Tag: Jack Bauer

What’s eating the man up inside

Instead of more career choices, he now faces 20 choices of jeans.

People are debating about a gender-free society (painting nail polish on his son’s toes).

When he finally got his tie collection under control, they went “business casual” on him (Steve Ballmer couldn’t cope with this).

Even though it says “Facebook”, most people just post a long-shot photo of themselves.

The financial crisis is now a film treatment i.e. we can now objectify the pain with some distance in between since. Money crisis, job crisis, health crisis, environmental crisis, security crisis and even marital crisis.

That’s what’s eating the man up inside.

Still he rises to the occasion. He is after all our 21st-century man. Armed with I-pod and I-pad, he can be a Spartan against the invading army of machines (see my other blog on “machine and me”).

He can text, chew gum and walk at the same time.

He shows up at the gym at first light.

Talks to no one in particular (men are not chatty, although they don’t mind leaving you a voice mail).

He is the opposite of Barbara Streisand (in a Star is Born). He wants to conquer, but frustrated because the Colosseum is now packed with competition: foreigners inshore and BRICS that chip away business, machines with intelligent softwares that cut down work load, material sciences that lessen the heavy lifting, women in NFL, ESPN, NASCAR, Air Force commanding (Libya), and worst of, advances in bio-med which prolong life (he can’t die, just get eaten up inside).

So, the rise of the rest (no offense, but I can’t help noticing Indian faces on TV, from PBS to CNN). There are discussions about “outsourcing blog”, a logical extension of what is digitized can be outsourced.

Obama, during his state visit to Britain, even commented on the rise of China and India. Something to do with “America leadership is now” (instead of passe).

Luckily, there is a phenomenon called “middle-income trap”, which kept countries like Malaysia and Thailand at bay, for a while.

What’s eating up the man inside? He hit the ceiling. Too soon and too fast (at least previous generation of boomers got a good run, starting from 1950 until now). He couldn’t cope with role reversal ( Palin’s husband Todd holding the baby at press conference to denounce rumors of cheating “look, he has been home watching the kids all along).

So our man goes target-shooting. At least, it gives him something/someone to focus on.

The rest, the rise of the rest, are hard to pin down.

He can’t quite put his finger on it. The phenomenon is once called Future Shock is here now.

It’s like Bush hearing the news on 9/11 morning, in a state of shock and stillness in that Elementary classroom (incidentally, he got another shock when a recent ball player followed an out-of-bound ball to get within inches).

The doctor can’t tell what’s eating the man up inside. He wants more tests done.

He wants to put on the white glove. More trips to the pharmacy. More waiting. Agitating. That’s what eating the man up inside. He is inherently impatient. The business of “the beginning of the end” sidelines him (CIA officers tend to die within their first year of retirement).

Like America, our man wants action, heroism, around the clock (24-hours like Jack Bauer).

Unfortunately, the rules have changed. It’s time for drones not drills, nation building not “terminating”. He can’t “be back”. He has to father one more. He can’t even be put and stay in jail. The Supreme Court says “No”, you can’t double up prisoners. Triple up on the outside is their business. But not inside.

So the unwanted prisoners in California got off early and easy (whoops, per computer errors). All dressed up, and no place to go.

21-century man scratches his head. He doesn’t understand the rationale behind 20 choices of jeans, while there are only a few career choices (being a nurse or a teacher has traditionally fallen under the domains of female and gay, while construction of new home or soldiering are both winding down). Maybe he should start painting his toe nails. And accept the fact that we are moving toward a gender-free society. Eat, pray and love. Text, chew gum and walk. 21st-century walking man walks on by.

Austin

Tech campus turned Mall (still keeps the “DOMAIN” name).

Borders out of business, but Apple store is thriving.

Austin, ranked as most tolerant city in America, saw Chinese Graduate students hang out leisurely on a Sunday afternoon, complete with rocking chairs, very well be made in China.

Welcome to America. Welcome to Starbucks. What’s your name buddy? My name is Buddy.

Howdy Buddy. Wait over that line for your gourmet latte.

It’s the one spot in the middle of Texas where even a native feels out-of-place.

It could have been a page right out of the San Jose playbook.

Silicon Valley meets Silicon Hills. If only they can pull off a Chinese New Year Parade as does annually in San Francisco.

Fifteen years ago, there was little of the town as far as Asian groceries and shops.

Now there exists a large, newly built compound, unmistakably Asian with names like  Pho Saigon, Saigon Baguette, Chinese barbeque. There even is a Chinese bank at the corner, as well as Chinese church at the T section of Braker and Dessau.

The Recession made strange bed fellows, at times, literally (interracial couples seen walking down the street, forcing senior citizens to pause and be puzzled: are we at war with China? The last times Asian girls seen walking with white guys, was during war-time that brought them together were during the Korean and Vietnam Wars.).

So, there it is, a new Domain, complete and transformed from a once overhyped dot.com era.

Yes, Austin is thriving and aggressive to win over California businesses and elsewhere. UT students are benefited from this microcosm of the larger world.

Gaming and software companies are source-coding every minute of the day and night. It’s fitting that 24-hr gyms pick this city to expand.

