Tag: Japan

(Shinning) House in the Alley

Instead of a snow-bound scenario in a vacated hotel, we have  a newly-wed couple of  the House in the Alley

The bloody ax, the shattering glass and the medium-rare steak.

We were placed immediately inside a rain storm. That fateful night, like in Misery,  the first domino that starts a chain of mishaps: married sex life, career, personal safety and destruction of property.

We got two layers of deterioration: psychological and paranormal .

Low lighting, fear and dread, all taken its mark on our man (the Shinning role reversal) good physique aside.

The House in the Alley could have been in Seoul, Tokyo or Manila.

But it’s set here in Saigon, where Dan and I shared a pizza last night.

He already had his mind on the upcoming project, perhaps in Dalat, his hometown where he finished high school.

For now, he can’t wait to get home to Laguna Beach “to have bite of that In-and-Out Burger“.  Instead, we ended up with laughable kid-burgers along with pizza.

House in the Alley got charming sidekicks, male and female. The supporting actress was trying to cheer up her troubled friend with traffic crash stories (occured every five minutes in this city).

“Have you listened to any of this”? I understand….”

We know the actress did try hard to scratch the surface of this very personal subject (the mother-in-law also had a miscarriage, but she had steeled herself and moved on).

So we lost a few fingers on this one, but there is, perhaps, a happy ending (from stormy open to sunny beach ending ), if one doesn’t look in the rearview mirror. Be afraid. The House in the Ally is now On Sale.

Dan is making sure of that, having run a real estate loan company himself.

Noodle cultures

Imagine you can slurp a spicy, mouth-watering noodle bowl on a rainy night.

Even when it is instant, thanks to the King of Noodles (they even have a noodle museum in Yokohama).

Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Thailand and Vietnamese; all love this staple.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/business/marketing/259168/tf-eyes-vietnam-for-noodles

Take the Korean and Vietnamese samples.

Both are known for North and South.

Both seem to have become what they fought against (Korean industrial might resembles Japan’s rising sun in the 80’s, while post-war Vietnam is defining its multi-polar identity i.e. Chinese, Franco-Russian, or APEC).

These emerging blocks interact and influence one another: young Vietnamese love Korean soaps and stars (Rain), while the Korean invest heavily in Vietnam’s young workforce (who might not endorse the 55-hr work ethic, due to the lingering French laissez-faire  35-hr work week, with coffee and cigarette breaks).

When these cultures export themselves, they stake out block by block, with the Korean districts in Wilshire District (LA) and Garden Grove (OC); similar pattern emerges as the Vietnamese found work in Silicon Valley or  Camp Pendleton near Little Saigon enclave.

Korean cinema, meanwhile, has drifted in the direction of its former enemy ( Japanese) by exploring the grotesque and domestic brutality ( the dark side of an industrial culture coming of age.)

The threat that ties all these disparage cultures (island-apart, literally) is the string noodle, originated in pre-Marco Polo China.

Even Samsung started out as a noodle company.

The Asian retail gal might be in suit, in compliance with industrial codes, but at lunch time, reverts back to her larger cultural codes (segregated, slurping and spicy).

Those culture groups now come face to face with modernity, under the disguise of free trade. Samsung or Sony? Toyota or Tata? Coke or Pepsi (wherever there is Pepsi, there is music, but not “the real thing”).

I used to work on the same team with my dear Korean colleague, and our markets were literally side-by-side (geographically, but culturally apart, just like Tijuana and San Diego).

Companies which try to expand to Asian markets need to understand these deep divides, the same as found in Europe or Latin America.

At least, shrewd observers can count on a set of common denominators i.e. food, fun and festivities.

Cultures are moving targets. But underneath, there are forces at work . The average person on the street just know they have changed, slowly, to becoming what their parents and grandparents had once detested (leaving the local village for a global one).

The collective self is giving way to the individual self (see Last Train Home, where inter-generational conflict was played out on their annual journey back to the village).

Consequently, you can take any of the above folks out of the noodle shop, but you can’t take the noodle away from them. Not on a cold day, or rainy day.

