Tag: Hanoi

Go a bit more native

In 2000, after 25 years of being away, I made a short trip back to Vietnam.

What a culture shock (especially when I landed in Hanoi, where I had only heard about).

Twelve years. A dozen trips later. A little deeper into the alleys and byways.

I think I have touched on different parts of the proverbial Elephant.

Vietnam now has malls that are as sterile as the ones in the States (on weekdays).

The first Starbucks is having its soft-opening.

Raybans, I-phones and Vespas are as common as the remaining rice fields.

French colonial presence is confined in the centres with boulevards and sidewalks (just like in Cote d’Ivoire). But urban sprawl doesn’t stop there.

At the outskirts of Saigon, shops after shops compete for retail customers.

Fresh flowers are shipped in from the highland just in time for Tet celebration.

Coffee shops with Wi-fi serve up tea to go with coffee (East and West blended).

When you see a bunch of well-dressed Asian get off a bus, you know they are APEC tourists.

Or else, backpackers would try to hopelessly blend in with flip-flops and shorts. Lonely Planet. I read that guide on my first trip. Now, I rely on instincts and instructions from my taxi and scooter drivers.

Like any city, Saigon is divided into various social strata The upper crust lives behind iron-gates and tinted Mercedes.

Everyone else, crowded flats and scooters, wearing required helmets and optional surgical masks.

Fortune are made and lost here. One bubble after another. 1997 and 2008.

Not as severe as in Thailand. But the poor have always suffered, below the radar. They will probably continue this trajectory for a while, even with more foreign investments. With brands like Nike, Intel, Starbucks, KFC and Jabil , change is undeniably in your face.

Vietnam has grown out of the “war” box. It has evolved into an emerging market and “Happy” country (behind only Costa Rica). It is worth visiting and studying.

While people are increasingly materialistic, that alone is not what makes them  happy. Perhaps with the right mix, one can be content.

Let’s not forget, people do share the spoil, which makes them materialistic, but not yet individualistic.

To give is more blessed than to receive. But not for long since the mono-chronistic, individualistic and modernistic cultures are invading, and people start putting up fences and walls. Fences make good neighbors, as Frost put it.

But it also slices away those invisible connections people are born into for centuries, before the French, the American, the Russian and the APEC people arrived under the pre-text of global village. In truth, what do we know about life in a village? I certainly don’t. The US arm forces didn’t. Nobody did, except the people who had lived there, and now are living in the city. They too wouldn’t tell (I found “After Sorrow” by Lady Borton quite informing).  While I try to go a bit more native, they went the opposite (urbanized). Somewhere in between, we cross-path like two ships in the night. Oh, don’t forget to bring cash if you want to go a bit more native.

Ma Belle

She hit all the right notes. Struck the chords. Evoked the emotion.

Great speech arouses.

Got the audience on their feet.

They were waiting to hear, not for a hand-out but for a herald.

Together we can.

But the disconnect is when it comes to action: People simply don’t believe either side i.e. the propaganda, the politics and the promises.

But if everyone elects not to vote, the problems won’t go away. Collective denial.

Suicide.

The take-away, and there are many, from Michelle O’s speech was that she is a concerned mom, just like everyone else.

Down to earth, homie and honest.

Just need a chance.

A shot at the dream, and not a shot in the dark.

An opportunity to work, to materialize the dream.

America has been about hardware (military and moral righteousness). Now it needs to be nimble, to focus on its strength: software, education and not entitlement, creativity and not exclusivity, competitiveness but not isolation.

Soft power.

After all, it has learned hard lessons from relying on hardware and hard numbers alone (ironically, there is a piece  about Hubbard Sciences attempt to cure Agent Orange victims in Hanoi . Twice the wrongs won’t make one right).

We keep exporting the worst (sex and violence in films), while suppressing the best (foreign language and art programs).

(Apple’s late CEO – Steve Jobs – said he honestly could not find enough qualified engineers to produce the I-phones in the US).

Go figure.

Back to our Mom-in-Chief.

From the standpoint of a delayed-broadcast viewer, I am still at a loss about our complacency: we can now view broadcast from any laptop, at any time, anywhere.

We live in a time when Presidents can tweet. And we can too. From the People, by the People.

Yet we are out of touch, not because of lacking in ways but in will (courtesy of Lloyd Tran of the Cleantech Institute).