One thing that was left out in The Rise of the Creative Class. Austin, although ranked as most tolerant city in America, is also home to most allergies in America. I knew it’s too good to be true from the Chamber of Commerce web page. It is now a certified truth that one needs to walk the ground as well as see things from afar. GPS alone can’t quite do the job.  Onward, adapt (euphemism for step back), then onward again.

Starbucks knows it best. Until the McDonald guy catches on. He asked for my name (first time in 36 years). I gave it to him too. My name is Buddy.

Joy of the season

If you haven’t discovered it by now, then let me remind you that children are the joy of the season.  Each day is a gift, and it is gift-wrapped with giggles and songs. I felt rejuvenated because of teenage tunes that I would otherwise have not known (Firework, Teen- age dream, The only one in the world).

The adult world forces us to take the “play” aspect out of the equation. But “play” is the main ingredient for innovation. It engages us, to spend time instead of “doing” time. Successful people, when interviewed about their secret sauce, always recommend us to follow our passion, then money will come.

Tell that to the Venture Capitalist near you (especially in this post-Recession era).

I admire film makers. These are people who won’t settle for second best. “Just one more take for my mom”.

They kept at it, until it’s perfect.

During post-editing, with the right sound track and cut-aways, they can evoke emotions, and yes, get us teary.

We did, at the closing scene of 24 hour, where Jack Bauer reminded Cloe when they first met (and what a journey they had taken together at CTU).

It’s not the journey, it’s the joy of travel.

If you don’t feel mad then you probably won’t feel happy. They are two sides of the same coin.

Even when our kids drive us crazy sometimes, I’d rather hear my kids singing along to the radio than any other sound on Earth. You bet I did not have to travel far to Concert Hall to feel moved. It’s here at home.

It’s here in my heart. It’s here in me, or to be exact, the extension of myself.

Each day is a gift. Sing it, share it and savor it. When you like something, time goes by fast. I know full well, I will only hear “teenage dream” long enough before another hit  comes along. But it’s OK, every song will have to make space for the one behind it. So is our life, enriched but then replaced by young ones’.

On being a foreigner

Train, plane or automobile, we all try to get somewhere, point A to point B.

Far enough to be looked at as “foreigner”.

The Economist has a piece on this subject to highlight the decade of globalization.

http://www.economist.com/world/international/displayStory.cfm?story_id=15108690&source=hptextfeature

I was surprised to find Vietnam, especially in HCMC and Hanoi, to be very cosmopolitan i.e. a large body of expats and international tourists. Meanwhile, young Vietnamese themselves travel overseas for educational and occupational opportunities.

Recent news showed violent incidents among the Vietnamese expat workers in Eastern Europe and Vietnamese students in Taiwan.

This is a withdrawal syndrome of a minority group (cocoon) when facing the “threat” of a larger majority, the Others.

And while regrouping, they turn onto each other, love or hate. It happened in Paris with the Russian immigrants, Little Italy in the US etc..

In the 1920’s, Americans found Paris, its cuisine and culture (as Parisians perhaps now discovering Big Mac and small Mickey) fascinating. Hemingway and Maugham all had memorable recollection on this era.

Something about greeting the New Year in a foreign land, far away from home.

The balloons, the balls and booze are the same, yet in the company of strangers, one experiences “lonely crowd” syndrome.

And everybody is aware that while it is New Year there, it’s not yet New Year else where (a testimony to our globalized world) e.g. Russian New Year lands on the 13th, Chinese a month later etc….

The Greek have two different words to express this sense of time: kairos and chronos.

Kairos is the fullness of time, while chronos is just the ticking of time (like 60 minutes on CBS, or 24 hours with Jack Bauer). In Kairos, one can greet the New Year with a sense of awe and anxiety e.g. a decade ago with the Y2K scare. Kairos brings about convergence of chances and choices. Cultivation and harvest time.

Other time zones will have to endure the chonos, to take their turn at counting down. Ten, nine, ….

Everybody sings Abba’s “Happy New Year“. Cheap champagne was passed around. Balloons were popped. Kessler described this experience of Russian celebrating their expat New Year in lowly quarter of Paris (The Night of the Emperors).

It is only to show that we have no control over the passing of time, and the changing of places.

More and more cities are being transformed to accommodate population growth. And real estate are in demand, driving the poor to the outer edges. Dark side of change.

The hard part is to get pass that denial: the more things stay the same, the more they have to change.

Thatcher was found to be utterly against the influx of Boat People into former British Hong Kong.

And look at where things are now . The economy in Asia is resilient, just as its people.

In this 21st century, the real foreigness perhaps lies within ourselves: that ardent refusal to admit that the world had moved on, and that it will be easier to be Margaret Mead than Margaret Thatcher. Not with the broadband penetration, not with the mobility of smart phones, and not with supersonic boom in E commerce and global commerce. If Made-In-China is no longer foreign, then nothing is foreign today. Just a hop on the plane, you will be from point A getting to point B.

Global shuttle and reshuffling of the card deck. An illness or blessing? All in the eyes of the beholder. But no longer a foreigner in 20th-century sense. Not with I-pod, I-phone and I-nternet.