Tag: Imelda Marcos

Unintended influence

We are influenced most by our 2nd or 3rd degree connections.

I grew up hearing stories of the past (almost 2 million people died in the 1945 famine and how my great Aunt took my mom and siblings in since she had a tea plantation etc… my Anne Frank version). Consequently, I strongly believe in Paying Forward (I wouldn’t have been born later in the South if it hadn’t been for  great Aunt Dieu, my vertical 2nd connection).

Taking that a notch further, we benefit greatly from the courage of the Wright brothers (who braced themselves for the Beta-test of those early airplanes) to the soon ubiquitous RFID technology (which reduces the costs of inventory and supply).

ARPANET gave us access to a vast amount of data on the Web. Storify and Spotify help us sort them .

I saw an ad yesterday which spanned from horse carriage, to internal combustion engine, to today’s hybrid Infinity.

Even failed technologies contributed to our collective repertoire. Or failed states and statesmen (women).

I read about the passing of Madame Nhu (Vietnam’s Imelda Marcos, minus the shoes collection).

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/27/world/asia/27nhu.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

She was on a PR/shopping trip on Rodeo Drive when her brother-in-law’s regime collapsed, rendering her stateless.

Her unintended influence was more in modernizing fashion than in abortion ban.

The Ao Dai (long dress) during her time came without the collar (her casual-Friday version). She must have taken a page book from Paris Match and Life  (Audrey Hepburn). This week, we won’t go anywhere without seeing those Spring dresses and hats, coming to us from London.

Ironically, as France banned the veil and head covers, Britain welcomes back the hats (might you the security camera angle. These society ladies don’t do ATM or violate stop lights.)

Back to our 2nd and 3rd degree influence.  What key words will land searchers on our page? Will future anthropologists – or Third Generation Viet-American, conduct digital forensics, the way they do in China upon discovering a 2,000 year-old Mummy, to find our “upload” an unintended influence?

I only know that small act of kindness to relatives and people in need, as happened once in my extended families, enabled our migration to south Vietnam (instead of being counted among the 2 million deaths). For my turn at unintended influence, I promise not to say things like “the monks are welcome to barbecue themselves” ( 1963 monk self-immolation to protest religious persecution).

It’s hard to earn a good byline these days. At least in one case, the NY congressman whose half-naked pic went viral, resigned immediately. Madame Nhu’s unintended influence, however, was to encourage Vietnamese women to “stick their necks out” during war-time. The same thing happened to American women during the two World Wars: replacing the men who left the factory for the front.

 

Burning flesh, jasmine scent

I used to live just a few blocks from where it happened on that fateful day in 1963.

As an active kid, I joined the throng to witness history in the making: monk’s self-immolation as a peaceful act of protest against the Diem’s dictatorship.

The city had been permeated with the smell of tear gas on days leading up to this event http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2043123,00.html

We rubbed lime to soothe our eyes’ sore.

When I read about Tunisians tweet and text to recommend Coke for eye relief, it brought back memories .

The jasmine revolution got its start from those similar flames. Flames of conscience objectors who preferred death to drift and dignity to dumb-down.

We have watched with incredulity how a Zippo flip from Tunisia could inflame the streets of Cairo.

And how quickly the scent of jasmine spread in carosene region .

People pray and people pay the price (thanks to the doctors who bandaged the wounded) to bring down Pharaoh. Instead of casting votes, they cast stones. As I can recall, it was serene and surreal at the intersection of Le Van Duyet and Phan Dinh Phung street . Young monks chanted quietly to send their master to Nirvana. There were a few hundred present at the event (including an award-winning NYT war correspondent).

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Peaceful and principled.

Every body knew what it was all about: the Diem’s family ruled the country: big brother was president, younger brother – head of internal security, and his wife, unelected spoke person for the regime. Madame Nhu was quoted in a press conference (perhaps on her shopping trip abroad, though not for as many shoes as counterpart  Imelda Marcos) “they are welcome to barbecue themselves ….”

History recorded that her husband and brother-in-law, dictators of former Vietnam, were assassinated on their way to the Chinese District. Their deaths weren’t honored and their departures not as peaceful as the monk’s. “What good for a man to gain the world and lose his own soul”.

If you were to witness that sudden burst of flame, and the resolute stillness of the monk, you, like I, would never forget. It will be the same years from now about that jasmine scent that floats from Tunisia to Egypt and onto Libya.

Use lime, it’s better than Coke.