Tag: Hong Kong

Shared dishes

Suzie Wong. Suzie Q. Lazy Suzan.

All the S’s in stereotypes. All boils down to a round table full of shared dishes, each could easily meet  your dai;ly cholesterol quota.

Half roasted duck, half chicken ginger etc….

Hong Kong cuisine, served in Herndon (VA).

I thought about Nixon’s trip to China, and how many shared dishes he tasted then.

Now, we got Huawei branch in Herndon selling Symantec data storage equipment.

And Haier dorm fridges, well situated inside American campuses.

Right when Hollywood lamented the great days of “Emperor” (Gen MacArthur), the other empire has made inroads here, one dish at a time.

For here or for here?

It’s best to have it “for here” for these sorts of dishes (and fried rice to go).

Kids chowed down the rice, eyes glued to the I-pad’s screen.

(I-pad perhaps made in China also).

There you have it: the consequences of Ping Pong diplomacy (Ford exported – “ping” – cars to China, and Chinese goods “pong” back).

Those who trade tend not to fight (Bastiat’s Principle).

When we got here in the mid-70’s, there hardly was any “chinese” grocery stores. Now, several Lotte supermarkets are found in Loudoun Co.

Hyundai and Kia are sold side by side with Fiat and Audi.

Chinese buffet and American buffet. No ordinary Sunday.

Follow the money. Use all your resources. Cook up some secret sauce. Suzie Q, Suzie Wong, but be not Lazy Suzan.

Hard work and hard-earned money.

It’s all here, even in times of Sequestration.

Yes. There will be challenges in brand acceptance. Who wouldn’t! Ever heard of the horse-meat scandal in the UK and IKEA?

The story of WTO has many chapters, and each with its own sub-plots, full of conflicts. But in the end, let’s say 50 years from now, we hope to see a more humane and harmonious society around that same table, sharing dishes. Well, if India and China don’t go at each other in a contest for supremacy.

New Context New Narrative

When Starbucks opened its first store in Saigon, it must have been a big blast.

Centrally located, visibly in-your-face, upscale e.g. wifi and air-conditioned.

Early stage.

When I had my cup of Starbucks, like this morning, in a Virginian Mall, there was no fanfare, no fuss.

Late stage.

Same store and story (pour your heart into it) but in different contexts.

Geographical expansion, and brand extension (more international e.g. Starbucks on the Allure).

With each new day, we add-on to our narratives new twists and turns with challenges in between.

The story of Starbucks as a brand, or the stories of our lives as biographical history, both evolve and encompass elements outside of our control.

Good to great stories require comparable-in-size conflicts.

But for many of us, ambition and adventure are better lived out by actors on the screen than us on the street.

Still, experiencing the tranquility of an enclosed Mall vs the bustling round-about near Ben Thanh Market, I felt out of context.

My body is here, overcoming jet lag. But my mind still replay the sound and sight of Vietnam (where people obviously don’t need a coat or jacket).

I know the iced latte is more popular there, while in Virginia, in the winter, it’s the opposite.

And the tip? That remains to be seen.

To top it all, my sister ran into an old American GI who had been in Da Nang and Hue 44 years ago.

He couldn’t stop talking about his experience back in Nam.

Had he stayed on and waited long enough there, he wouldn’t have to come back across the world, in new context, for that cup of coffee.

I am sure when he first returned 44 years ago, he would have felt the same. The body is here, adjusting. But the mind is else where.  That’s how we are: facing similar set of challenges from the outside, but the interior reservoir and responses are different. It makes us different and unique. It is that pause, however long, between stimulus and response, that defines who we are e.g. Walmart door opens on Black Friday (stimulus), people push and jump for stampede (response).

Same Starbucks, two different localities. East vs West. “And now, the end is near, final curtain…. ” In our own way, each of us is a Star in this Starbucks universe. They can recreate the franchise anywhere, but there is only one you, in or out of context but only one narrative. Own it. Celebrate it and don’t forget to share it. Your personal brand is un-franchisable. It rocks!