That’s what triggered the invention of instant ramen. Our noodle King saw a need (why all these people have to stand in the rain, waiting their turn to order noodle). That solution has been the key to unlock a kingdom, where modernity (speed, efficiency and technology – food processing) was married to tradition (childhood memory, communal activity and uncompromising taste). It’s all in the spices. At least, it was one of the triggers for Columbus to set sail and discover a rounded Earth. The end of all journeys it seems, is to come home and learn to know the place for the first time. That place, for a lot of people, has noodle waiting albeit in instant packages.

Fallible leadership

Former Google CEO, in a recent interview, admitted that he was too busy to see Social Network coming.

Former Microsoft CEO, at the turn of the century, admitted he too missed the significance of the Internet.

The Vatican, after years of floundering, decided to settle sexual abuse cases ( as of this edit, Pope Francis now personifies simplicity and humility).

In Japan, the advisor to the Prime Minister on nuclear issues resigned, saying “there is no reason for me to be here”.

Leadership fails too, as we do.  It’s just harder to publicly acknowledge it.

(yet in NY and S Carolina, politicians are trying to give their career a second life, with Clinton as role model).

There are forces at work, no matter who is in charge: innovator’s dilemma, creative destruction, perfect storm.  Mike Malone speaks about a new organizational model (core leadership team, and boundary-less around the edges) in ” The Future Arrived Yesterday”. Essentially, he speaks of being nimble, adaptive with a core group as curators of company experience and memories.

I would add to that: even within a core leadership team, I wouldn’t surround myself with a team of Yes men.

Look at Nixon. They had said Yes for a while, until they were asked to testify before Congress.

Then, we know what happened from there. Colson was conveniently born again while others went on to publish best sellers.

I’d rather agree to disagree, or went so far to appoint an office of “Devil’s advocate” within the organization.

Organization development often expounds the homogeneous unit principle (HUP) i.e. organizations grow best when members are ethnically alike. But when it comes to business, especially in current global climate, customers are found in every corner of the Earth 24/7. They are just a click away from your virtual doorstep. Who would you like to be your “receptionist” then? (SI model a few years back came from Russia, while Miss America a Muslim American).

Even Buddha himself , purported to be born in King’s Palace, walked among commoners to compare what’s on the ground vs what’s in the blueprint. Seeing so much “reality”, he turned inward, examined himself and found Enlightenment. Conversely, not everyone is on the path to Nirvana: dictators in the Middle East stay on and continue their personal enrichment.

Gaddafi not only surrounded himself with Yes men and his sons, he added an entourage of female bodyguards.

Talking about busy!

MCI taught me one lesson well: Reorganize even while the going is good.

I remembered management meetings on the East coast, right after I had just finished up a series of successful festival events on the West coast. No rest for the weary. And we discussed splitting up into three regions (instead of organizing along ethnic niche). Just to shake things up and cross-train our leadership team.

That same team now went on to do us proud: we were graced with meetings held all over the country, so all of us got exposed to the nuances of geography and zip code life styles. After all, we were a Mass Market organization: diversity, energy and can-do attitude.

I respect Eric Schmidt‘s forthrightness. Only it’s so ironic that I read his interview on LinkedIn Headlines, his competitor par excellence. Now only if LinkedIn Jeff Weiner would watch his rear view mirror. It’s not what you do that hurts you, it’s what you know you should do, but didn’t.

The extraordinary of daily life

If you look hard enough, you will find them: a Queen wearing Green, a show host wearing “color purple”, bidding farewell to a dream career a black, single mom couldn’t have imagined 50 years ago, or a fairy tale went awry with California Dreamer, bodybuilder that pumped more tragedy to the Kennedy clan than pumping iron.

Reports about the tsunami clean-up in Japan (10 years at least), and financial tsunami are still trickling in(bottle-necked at foreclosure proceedings.) For personal “escape”, I picked up “Last Men Out”, true story of the last Marines out of Vietnam (embassy guards). Their last day was “le jour le plus long” of my generation. ie. tragedy which brought out the best and worst in human being.

It’s ironic that they couldn’t junk helicopters fast enough to clear the aircraft carrier’s deck, while just a few years later, during the Iranian hostage crisis, the team was short of just one to pull it off.

Pundits and philosophers have pondered about outliers: how gene pool could produce extraordinary out of the hurdled mass: a Van Gogh here, an Elton John there.

All I know is that Sir John thought highly of Lady Gaga. And she of Farmville. There must be a trend worth- noticing for game developers. First generation gaming was mostly about kill-or-be-killed. Maybe gaming 2.0 will help players discover the extraordinary in the ordinary: planting tomatoes, milking a cow… For two generations now, kids (in a less-than-3-percent-agriculture environment) have grown up not knowing where milk came from.

