Tag: Houston

Chinese CEOs are (also) quitting

You know you got it right when others tried to copy your every move.

An Apple-like store in China, a Sony or Microsoft retail store in the same mall (Galleria, Houston).

Steven Jobs, the enchanter, is quitting as Apple has reached its apex, once surpassing Exxon (Google also had this Everest experience).

Maybe some Chinese CEOs like Jack Ma will get a similar idea (in their case, they aren’t going to take a calligraphy class. Instead they want to drive around in gold-plated automobiles).

Something, like style, just can’t be copied.

Design and innovation, like brand, is in you.

Zoom out from history, you will find clusters of creativity, among which Silicon Valley in the late 80’s.

Guy Kawasaki briefly mentioned the secrecy and partitioning at Apple. Planned self-disruption.

In that spirit, I am sure they had a succession plan in place at Apple.

Not as at HP, where the tablets are on sale for $99 (not for Third World charity).

We do live in a different era, when songs are downloaded for 99 cents, and tablet sold for $99.

We will soon get cheaper versions of the I-phone, perhaps via Sprint’s private-label re-sellers, such as Metro PCS. (as of this edit, T-Mobile is rolling out the I Phone 5 for $99 w/out contract).

Perhaps the Chinese CEO’s are calling it quit. After all, their society couldn’t make up their mind: to abandon their naval fleet (ancient history), or to build aircraft carriers (modern technology)? To build luxury car lines, or to buy Indian’s nano autos? To move up the value chain, or to expand overseas?

When emerging nations beat Chinese at its own game (cheap knock-off using cheap labor),

it’s time to quit. Oh, one more thing. At least Steve Jobs advised Standford grads to stay hungry.

Not to flaunt their wealth by driving gold-plated cars around. One high-tech start-up owner in the Valley did just that (crashing his Lamborghini and died after having sold his company just an hour before). Know when to hold and when to fold. It’s Steve’s secret sauce. Try to copy that.

21st-cent Chinese expats

The Economist has a timely expose on “the Tale of two expats”.

http://www.economist.com/node/17797134

It is written from a British perspective.

If it were for the US, an entire section would have to be added in (given the background of Chinese Exclusion Act, the Japanese Internment Camp, and 80’s Yellow Peril).

It’s hard for America to accept the reverse flow of WTO. The last time they came, they came to build the railroad which is now one of Buffet’s investments (the irony doesn’t seem to escape: first the “coolies” came to build the track, then their mainland counterparts built and shipped the goods to be transported over these railways , specifically from the Alameda corridor to the East Coast – then Warren Buffet went to China to solicit wealthy Chinese donors to join his high-profile giver’s club). Many weren’t allowed to bring their wives over (modern expats at least will go home after a short stint). Today’s Chinese expats found natural inroads (Houston, Monrovia CA, and surprisingly, MD) and better acceptance of brand Asia (Sony to Samsung, Honda to Huyndai). For now, they try to move up the value chain, from traditional Chinese Food (except for Tao in Vegas), to China Telecom.

The Economist’s article does not want to speculate about Chinese expats’ re-entry and reverse culture shock. But for sure, after a few years of  (western) acculturation, they will repat with fresh eyes and appreciation. Most will regain their posts, but all will question the assumptions about their society (No garbage strike? Maids are always women? Rote learning in school?)

For now, the US is sitting on an uncomfortable seat. It’s one thing to offshore manufacturing to China, it’s another to see them “inshore” and start making solar panels and VAS services such as infrastructure as a service (IaaS) right here.

If history is any guide, the Chinese expats will keep coming, not to build railway, but to build information superhighway.

They tried their hands at satellite (with centuries of experience in rocket science).

And most of all, their willingness to humbly take things apart and reverse engineer each product (watch out IP lawyers).

They will follow the Japanese tracks. When the Japanese team who built the Sienna and Lexus came to California, they were told to eat and sleep like Americans – drive-through In & Out, motel 6, Las Vegas….

Just to get into the mindset of an average US driver. The results: two sliding doors for soccer moms to drop off their kids.

21 st century Chinese expats will bring home a thing or two. Unlike their Western counterparts, foreign wives won’t be among their trophies. Higher regards for individuality and his/her right to protest will. They will come home and have a second look at their maids who for centuries have been taken for granted as inheritance from an agrarian past. The benefits of industrialization and globalization tend to flow both ways.

 

Viet-Am Third Migration

First wave: 1975, 4 “ports of entry”: Arkansas, California, Florida and Pennsylvania.

Second wave: 1978 -2008 South Westward to California and Texas.

Third wave: joining everyone else during this Recession to the Lone Star State, where 8% unemployment still looks better than 12% and 10% in Florida and California, respectively.

Part of the American Dream is mobility: chasing the tornado to find the rainbow in the end. If it’s out there, we will hunt it down, dead or alive.

So begins our journey, to the moon and into the cave (found one recently near Lao’s border in Central Vietnam – see latest National Geographic).

Like Gordon Gecko in Oliver Stone‘s latest installment, Viet-American, over a bowl of Pho in Hong Kong Mall, Houston, says, “it’s a game, a game between people”.

I have yet seen a set of more competitive people. They push their children and themselves to achieve and acquire: straight A+’s for the kids, Lexus’ for moms and Heineken for dads.