Fools ignore facts

In all my stops in London, Zurich, Cote D’Ivoire, Monrovia, Ghana, Hong Kong, Manila, Mexico, Montreal, I formed good impressions of each locality and people. When I came back to Vietnam in 2000 and on subsequent trips, I did the same even in the worst of scenes e.g. how could that guy without legs drag himself on the street selling lottery tickets!

But this kind of lens Joel Brinkley did not wear on his trip to Vietnam last month (I was still there then). He came back, and wrote that Vietnamese ate anything that moved “birds and domesticated animals are rarities on city streets” and that he saw one lady in Da Nang sell field rats..” this rich in protein diet drove the Vietnamese to attack peaceful neighbors e.g. Cambodian whose diet had less meat.”

Now he made me paranoid! With the same observation, his steady Big-Mac diet could turn out to be a threat to his journalist students at Standford (who could be 100 per cent sure what’s in the “rich in protein” fast foods).

Our Canadian neighbors to the North love eating quails. French, horsemeat. Even in IKEA products.

Regionally, people responded to scarcity and starvation differently. If he had read Guns, Germs and Steel, he would have known that it’s the lack of anti-bodies (against invaders’ germs) in the native population that killed them more than all the aggressors’ guns put together.

I know what Vietnamese drinkers do and look for. They call it “moi”. It could be appetizers such as roasted peanuts or fried tofu, from escargo (French) to eel (Korean). Vietnam explores and incorporates many strands of culture and cuisine (recent article showed wider adoption of wine, but still not the cheese – due to lactose intolerance).

On the day Joel Brinkley published his opinion piece on the Tribune Media site, by a stroke of luck, the editorial oversight was asleep at the wheel. I was saying goodbye to a friend over a beer (E European) and fish. Luckily, the joint did not serve dog food, or else I wouldn’t be writing this piece of cultural defense in good conscience.

I helped circulate Mr Brinkley’s piece to a network of friends, but did not sign the petition as many did (petition for his removal from post). It said he should have practiced what he preached i.e. fack checking before forming an opinion, observe before conclude, and learn the difference between cause and correlation.

People in Korea, China, Vietnam country side did eat field rats in hard times. Perhaps they want to go back in times (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) bonding over beers (therapeutic more than ritualistic). I once shared a meal with Filipinos over the weekend. We ate without utensils, the native way. It’s their “letting the hair down” time, away from the monotonous rhythm of the Western style cafeteria. And I was glad to be included. Felt like Margaret-Mead then.

I would not fall into a trap to argue that, yes, I saw rats and heard birds in the city while I was there. It would not be cool if I am pressed about where (in the alley, because I took a short cut to shield myself from the scorching sun).

But for someone who wrote a scholarly piece on Cambodia, then to make a 10-day stop in Vietnam, all the while living in a group-think bubble (expat cocoon riddled with colonial jargons) just to write-up a piece that stirred up controversy and resentment, was uncalled for. I remember my Communication professors at Penn State. They earned their stripes and their respects. Joel has to earn the prizes he had already received. In the beginning, was the Word. Noble and enabling word, that builds up not tears down. He probably is tasting a spoon full of his own medicine these days, and wishing he did not make those comments. Teachable moments for both prof and students. Just as we thought we could put Vietnam to rest. BTW, a friend in Ghana who took me to his home offered me foods full of tomatoes and hot chillies. And their dark skin was quite shiny and healthy. I don’t think Ghanaian attack any of their neighbors either. Most wars I read about involved McDonald eaters. Or hit and run  Or drive-by shooting. Want me to open the box? P.S. In Talk Vietnam, there is a parody in which the author took a tour in the US and couldn’t find any livestock here either. All eaten!

Fool’s errand?

On NYT‘s Op-Ed‘s Pages, I found a piece “Asians are too smart for their own good”.

The author brought up a historical parallel between Jews’s admission at Ivy League schools back then, and Asian‘s now.