Kids will take charge. They will look back at this generation as the “transitional” one (from go go to so-so times).

Though we will not be remembered as the Greatest Generation, at least, depends on how we act,  as the Survivors Generation. The phasing out of the Old Order (Post Office, hard-back books, Internal Combustion Engines, polluted nation, homeless nation etc…) to the new (4-hour work week, EV nation, Virtual  Leader of the World.) Be all you can be America. Keep the Dream alive and attractive, still. The whole world is watching, not just the speech, but the story, to see how the narrative unfolds. Empires have all gone down this path, with beginning, middle and ending.

Let’s hope we can stretch our plot  a while longer. Keep them guessing. Hint: share the software and start the chain of goodwill effects.

Saigon Central (Ga Saigon)

The track is still there. So is the prominent display of coal locomotive.

Hard to get there though, tuck in the back of winding District 3 streets.

I checked out the logistic and lay-out: upstairs for ticketing, and downstairs with hamburger stores.

My sister loves to take train to Hanoi. She grew up reading the Hunchback of Notre Dame, Dr Zhivago etc…

Northerners like herself left for Southern cities Bien Hoa and Saigon, the train’s last stop.

A few European backpackers were seen walking about, awaiting departure.

But Saigonese are more inclined to taking scooters and buses.

Train, cinema and snail mail are now things of the past.

I used to hear ” Biet Ly” play in my home.

Biet Ly, nho nhung tu day…..oi coi tau nhu xet nat tam hon (Adieu, start missing from here on….the train whistles through the heart leaving deep cuts)_

I want to feel their pain. Evacuation and separation.

Even when you can come back, the place has changed.  So have you.

Saigon Central itself has changed: from running on coal to diesel or mixture.

Old movies love train scenes: the long coat, the longing, then the steps, the suitcases before the reunioin embrace.

Reunion and Au revoir. Embrace moi.

Saigon Central got its shares of tearful goodbyes.

Perhaps from more previous generations than mine.

Today’s airport with added security after 9/11 takes romance out of the equation.

People kiss goodbye nevertheless.  When will I see you again?

Only the longing hearts in synch know.

Here, there or in the air.

Saigon Central is just a destination. Last stop in the line.

But it has served its time, blowing up some steam and dropping off millions.

Perhaps my families as well. I can feel it in my bones. Can’t prove it. Just took in the scene today and knew that it was a dying breed. Like the cinema. Like the snail mail.  A la recherche du temps perdu.

Leaving your heart behind

Home for the holidays. For my students at least.

For me, 37 years ago, I was feeling on edge. One-way with no return.

Yet, it has been possible for me to return and work here in Vietnam. To see students prepared for studying abroad. But their leaving has a promise of a return (two-way).

Many are leaving for home on this long holiday. Home where we all leave 0ur hearts behind.

If I had known there would someday be a return, I wouldn’t have cried so much. I wouldn’t have turned my back on mother’s land and mother’s tongue.

I wouldn’t have wasted my time taking classes on tangent subjects such as Buddhism in America (Summer) or Radio production (required).

My degree in media was hardly put to use. Now Social Media is taking over.

New generation, new ways to connect.

Oh well. I wouldn’t have taken my heart with me on that fateful trip to America aboard the USS ship.

I would have left my heart behind.

I wouldn’t have short-changed my heritage for bad attitude under the euphemism called assertiveness training.

I would have preserved my core values e.g. filial son of Vietnam. Ironically, I can now reclaim this, only after my parents were buried in Virginia and I, am still alive, in Vietnam. Should have been the other way around. They would have preferred it that way. So while in Vietnam, I miss Virginia. And vice versa. It is to show that the heart is least understood and most abused.

How do I know this? Seeing young people rushing home, while I as an expat got no place to go.

That’s why I know. That’s how I feel. Odd ball on the dance floor. You can travel the thousands miles, but can’t do much with the heart with a fix on a certain place, person and period. That’s what makes us human. That we  miss something or someone. To the point of dying for it. Or feel like it in its absence. I guess that’s what I did some three and a half decade ago: leaving my heart behind on that dock no 5 of the Saigon River.

Mua Saigon (rain on tin roof)

Out of hundreds, emerged one. Winner of the throne. Winner of brand simple. Vua Hung Vuong, Vietnam‘s first King. His campaign? Neither communication skill, nor combating skill. But culinary skill. Simple dishes yet full of meaning: square bean cake representing the Earth, round one the Moon.

