Tag: Jane Fonda

Caught in the thick of rain

It’s not Les Parapluis de Cherbourg , or Catherine DeNeuve with her trench coat.

Just anything over the head to stay, well, less wet.

We got out of the pool, just to be wet all over again.

Tropical summer.

Impeding traffic and time planned.

Here in Vietnam, it takes a lot just to stay cool and dry.

Survivalist and minimalist.

Yet, magician is coming in town for three days of show.

Guy Kawasaki will also be here, to tell his Standford basket ball story.

And the controversial Bob Dylan was also here a while ago.

Jane Fonda started it all (by visiting Hanoi), then Bob Hope and Raquel Welch in the South.

From then, it’s like, you got to make a stop at the once-a-battle-field, to gain street cred.

Bill Gates, Mark Zuckeberg, Robert De Niro, Brad and Angela have all made this stop.

Mind you. It’s not a major airline hub.

But famous people want it incognito (The Pitts visited Con Dao Island, once a French prison).

I am sure these people got hit by the heat, the dust and the rain.

Call it “Roughing it in Vietnam”.

Their own Matterhorn.

To feel the Sorrow of War.

The  sadness of summer.

The frustration of dream unfulfilled.

What made people leave the comfort of their own homes, to come to a God-forsaken place.

Traffic is everywhere, especially at the French Colonial Roundabout.

You can’t even stand it, if it’s in Paris.

Yet people endure and emerge.

Having tried it hard to play catch up since 1985 and after, the country has been on the path of growth.

The trajectory went nicely for about twenty odd years, until recently.

Then, the rest is what is taken place now.

With its own “valley of death”.

Too much growth heats up inflation.

Too slow, the economy might crash.

It takes a village, albeit without the young people who had already migrated to urban centers, to come to term with modernity and progress.

Even with the best malls and fastest fast foods, no one can discount the force of nature.

So it rains, pouring rain.

And everyone dashes in and out of traffic trying to stay dry, to survive.

Nature, and human nature, are both blessing and curse.

Geography aside, human spirit and its resilience is all that’s left and working for this country.

I can’t hear the sound track of “It’s a wonderful world” today as played in Good Morning Vietnam.

I hear the chewing gum commercial of Rhythm of the Rain. And maybe Happy Together, to sell some Heineken, good to drown down one’s sorrow, amidst of misery, man-made or otherwise.

Point A To B

We make that trip all our lives. To and Fro. Back and Forth. Arriving and Leaving.

The Goodbye Girl. The Run-Away Bride.

The Mid-night Cowboy. All feels restless Gotta be somebody, going places. This time, point B happens to be Mars itself.

Young people can muster up the courage to go to far-away wars, but dare not venture to South Side.

When B is too close to home (the last few inches are the toughest distance to cross), it’s psychological, not geographical distance e.g.when B is your estranged relatives, your difficult siblings or your X’s.

Somehow, it’s a long trip home if we are not in good terms.

It just is.

Many of us just stay put at point A whose Point B is the general store, or the post office.  For some shut-ins, B and A are the same.

Creative folks refuse to accept that the straight line between A and  B is the shortest. They want style, twist and shout, over and back, or spiral in coils before landing (thus milking the trip out).

We thank them for thinking out of the box. This country needs creative folks: architects, designers and coders.

They don’t sleep much at night. In fact, that’s when they are hard at work.

Bringing us better looking buildings and greener use of space. In-style clothes, shoes, glasses and hats.

Slicker version of WordPress, more integrated communication and command of thoughts and ideas.

The world is a better place thanks to them.

The ROW (rest of world) envies them, imitates them and copies them.

You know you hit the spot when the Chinese start churning out look-alikes.

Let them.

Go on to the next spark, follow the next urge.

Turn things inside out (Madona and Jane Fonda during the 80’s wore underwear outside).

Spell GaGa backward.

AgAg!

(she is going to kill me).

From A to B, a straight line is not necessary the shortest.  Who is to say.

Meanwhile, right after reading this, you will go from point A to point B again. Take the scenic route. Enjoy the city on the Hill. The long view. Take a leisurely Sunday Drive. Order a chili dog. Indulge. Pampering. Eat, drink and be merry. We need it. It’s been too much of point A to point B. Rest up. Until you feel restless again, Papillon.

Don’t jump the gun

It started with interchangeable parts in a gun factory, then “re-engineering” in the auto-assembly plant to full automation (former Secretary of Labor Reich said that if workers lose their sense of optimism, then there is no replacement). In NY, the manufacturing sector employs 40% a century ago, now it stands at mere 4% (conversely, a decade ago, only 5% of US adults joined social network, now 50%).

A separate Harvard study showed 2/3 of workers don’t feel engaged at work. The “showing-up” economy is nearing its end (not when machines had been at work all night long).

Whatever left for the US based workers ( to protect patents, marketing and sales, or the experience economy like casual dining and Disneyland, licensed-based like massage and health care) to do, ought to be of high-value, high yield. In short, being indispensable.

ATT and other big firms are re-shoring call center jobs as a trade-off for tax rebate.

The T in EBITDA is now split to T1 and T2, offshore tax haven and in-shored tax rebate, respectively.