She neglected another important parallel: Japanese-American got put in internment camps not too long ago. With BRIC‘s second generation, growing up in America, demographic make up will once again be more diverse.

By 2050, Asia will have stepped up to claim its top spot. By then, demand will outweigh supply of needed talent.

White Ivy League students are more than welcome to prepare themselves for the day, same way I was sent to French school, then to EFL schools, then to State School, then to Private schools etc…. Gotta to pay the price of admission.

Not just the tuition.

Besides, with global communication and global commerce, Ivy League Institutions themselves are facing crisis. High-valued professors from these places are moon-lighting and contracted out to the highest bidders in Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, China and India anyway.

I am not sure who has done more learning: professors or students in these regions.

America is still a magnet and market for the likes of Google’s founders, for now.

But the jury is still out for the next big thing. Cisco , Google and GE are agressive in talent acquisition.

A degree from an Ivy League school might get you into the door, but does not ensure your staying there, much less rising.

I am not naive about the climb from within, with glass ceiling and all.

But give society and corporations some time.  First women, then minority. (at this edit, Lean In has just come out – giving modern women something to discuss).

There are no rush to judgment. I understand the timeliness of this issue (admission to college. It’s called Senior panic). But one needs to take a long view back (to WW II at the very least) and forward (2050).

It’s a wonderful and widely connected world. There is no need to play the victim card. Just the value card. After all, the genes and genius cannot be hidden for long. We got Youtube, Twitter and Linkedin. If those platforms are not enough, invent your own “religion”. There is no need to be a follower. Asian families are better at making followers than leaders out of their children.

The weakness lies in its strength: Tiger Mom reproduces Tiger mindset. On that note, Jewish mothers can agree with Asian mothers: “They” are after us. So unfair! Personally, I don’t think it will ever be a fool’s errand for anyone (Asian are a subset) to be overly educated and enlightened. It’s our mission in life.

Expired Empires

The Distributed Model has enabled the Rise of the Rest.

Capital, talent and market flow where the chips may fall. Apple courting China, China Africa, Japan Rest of Asia etc…

Everyone is out on the dancing floor.

Dance anyone?

The combinations are endless. Permutation and exponential.

Hard and soft powers, hard and soft currencies.

Exert that influence. Assert that strength. Differentiate.

Nations, like people, will have their 15-minutes of fame.

Advertisement section (like ones in the Economist) paints beautiful, picturesque locations, from Japan to Jamaica.

In reality, no one wants to remember Fukushima and Sandy.

Amnesia and amnesty.

Shelters from the storm.

America got its own set of problems e.g. FOR LEASE and FORECLOSURE.

There was a sign in Los Angeles that says it all. It was NOW HIRING, but the W has been whited out to be read: NO_  HIRING.

I got all sorts of CV’s (binders full of men). I feel the weak pulse of a declining empire.

We have squandered the opportunities this side of the Cold War (the US fared much better on this side of World Wars). Peace time problems e.g. Petro State (Dutch disease) to Penn State (low morale).

Meanwhile, the C in BRIC keeps growing stronger by the day. Scrapped metal scavenging, refined and remade into finished products, which got shipped back. In the process, this turns America into a Third-World nation by industrial standard.

China on the hunt for raw material, for petro, for talent, for know-how, for creativity. It has Soviet, US and Japan lessons to learn from. And it has Hong Kong and Taiwan as matchmakers. When a Taiwanese University came to Alhambra, CA to recruit students, we know the Rest is Rising.

And this foreshadows an expired Empire. Wake up Ivy League. Start at Little League. Math, Science, and English. 10,000 hours.

Fateful beach

When I heard that the beach (Vung Tau) was overcrowded during the long Tet holidays, I tried to imagine the sand, the surf and the separation (forced) I endured years ago.

We drove through neighborhood barbed wires and violated curfew, the day before Saigon fell, to spot escape routes.