Pajamas culture in collision with Long Johns’. At least, both extol strong work ethic. Size apart, third-wave Viet-Ams (mostly in Houston and Dallas) found natural affiliation with Texan (machismo) in dominion over the land (agrarian bent), the sea (Galveston) and exploration of natural resources (oil).

Herd instinct kicks in. Warmer weather, Sun Belt migration pattern which already started since 1978 (with one hiccup during the oil burst in early 80’s – to preticipate Silicon Valley dot.com burst 20 years later).

No wonder they opened another Vietnam consulate there in Houston to ease Visa processing. It’s time to roll that dice again, Texan style. There was a Rock and Roll band already stationed there. The CBC, after a stint in Hawaii, are content to stay put (instead of “born to be wild”). The aged fan base got two phases of the past all mixed up: ball room dancing (French influence) with R & R (GI’s influence during the War).  Oh Suzie Q! Napalm girl now turned 40.

For the Viet-Am Catholics, this would be their fourth and final migration: 1954, from North to South Vietnam just to join every else in 1975 and later years out to seas, and risk becoming pilgrims at the mercy of pirates while looking for paradise.

Their sons and daughters now have Anglicized names. Some ran for office, others turned accomplished journalists. One of them had a piece on NBC Nightly News . Thanh Truong covered a fire-causing death of hobos’ in New Orleans.

Ending his report in a note of empathy, Truong commented “they came here seeking shelter which turned to be a memorial”. Let’s hope the same comment won’t apply to Third Wave Viet-Am U-Haulers to Texas these days. Just another untold tale from a lingering Recession.

FOB, forced off the boat

The LA Times, August 15th issue, ran a story about a Vietnamese fisherman in New Orleans. He has faced enough trial and tribulation a man can afford in one life time: boat people, legal immigrant life, Katrina, and now Gulf oil disaster.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-0731-viet-fisherman-01.jpg-20100816,0,4824071.photo

Captain Nguyen is no ordinary captain. His boat has seen no Treasure Island.

And he wears no eye patch.  From the accompanied photo, I can tell he is a chain smoker whose worry is to take care of his clan.  God and country kind of guy.

Twice displaced hence not qualified for any kind of formal assistance.

“Keep filing out forms” they told him (from the BP make-shift town hall meetings).

I saw one of those make-shift operations during Katrina. Vietnamese “villagers” in New Orleans fled to Hong Kong mall in Houston to seek temporary shelters.  We took care of our own type of spontaneous relief.

Captain Nguyen could very well be among those seeking help back in 2005.

The irony of the story is he is now back in line, once again (third time in his life).

Once “fresh of the boat”, now “forced off his own boat”.

I live in W Palm Beach.  Owning a boat there is a sign of prestige.

In mister Nguyen’s case, the same act of AmericanGod-given right became a liability.  Might as well have it repo.

Options? Not much. Opportunities? Ask the other millions of English-speaking American. (Mr Nguyen is so independent, has been in his own world, that even if offered a regular job, he certainly doesn’t know where to start).

So, he has time to talk to a reporter. Or, “can’t wait for the grass to grow” so he can keep busy.

In his spare time, I bet he ponders ” an unexamined life is a life not worth living”.

And that the boat itself is just a floating timber. It gets you from point A to point B. A vessel. And that vessel when docked doesn’t need navigation.

It’s the passenger that needs direction and destination.

In Mr Nguyen’s case, he doesn’t want to get off his boat. He was forced off.

I hear CCRs “on the Bayou” fading in, husky and strong like people living down there in tornado-zones. And I know, they will survive somehow.  Just like those songs, if played again, still evoke in you and me that “deja vu” of a time when we thought we were invincible. BP and the boat people (bp).

 

Saigon open-air concert

Local singers here command higher caches seven nights a week by bar hopping. But occasionally, like last night, they showed up at an open-air concert to entertain the mass. Sandwiched between numbers were the Viet-Kieu comedian couple as special guests. They talked about how the US economy barely stayed out of the red. And of course, they picked on middle-aged men and women who opted for cosmetic surgery yet were so stingy that they overdid (cup size for instance) it to save money.

I took it all in.  I noted that years ago, I was among the mass of young people at an outdoor concert as well. Back then, you heard Elton John’s “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” and the Doobie Brothers‘ ‘”We are American Band”. We were all-hair!

The CBC band was one of the highlights then. I heard them again in Houston a few years back. They were still playing at their own club but only on weekends. The once-skinny sisters/singers in the band are now in their late fifties.

Still, they shined in some of the French songs (Tous les garcons de mon age se promene dans la rue). And I am sure, their comedian counterparts are also doing what they must: traveling the distance in search of an audience.

The occasional breeze was quite refreshing, as rare as those few moments audience and singers feel connected.

What struck me was whatever the economic condition and whatever the political climate, people manage to survive, to love and be loved and try to make sense of what’s going on around them.  Here in Saigon, due to the weather, people interpret shared events over a Heineken. And whether the economy is up or down, Heineken is always up, in sales and branding, bottles or cans.

I was just glad I was among the mass. It took some traveling and resettling before I could be counted as one of them. One of us.