Harmony without and symmetry within.

Bingo!

The throne is yours. May the gods bless your descendants. Expand and guard the territory now known as Vietnam.

Big and small, wave after wave.

Rain and tears.

Falling on tin roof and tile roof.

Musical- sounding and melodramatic.

Separation and reunion.

Hatred and healing, forgiveness and forgetfulness.

It’s easier to take revenge than to win the enemy over.

Whatever the motive, the results are the rewards.

Mua Saigon mua HaNoi.

Love those wet feet that stand deep in the mud. The agrarian culture.

Back bent over to harvest rice in the bowl.

Um. An di con. Eat so you can grow up and may your future be better than mine. Broken back and broken heart.

Go some place and don’t come back. How can I?

How do you expect me to turn my back to the buffalo in the field or the bean cake on the table?

Brand simple.

Square for Earth and round for Moon.

Incense for the altar and candle for the grave.

Noi chon nhau cat run (birth place and burial-place).

The apple cannot fall far from the tree.

You can take a boy out of Saigon but you can’t take Saigon out of the man.

District 1 to District 10, and any number in between.

Crooks and intelligentsia, fake and real (vang thau lan lon). Who cares!

Keep bragging. It’s your fate to be born here and die here, in whatever style you choose . The lucky ones went overseas. Are they “saved?” Don’t they know, it’s the end of the world, it ended when you said Goodbye.

Mua Saigon Mua Hanoi.

The rain keeps pounding on neighbors’ tin roof. And I feel jolted, by caffeine and endorphin, nicotine and nostalgia. It is so weird that I miss Saigon while already in it. Perhaps I miss what Saigon itself is missing: the longing for things past. Shared poverty and joy. Shared human fate. Bonjour Tristesse. Makes me teary. Makes me want to reach out and pull someone in my arms and say “it’s going to be OK”, you and I, fellow human being. After the rain the sky always clears up. Cry with me and for me, for now, rain and tears. No one will laugh at us. For everyone is doing the same but too ashmed to admit. Mua Saigon. You cannot understand it until you are in way deep.

Saigon Tech Talent

It could have been a waiting scene at Acoustics, Saigon Rock Alley. Except for the instruments and the bands.

They were CEO’, CTO and Venture Capitalist. Not Bar Camp, nor Web Wednesday. It’s Mobile Monday, held on Thursday night.

The cool, the calm and the co-ed. They were all there. Web to Mobile and back to Web (the mother of all).

Bruce Lee clip was shown: “to hell with obstacles, I create my own opportunities.”

So they created, collaborated and commented.

The eagerness and hunger was there, for the next big thing, even in BioTech.

When I was looking that good, I wasn’t into tech. Now another young guy, by the same first name, sat there and told us to “build an ecosystem” etc….

Back then, all I knew was sound system and we were all hair.

Features phones vs smart phones had not even been in the horizon.

Yes, Vietnam is facing an e-payment problem; its e-commerce is consequently slow to take off. But what about those who come to Vietnam from an ecosystem that doesn’t have that problem? Should we make them walk around, pay by cash? How about  Tech Support…..

So the arguments tail-spinned in a different direction.

But the thought flow and thought form were there, punctuated by occassional nods of agreement.

Tech talent got it.

They just need a jump-start, like the eagle that needs a push.

Jump, said Jesus, to the invalid who complained that every time he tried (to get himself healed) , someone else had already jumped into the pool first.

Instead of getting to the water, Bruce Lee’s advice for us  to become water.

“Water in a cup becomes the cup….”

Saigon Tech talent will need to morph and move through window in between mobility and mortality.

It was good to see 160 show up after only a few days of SMS and flash mop.  Unlike at Acoustics, I went home hungry, but not drunk.

I still remember some if not all the challenges, comments and consolation.

It’s good to have attended Mobile Monday, in T-shirt and jeans.

Time, on whose side?

Just like an old-time movie, friends met yesterday to rehash.

We mentioned briefly the passing away of our friend’s brother: nerdy, good old boy and an ATM machine service man and family man. In short, the least likely candidate to die young. Yet, he had been long gone (by now 3 years).