I tricked my family into stopping along the way: my friend’s house (on pretext that we needed extra supply of fuel) to bid farewell. I couldn’t spell out why we had to leave much less where we were heading, except that there would be boats waiting further down the Delta, we hoped.

Earlier in the day, we did try the airport and US embassy to no avail (an uncle with proper visa got hauled over the barbed wires by the Marines to eventually board precious Frequent Wind‘s helicopter).

(see Last Men Out for eye-witness blow-by-blow accounts ).

Out of the corner of our eyes, we spotted a convoy of unmarked buses (Frequent Wind plan B contractors). Our petit Simcar immediately tailed the convoy whose eventual stop was the No 5 dock, just a few kilometers from today’s Thu Thiem Tunnel. Before we knew it, we had junked the car with extra fuel in it to climb over the sandbagged side of a barge. That barge got towed as soon as it was filled with clueless people like ourselves.

That river always required skilled navigators, one of whom was my friend’s dad. They had it all at their disposal to flee Vietnam had they chosen to. Instead, we were the ones who bid good-bye after taking his can of gasoline.

In the middle of the night, the tow-head left us with mere sandbags to fend for ourselves.

At dawn, it returned to continue on to International waters, where the 7th fleet was spreading out in formation over the curved horizon, out of firing range.

Neighbor boats got hit, then exploded,  Hollywood 3-D style.  That boat carried Chu Tu, one of our best social writers at that time. Choppers covered the sky like arrows in Gates of Fire (we fled in the shade then).

That morning rain was our supply of water, and Vung Tau, to this day, still was from my point of view, a D-day reversal. “Ain’t no sunshine” then.

Only rain and tears. Currency wiped out, flags down, guns dropped and choppers abandoned.

In the back of the war ship that we eventually boarded, a man sat tossing worthless money into the seven seas, as if performing a burial rite (he would have preferred rice over money). I couldn’t remember a word during the 4-day ordeal, except for a neighbor, in flight suit, asking me for a change of civilian clothes to help him blend in.

Premier Ky perhaps was on that same ship, whose milk supplies sustained many hungry children.

When we finally reached shores, a priest and a nun had already stood there to hand out sandwiches and coca colas.

My brother to this day still smells the taste of that ham sandwich (perhaps cost up to ten bucks, Pentagon‘s pricing), which sure tasted like honey in the desert.

He was a pharmacist but got drafted during the war to train military x-ray technicians.

Like a movie’s trailer, he now retires but has never returned to visit Vietnam or Vung Tau.

Unlike his youngest brother, me, who couldn’t wait to live out my life script (my last Tet in Saigon was 36 years ago hence a lot to catch up) except for Vung Tau.

I felt reluctant to go back where I had sat down and wept (by the River of Babylon…..) on my first trip back.

Today’s Vung Tau and Can Gio River are still opened to containers and cargo ships. Perhaps the winding topography still creates strong demand for skilled navigators, successors of my friend’s dad. But for me, one blind trip out was more than enough.

That trip stripped me not of weaponry (as some people were  so required to set foot on a US war ships), but of everything that constituted me: my home, relatives, neighbors and friends.

I was on the losing side, yet at Penn State a few months later, I joined in to chant “push them back, way back” at home games.

Friends in fellowship groups weren’t sure how to “place” me. “And there he was this young boy, ” who could at one moment “strumming my pain with his fingers”, then at another, struggled with his required readings.

For years since, from Palm Spring to Palm Beach, I have tried to live down that painful past. “Push them back, push them back, way back”. ” And he looked right through me as if I wasn’t there”.

Those who had never left everything for the unknown would never understand.

So I thought I could be of  help. There I was, organizing makeshift concert in an over-crowded refugee camp in Hong Kong, to help relieve the stress I had come to know too well.  “I walk alone in the middle of the sunset”. I hoped people there realize that out in the open seas, there were those with open hearts. For we all shared and surfed away from that fateful beach for unknown shores.

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.