Consumers win thanks to global competition and cheap technology (since when can people talk-and-ride, productivity level once reserved for first-class train passengers between Connecticut and NYC – where WSJ copies were on everyone’s lap).

Inter-changeable parts, inter-changeable markets/regions, inter-changeable skills (at follow-the-sun call centers). In short, tradeable services (Michael Spence).

We see the emergence of 21st-century self-help guru who urges us, e.g.the 4-hr work week, to outsource everything (so we have time to build our 4-hr body).

Civilization and its discontent.

Penny-slot nation.

Native American reservations open to everyone at all hours.

It history is of any guide, we are reverting to a 21st-cent version of aristocracy (instead of land, it’s machine owners vs workers) albeit Sino-Indie centric as opposed to Euro-centric.

Speaking of land, Ted Turner owns a vast amount of land in the South. He apparently wants to have a portfolio mix between the air wave and estate value. Common sense tells us we can only substitute the real with virtual for so long.

Human interaction takes time. It’s called building trust. Indispensable and non-interchangeable. Just don’t jump the gun on things that are human.

 

When truth shows up

On the list of “cities that might get worse”, many are from California (Stockton, Bakersfield…but surprisingly, San Francisco as well).

Even with and despite boosted help from Tinsel Town. My first impressions of Los Angeles were formed back in the midst 80’s, during the commercial real estate boom (remember Michael Douglas and the Japanese gangs, or automobile factories that required workers to do exercise every morning – Michael Keaton and his gold fish!).

We were in Search of Excellence back then.

Re-engineering everything.

And greed was good.

Friends who worked for Zerox looked at me as if to say “who do you think you are, going to refugee camps trying to save the world” (today’s equivalence of “who do you think you are, going around leaving scars” by Perry).

Michael Douglas and Jane Fonda (before Three Mile Island) starring and posing as a news crew trying to cover  a nuclear meltdown and a financial meltdown. Both events happened albeit three decades later.

When truth shows up, it’s quite inconvenient.

Dead bodies cannot be recovered for proper burial in Japan.

Automobile and chip factories slowing products shipment.

Even if they could, oil price and overseas rising labor costs leave laser-thin margins for producers.

Even breakfasts at Tiffany will have to be rerouted to China.

Quite inconvenient indeed.

Operations folks now hedge their bets, co-lo and cloud centers spread out logistically. The next economic recovery will see millions if not billions of young Middle Easterners joining the fold. From Facebook to phonebook, they will show up. Their aspiration is our very own aspiration: housing, school, environment, sustainability, connectivity, dignity.

By the time America got used to spelling “Nguyen”, a sign that we finally came to peace with America’s lost war, it will need to learn a whole new lot of last names, some of which might not be as easy . Get used to it. The doctor should learn to take his own medicine. Democracy finally came home to root on American’s soil.

Roll out the mat (for prayers), not the red carpet.

Send them to Stockton, Sacramento, and San Francisco. Cities that can use some new blood launching another Facebook or Twitter.

Never too old to salivate

I was there on Black Friday.  95 North. Wal-Mart stop. I saw shoppers pushing carts filled with wireless printers, Blu-ray players and flat screen TV’s.

The only other time you see people taking stuff from the store in the dark was during the LA riot or Katrina.

Just as soon as one comfortably sat back and relaxed, watching the flat screen TV that the neighbor started toying with his I-pad.

Hum! One-up-man-ship doesn’t allow for rest. So, when one hears the bell ring, one  salivates….for an I-pad or I-pod. Give me some of that (When Harry Met Sally‘s line, the only speaking part by the Director’s mom).

Then, I stopped at Potomac Mills outside of Washington D.C.. The sign says “Never too old”, urging seniors to take souvenir photo with Santa (who was probably younger under the disguise).

American mall= Chinese showroom. Still the same Holiday ornaments,

same jingles. But shoppers came from somewhere else (nation capital’s immigrants), and goods shipped from where else, besides our factory to the world.

On Cyber Monday, Amazon put on its PR face by showing conveyor belts and its shipping facility in AZ, one of its many regional centers. I know, I know. When you are without a retail store presence, you would want people to see your brick-and-mortar backroom.

Krispy Creme even displays its signature Glaze donuts transformed from dough to donut. (Madonna beat them to the punch: she wore underwear outside, then Jane Fonda picked up on that in her work-out video).

Adam Smith praised the Invisible Hand that regulates the free market.

Then we called in government’s Strong Hand to save it from going under.

The tri-cycle economy is rolling (Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Saturday before Christmas). Keep salivating. We need another pair of socks and one more beanie hat, even when global warming clearly is pushing winter out for another two months – no need to meet and discuss the weather in Cancun. Stay here in N America!).

Still, never too old. A lady shopper pushed her walker slowly uphill out in the parking lot. She probably was looking forward to that Friday morning more than anyone else.

In looking at her, I realized we as a nation were going to win another Shopping race.

We have practiced to salivate much quicker – as soon as the bell rings. No offense. In China, they look at one another, and feel ashamed of personal gratification at the expense of the group. Personal saving rate is higher than US’. And this slows them down, leaving the US once again the Consumer of the Year, or any other year.