Earth, Wind and Fire used to have a song out called “Time is on your side”.

I don’t think so.

One can conjure up various scenarios for end-of-life, but it will end regardless, without credits roll (perhaps we should get going with our acknowledgement page just in case).

Feature-length movies, by convention, last one hour and a half (same way Twitter limits a tweet to 140 characters).

Except for Costner’s and Cameron’s (Dancing with Wolves and Titanic).

Life happens while we are busy planning it (John Lennon).

It came concurrently and not sequentially:  a brief sunset, a nagging child, a teacher’s stern look.

One can find happiness in confinement (Life is Beautiful) or at the last moment (Mozart’s Requiem).

It’s not over until it is truly over

When I was 4 or 5 years old, I saw neighbors carry out a dead man .

He had lived alone in a house in the alley.

I did not know his name. Only learned later that he had died without any relatives around him.

By all measures (culturally), he died unhappily.

He could have lived twice his age then, but his death was still viewed as an unhappy one. Quality trumps quantity.

Biotech has extended our “feature-length” narrative, from one-hour-and-a-half lifescript to that of Titanic’s and Dancing with Wolves’.

What are we going to do with all those extra hours? Amusing ourselves to death while waiting for death (there hasn’t been a playbook for seniors – Paterno for instance has just passed away at 85 after getting sacked by the BOD at my school).

In Silicon Valley where Steve Jobs started out, the motto was “trust no one above 30”.

Yet, Sculley and other investment banking CEO’s pocketed huge severance despite their poor performance.

Time is on whose side?

Of course not on the side of the poor or the pure of hearts (keep the faith).

Even with director’s cut, a feature-length film still needs to be trimmed down.

As creatures of selective memories, we often edit out and reinvent our past.

Nowhere else can you find serious anticipation of the new and relinquishing of the past than in Vietnam, during Tet.

The Year of the Dragon has finally arrived. It roars, dances and puffs out fire.

We invent myths and matiarials to redefine who we are (he is from a Royal breed, a Lexus owner).

Vietnamese people  are known as descendants of Dragon and Angel. To understand Vietnam, you need to understand its literary life.

Vietnamese  honors duty above death, sacrifice above love. These tales of heroism are the baseline. “Time is on whose side” is an irrelevant question. Happiness defined as personal fulfillment is also out of the question. People here see themselves as in transit, with Earth another station along the way. Home is where ancestors are waiting, provided you had fulfilled your filial obligation and honored them by courageous living. Try to work that in the State of the Union address, and see its impact on American society? (You lied!). On the CEO’s on Wall Street. On the armed men who preyed on US campus.

America needs Vietnam as much as Vietnam needs America, since time is on neither side.

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.

Long’s last laugh

My friend had a square jaw. When he laughed, his features became more pronounced. Already taller than most, he carried himself above the fold.

Not all kids in my school went to the Conservatory. You had to have talent. For that brief year in 7th grade, he joined us at music practice. “Can you play bass?” I did not know better, nor did I know what would become of us years later.

Long went on to play keyboard for the Crazy Dogs (w/wig and all). Power Trio.

In Senior High, when we each had gone our separate way, I went to the zoo for our version of Woodstock, not knowing he was up there on stage.

I would have been proud. Then years later, in California, we got to meet again, I found Long’s head all shaved (cancer). He had a career in music teaching and performing, most recently at the Hyatt lobby in Ho Chi Minh City.

Top of the line. Last Christmas for Long, as I woke up this morning thinking.

Requiem for a dying friend. Mozart’s style.

Last month, we had a long talk over the  phone before I boarded the plane for Saigon.

Like the story of the Last Leaf (to cheer up a dying man, the boy climbed up the opposite wall to paint a leaf on the tree to give the illusion that only when that last leaf fell that our infirmed person is allowed to die), I challenged Long to see who was going to die first.

That got him a huge laugh over the phone (I used reverse psychology).

Suicidal, like a song goes.

Vietnam‘s favorite English song, according to a study, is “Yesterday”.

In fact, in English class, we used that to illustrate Simple Past.

Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away.

Now, kids are into “I am on the Edge of Glory” Gaga, Gaga, Gaga.

Ah Jude, Ah Jude, Ah Jude.

The anthem of youth has always been some refrains such as “Wild Thing, you make my heart sing”, or “We will rock you”.