We went to the store, and brought home a flat screen TV. From there, our real life turns to just “being there”: mummified and dumbed down. This came from a horse’s mouth, Mary Hart “we do, we do want to know what’s going on with celebrities, the high-profile ones”.

OK, so Kardashian lost a few pounds. That’s great. But Oprah didn’t stop there. She went on to build a media empire, so huge that the O in ChicagO might as well be capitalized. Now, that’s extraordinary!

It triggers the imagination. It inspires and motivates us. Perhaps we, single mom or stay-at-home dad, can rise to touch the face of God after all. If Stephen Hawking is right (that we are like computers), then let’s boot it up, I-pad as launching pad. Still, I believe the extra-ordinary in daily life.

Nano and Numi

Tata wanted to launch its Nano line starting at$5000 (when imported to the US, it will need to add air bags etc… hence bumping up the MSRP), taking over where the Excel used to be.

Kohler on the other hand is making plans to roll out Numi, smart toilet, at $6300.

Low and high-end seating. I am sure some guys in the “technology and commercialization” department did a thorough SWOT at pre-launch (perhaps the study was conducted in Japan, pre-earthquake era).

Nano moves you around while Numi prefers you to stay put (with MP3, temperature adjusted seat and feet warmer).

In transportation term, it’s the Beamer of toilets.

What recession?

It’s delayed tax day. But Uncle Sam wants to date stamp your return.

If I had an unexpected windfall, I might consider Numi. As to Nano, well, ask those Yugo early adopters. See if they have lived down the social stigma and buyer’s remorse. Back in college, I caught some rides in a Pinto or Datsun, student wheels of choice. No wonder they always put students through “Standford experiments” (someone poses as an authority figure in white lab coat, barking out  scripted orders on his clip board), as if college students were reliable early adopters (Haier dorm-room fridges found sweet spot there doubling up as laptop desk). Want some social upstanding? then pick a Numi over a Nano, unless you are George Clooney, who can drive anything (EV) to the Oscar.

Prosperity and austerity

We are all into wealth creation. Until the voice of reason calls for cuts.

What happened to “you have to spend money to make money?”

or mental (muscle) memory (once you reached a certain peak, you tend to recreate the experience to get the same “rush” e.g. venture capitalists in search of another win).

Best of times, worst of times.

Now we know what we are made of. Will that be cash or cash?

Chocolate and Dollar Stores are selling.

Go Hershey go.

Flip the Flip, Cisco.

Back in 1999, a branch manager said something so prescient that its implications still work themselves out “it’s going to be all IP”.

I read up on it. The OSI model etc… back then, broadband and fiber link still remained “dark”. We were at the physical layer (build-out stage). Now, we see mobile apps and Apple Apps stores.

Netflix which got its start using the USPS as its “physical layer”, now evolves into online and on-screen.

My housemate doesn’t want to receive any mail. He said they were mostly bills.

We have become Pre-Paid nation.

First, we went paperless (paying online, save a tree) then we moved to paying everything upfront, render the billing department obsolete.

Home Depot, Walmart and other supermarkets now offer self check-out (a step up from bagging your own groceries to lower the costs). Everybody is living a student life-style (frozen orange juice and canned food), including zipcar (the rise of the sharing economy i.e. p2p lending).

And to add insult to injury, Tiffany doubles its efforts in China (not New York) in the wake of Japan‘s decline.

A new Disneyland is planned for China, and Happyland, Vietnam.

Follow the money.

Disney there, Dollar here. Prosperity and austerity.

They said the top 2% had more in common with one another (even across the cultures) than with the 98% of their fellow countrymen. Davos there, Dollar here. Prosperity and austerity.

Guy Kawasaki mentioned about “death as the great equalizer” (he was quite entertaining as well enchanting in his talk about Enchantment at Standford). I reflected on this just yesterday, upon reading about a 29-year-old Costa Mesa city worker who jumped to his death instead of facing mass lay-off.

There were so much life left despite austerity. Maybe prosperity will return in his lifetime. Isn’t technology supposed to make our lives easier and create more wealth? Greenspan called this a great disconnect (more capital pumped into the system, but not enough to spread around for projects. In short, wealth creation without job creation).