Let them visit

In “Imagined in America“, Friedman reminded us that 30 years ago, Hong Kong used to be a manufacturing colony. Today its economy consists of 97-percent service, with a booming tourism industry (mostly visited by Mainland Chinese).

The second point was, America too can become a tourist Mecca that lures 300 million cash-hording middle-class Chinese. Already we saw the influx of Chinese students at America’s top Universities, such as Cornell and Columbia.

Why not allowing their parents to visit Casinos after visiting the Campuses (instead of having Wynn  move his headquarter to Macau).

I can see an America in the year of 2020: Chinese tourists arriving ten times as many as their Japanese counterparts back in the 80’s, renting Winnebago by the thousands for their long treks across this land. America, their showroom.

They will look and try on garment that were made in their homeland, and nap in IKEA showrooms (rest areas will have lazy-susan tables and vending machines will serve tea).

They will gamble and eat Chinese Food on nation’s highways.

They will be interpreted by their Ivy-League graduated sons and daughters who can’t wait to inter-marry “white” folks.

The “spy next door”, who is now spokesperson for V-8 juice, will soon move in.

Atlantic City will see another revival as hasn’t seen in decades.

Florida will prosper, not because of its retirees base, but because of its casinos of the seas.

These tourists from China will visit the Oakland bridge, touting among themselves that it was one of the first US construction sites China has bid on and delivered (along with MLK memorial site) on time. Propaganda can then spin that the transcontinental railroad couldn’t have happened had it not for the ingenuity and involuntary contribution of their ancestors.

I wouldn’t be surprised that we find not one, but two national chains for Chinese food (Watch out Panda Express).

And by 2050, when I am long gone, America will have its first Chinese American presidential hopeful. If we can now have not one, but two Mormons on the same debate, both trying to take down the God Father’s Pizza CEO, my prediction should not be that far-fetched (999, is that the price of a pizza? uttered former US Ambassador to China).

Instead of following the money trail to the East, let them come West.

The grass is greener over here anyway (developers have imported New Port Beach homes in China).

However, the only disappointment will be their final stop in Hollywood, America’s dream factory. There, they will only find illegals selling maps to the Stars’ Homes, and the Hollywood Boulevard Sidewalk with Tom Cruise’s palm imprints in front of the Grauman’s Chinese Theatre.

One of the actor’s famous line was “show me the money”. After a stop in Vegas, and with Hollywood as their last stop before boarding the flight home, our tourists could only laugh at their American experience: homeless people, Made-in-China T-shirts and Taco Bell.

What used to be a dream, hardly turns out as thought. Welcome to California, now go home. Do not “occupy” more space. From the vantage point of those leaving on Pacific-bound flights, Lady Liberty seems to turn her back without saying “come and see us again”. I heard their fellow countrymen didn’t get better treatment in Cafe Paris anyway. Waiters Francais need some getting used to, as does the Japanese economy, world’s  number 2 for a while until now.

colonize, globalize and localize

In that order. Just like Guns, Germs and Steel.

Natural, then with pesticides and back to organic.

First, Mattel outsourced toy manufacturing to Hong Kong (ironically, G.I. Joe , the real one, first saw the larger horizon including the Far East due to the two World Wars) , then every company considers “if it can be outsourced, it must”. In military term, it’s called “mission creep”.

In manufacturing, plant closing. In fiscal term, tax evasion.

No wonder, there are movements which call for localizing (an understandable reaction to the sweeping force of McDonalization and Disneylandization). This makes freight companies quite unhappy.

There is nothing wrong with economy of scale, or homogenization of taste and style.

It lowers the costs of manufacturing (but in my case, it is time-consuming to go for alteration) and uplifts living standards (rising expectations) in Asia, the world factory. Imagine how costly it would be to replace all those vacuum-tube monitors and TV’s had they been manufactured by Westing House, RCA or Zenith in America. We wouldn’t be seeing our  Ipad 2.

Still, it doesn’t make sense to ship tuna from Maine to Manila or rare animal delicacies from Main Land to Main Street Chinese restaurants.