Something to unite the crowd or to ignite a revolution.

Long taught me one thing: sit back, relax, and let the energy loop from the problem in your hand to your subconscious, then you may find calm in the storm.

Our Western world in crisis can use this very simple advice.

France is now ranked the most pessimistic country as it comes to economic outlooks.

What happened to the innocence of the 60’s, of “Belle de jours”.

Bonjour Tristesse then.

To think of next Christmas when at the mention of my friend, whoever are left in our group will look back in sorrow and sadness.

But from that last conversation with him, I did not feel that way.

He seemed to take it with an air on the G-string.

He even told me “not to eat all that is placed in front of me” when in Vietnam.

I heeded his advice a couple of times when greasy food suddenly appeared in my bowl, at a wedding reception for instance.

I will probably go to the zoo today. The last time I set foot there, Long was on stage without my knowing it. We were rocking, with various bands competing for the same song “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road”.

I hope somewhere in time, I will hear “Goodbye to you my trusted friend, we ‘ve known each other since we were nine or ten”.

I told Long I would be fearless against the wind, when it comes to conspicuous consumption for instance: spending the money one doesn’t have, to buy things one doesn’t need, to impress people one doesn’t like (Black Fridays? Yew! Walmart guard got trampled over in Long Island, or shoppers got pepper-sprayed?).

Even when Long began his quiet withdrawal to a hospice, I know he would pull up a chair, place his fingers on the key board just as I am now, albeit his covers the 7 notes, and mine the Alphabet, then he would inhale and let go.

The loop from fingers to feelings and back. The circle of life, his and ours.

Long’s last Christmas? Yes. But then next year, perhaps yours or mine.

That square jaw of my bass guitarist (sitting down, short sleeves) though seemed so far away, yet as near as Yesterday. I will never forget Long’s last laugh before my long flight East.

P.S. I am very saddened that Long has passed away and will be cremated in New Jersey (I hope his last Tet gave him ample time for closure). R.I.P. Long.

Traffic turns attraction

Crunch time in Ho chi Minh City. A nuisance for many yet a photo-op for tourists.

Millions in ponchos, helmets, dust masks, sunglasses fighting for every inch (centimeter here) to get  home in the pouring rain, while tourists leisurely strolled the colonial side walks in shorts, sandals and Sony cameras trying to record their trips. Who is looking at whom?

These skinny people all wrapped up to protect their skin?

Or these fat people are not afraid of getting sun-burn?

Three years ago, I switched role by playing expat in Hanoi, studying among other expats

from US, UK, Canada, Australia and Ireland. I got a glimpse of how the natives were viewed, perceived and more often than not, judged: English school across from a dog-meat stance, ballroom-dancing in the park and to top it all, a 60’s Berkeley-style stripper family on the streets begging for money to cover health care costs (per recent Yahoo news).

One of our lessons for teachers of English as a foreign language that morning happened to be “soliciting money online from friends to cover shopping debt”.

It struck me that the Western girl in the lesson and the lady out there on the street were doing the same, one with wireless, the other voiceless.

Three years have passed since that morning.

A lot of bank bail outs are now behind us.

Bank buildings got renamed, CEO’s booted.

During the upturn,  people drink and smoke their lives away.

During the downturn, people drink and smoke their lives away even faster.

Always a vicious cycle, a race to the bottom. Vietnam spends 38% of its income on food, Mexico 23%, France 13% while the US a mere 7% (subsidized infrastructure).

I found myself in sudden tears at lunch. This was after I had heard that a friend with cancer would have only six months to live.

What would I do in his shoes?

Dzo (down) the Ken (Heineken)? Visit Yellow Stone Park? Eiffel tower?

My grandmother’s grave? (we’ll meet again soon anyway).

What would you do?

Fighting for another inch in traffic?

Every moment is precious especially towards the end .

“There is a pause in between life and death,” said my friend.

I saw it once with the burning monk. The rising flame was both his baptism by fire and his cremation.

To enter that next ring of eternity, he must and did leave all things behind.

To dance to another drummer’s beat.

After two weeks in country, I have learned to cross the streets without the usual reflex which I found counter-productive. And I definitely resist any impulse to take pictures, because someone else’s stress was not going to be my sensation. Not just Vegas, but also Vietnam, where what happened here, stays here. Traffic is to me, a distraction not attraction.