into despair.

Marconi kept building taller towers near the seas, and sending out ship-to-shore signals in the hope that he could compensate for the curvy horizon.

In Cast Away, Tom Hanks couldn’t deliver his message in the box (fed ex), or the bottle.

Somewhere out there, there is someone waiting to receive your signals.

Blogging has started to fill this empty space.

A guy posted a picture of the Northeast, the gathering storm, or a nice trail.

I share his cold, and his wintry isolation.

Tet in Vietnam is warmer and with a lot more activities.

Tet in Orange County Little Saigon is wet and isolating.

And far away in Vietnamese communities such as Louisiana, Washington DC or Washington State, I suspect it’s even wetter and more isolating.

Yet people send out messages, through Mai branches (equivalence of Christmas pine trees) and red-lucky envelopes (equivalence of red stockings). It says “we are here, the new American with our tradition very much like the early Americans with theirs”.

So there are some interaction between the two cultures, East and West, the Lunar calendar vs the Solar.

Those who live and breathe between two worlds are lucky.

It is as though we barely cleaned up after one celebration before we start another. Once the cat is out of the bag, there is no end to it.

Now it’s no longer the turkey and carvings, it’s the Green bean cake and pickled onion.

The only shared sweet element between the old American native and the Vietnamese is sweet potatoes and boiled corn.

I start getting mouth-watered. So counting down to Tet 2013, 45 years since Tet 68.

The American public was more familiar with that shocking turn of event, and perhaps, decisive turning point of the war. You won’t find army flak jackets on the streets of Saigon as back then. You will find something very similar to the Rose Parade, except it’s stationary on blocked streets. And music is in the air, with ao dai floating and flirting . Take a picture, take a look. Be not isolated. Come out and interact, even if you need help from an interpreter.

Isolation, interaction and interpretation.

Be sure to bring some flowers

That voice which slows toward the end of the song as the chord changes:
“If you’re going to San Francisco…” accompanied by the 60’s signature tambourine, has died. But his one-hit wonder stays, perhaps more famous than the city itself.

It’s a state of mine. A period in history, with in-depth expose by Tom Hayden and Tom Brokaw. A new explanation and “a vibration” (today, we got “going viral” ). People in motion.  Keep moving. Keep evolving. Keep changing at the grass root level.

No one wanted to be “institutionalized” (One flew over the cuckoo’s nest). Individualism championed by groups and movement, ironically. Out of the box, out of the can.
We got Papillon, the Great Escape (both played by Steve McQueen, a San Francisco’s familiar face).  We got the ethos (youth), the prop (flower), the non-verbal greeting (peace symbol), the hair, the costume (Indian fashion) and an anthem.

I first heard the song right before Tet 68. School was closed due to the uprising throughout South Vietnam. With a lot of time in my hand, I practiced the guitar. San Francisco over House of the Rising Sun, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road over both.  The girls (older than I) were with flowers on their hair.

Later, when I had a chance to revisit Vietnam, I looked up an old classmate who had been paralyzed, When I played the guitar and sang for him, who lied motionless in bed,  he requested San Francisco (people in motion).

My friend was one of the “gentle people” I have met in my life. He is into poetry, music by Trinh Con Son (Vietnamese Bob Dylan). And he got paralyzed for rescuing some kids who were standing under a fallen iron gate.

People in motion, people in motion. But my friend has stayed immobile.

And the singer of that signature song has died.

Somehow, I don’t think it would end here. I know the spirit lives on, in San Francisco. People are passionate about the city, its livability, environment and ethos.  Legislation there is fierce and uncompromising when it comes to sustainability. After all, we want to see flowers grow there, along with civil liberty and civil rights.

Even so, be sure to bring (and wear) some flowers when you go there.

The Bay areas get nice weather, gentle people and lots of hills. I even ran a Bay-to-Bridge race once, just to take in the scene. And the Chinese New Year Parade there is the event not to be missed. That era, those street corners and the people once flocked there to search (for a new explanation) and share (laying foundation for today’s internet peering, open source, wikipedia and interoperability) under one huge umbrella: McKenzie’s San Francisco.

Heck, I was just trying to get to Middle School in Vietnam. And I just stopped short of wearing some flowers in my hair. Instead, we settled for those flower stickers, along with the peace symbol, despite living at the height of the war. RIP Scotty.