We must apply the circuit breaker for a moment to ask that Reaganesque question: Are we better off than four years ago.

In pursuing that cheapest of price, aren’t we bought in to the relentless pursuit of logistic nirvana.

Neil Postman wasn’t a Luddite, but he raised a good question: through a vast array of technology (such as the amount of available TV channels), we must ask ” what problem was it that this technology is trying to solve.”

I like Youtube, Facebook and Twitter. They happen to be empowering technologies, pull and not push.

From the information flow stand point, they are quite disruptive (for the first time, any one can upload this and that, instead of just “downloading”. See my other blog on South-South information flow).

Tools to share our lives, our stuff and our ideals.

It is happening and will be on grander scale. No wonder youth in the Mid East are restless.

Like Rob Reiner‘s mother in When Harry Met Sally, they want “to have what she is having”.

Freedom and self-governance is frightening. But it’s what we are wired for. Just give us the tool, we’ll show it to you. BTW, Facebook fans are joining  and saying, “we are born this way” or “ah ha ah ha, that’s the way the way I like it”.
Why would you try to make us consumers, debtors, etc…. just because of your lack of imagination and innovation. One thing we won’t miss is containerization once localization takes hold.

Until then, we got FourSquares and Groupon to get us a deal (for goods that shipped in from China, via you know what – that’s right. Container).

 

Easily swayed

According to social scientists, any two people are only separated by 6 to 7 degrees of connection. Last week I put it to test.

Surely enough, the quake victims in Japan somehow are separated from me by only three degrees. My niece’s friend had relatives who fled Japan and came to stay with them. Two short introductions and a short ride stand between us.

We are living on a planet of 7 billion people, 2 of which are online.

The cumulative brain powers are enormous. For the first time, it seems as if a lot of things are now made possible, from wikipedia to wikileaks.

Thirty years ago, I gave up my summer in between school years to do relief work. The only resources at my disposal was an address book of friends from college and a roll of stamps. I copied fund-raising letters, sent out to my “network” and waited for donation. Quite a risky adventure, both on the funding side and visa turn-around time. But we pulled it off. The summer turned out to be a highlight of my life.

If we had the online resources as currently available, we would probably have uploaded a Youtube clip of boat people cramped and confined in Hong Kong prison facilities, women who were raped and turned cannibalistic to survive….

You know the drill. My contention is, we are now resource-rich, but are we becoming more compassionate ? In other words, does the good-will increase proportionately with the tools to express it? Or precisely because of information-overload that led to compassion fatigue?

To sell something people need and want is easy. Costs vs benefits results in change (buy).

To sell an idea that people can become their better selves requires enchantment.

People died in mass protests (herd instinct) or annual Run-of-the-Bulls (even cheese rolling downhills). But to spare a change for the guy holding the homeless sign takes a lot more. He will need to sing and dance. He will have to put on an act of desperation before the lights turn green.

We act differently in public vs in private.

When survival instinct kicks in, self-preservation is above all else.

Multiply that 7 billion times. Then we get the picture of state of the world.

How does the quake in Japan affect our lives: a lot. Someone relates to someone who knows my relatives is suffering. He/she is doubling up in a house near ours.

Then the Toyota dealers in town won’t get foreign parts etc… Go Hyundai, this is your chance in this no-hire-no-fire economy. Sometimes people change because they are forced to, not because they would like to. But change is as sure as the sun that rises tomorrow. You don’t see it because you are not 30,000 feet above ground. Those who are at the executive level know to expect change, prepare contingencies for it, and profit from it. Same crisis, but it is danger to some and opportunity to others. We will learn to make use of the Web from sharing cute kitten clips to vendor’s immolation clip. Welcome to the age of participation/consumption. It’s never been more exciting and dynamic than time present, when both push and pull technologies are vying for our attention, swinging and swaying our votes and demanding our devotion. Hold on to your wallet while keeping an open mind, to quote Buffett.