There isn’t any other time in history when we feel we don’t have enough time in the day to do everything

(Viet Film Festival in Irvine received “too many entries” ….Dish promised 200 channels with no contract, Apple cannot churn out enough Ipad 2).

Hence, the proliferation of filter apps e.g. Color etc… (incidentally, Billy Nguyen in Palo Alto who co-founded the company slept in his sleeping bag to rush product out of the window, while Huy Pham of the city of Costa Mesa jumped out of it for lack of work). Prosperity and Austerity. Best of times, worst of times.

Delayed recriprocity

The National Cherry Blossom Parade in the Nation’s Capital.  Washington Monument with cherry blossom in the foreground: picture perfect.

Newly arrived immigrants learned that the Statue of Liberty was a gift from the French (who coincidentally lead the Libyan incursion this time), and cherry trees, gifts from the government of Japan (twice, before and after WWII).

And so it goes, like the world map sold here, always with the US in the middle as hub of the global world. Everybody came from somewhere else. Hence, the US is involved in everyone’s affairs, often at the exclusion and expenses of its own e.g. (loan to Libyan Central Bank, no tax to GE and a lot of aid to Pakistan, cash to Afghans). Incidentally, it’s Lady Bird who planted those cherry trees the second time around, while her husband was complaining about his forced choice for a war abroad (Vietnam) over his pet project (Great Society) at home.

This time, Washington is more careful when asked by the French to join in a foreign incursion. Limited engagement, and no boots on the ground (Lybia).

Everyone feels like there are two stories competing: Japan’s radiation level and French-led Libya‘s no-fly zone (two huge stories which drove Terry Jones completely mad for attention! I’m gonna burn more Korans if you don’t send a camera crew).

This Saturday, as the nation celebrates Spring time (kids on daddy’s shoulders for a better view of high-school cheer leaders etc…_), let’s be reminded that long ago, the mayor of Tokyo was extending a nice gesture by sending a lasting State-to-State gift to adorn this nation.

My first impression of Washington was formed from those pictures of the Cherry Blossom Parade, including that shot of cherry branches in the foreground with the monument in the background. It’s enduring and eternal (nature’s intangible beauty vs man’s concrete monument).

Now, it’s Japan that needs Washington to reciprocate as it failed to contain its nuclear power plants. There isn’t enough room to store contaminated water. So the Pacific once again becomes dumping ground for oil. Mother Nature takes it all in. And every Spring, she shows us once again the rhythm of life – Spring eternal. Without knowing its future, Japan by a small gesture, initiated a virtuous cycle. I am sure leaders in Washington won’t forget to help victims of the quake as they enjoy the Parade adorned by and centered around those trees , gifts from quakeland. If you can lend money to Libya, you can certainly spare some change for the elderly who are now in line to get instant noodle at high-school-turned-refugee-shelters in Sendai. Delayed reciprocity.

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.

The damage of denial

At least, we heard from the Japanese government that their responses were too underwhelming to match the size of March-11th-2011 quake.

Back in 79, officials released piecemeal information out of Harrisburg, PA about nuclear reactors and radiation leaks (I happened to wire the mike and test the sound before the live taping of then Governor Dick Thornburgh).

That event happened a few years after my family and I had heard the official version from then South Vietnamese government to stay indoors due to 24-hr imposed curfew.

I am sure in Libya, people are being fed similar lines (the French army was taking action along with UN Security Council forces to finish off what Reagan‘s strike had missed).

Finally, in recent memory, we were intoxicated with pitches from dot.com to real estate peddlers, that prices would always go up and that we should have bought “yesterday”.

Burned and churned. Except that we have no place to hide within our Eco System.

We got mobile apps, but we have no mobility.

Tsunamis, like recession, happened more often, and clustered together

within the past 14 months.

I heard the word “evacuation” quite often in my life time.

For me, the string started in 1975 and as mentioned, 79 in PA.

Then came the self-evacuation of the so-called Boat People in 81 which I turned around to help out.

In 1995 I lived near Northridge and got shaken by the Southern California earthquake in my sleep.

It was scary. Now, put those experiences together,  I can relate to evacuees of the Japanese three-punch disaster : earth quake, tsunami and radiation.

It takes years for victims to recover, if at all.

Disaster, denial and  the damages (now estimated at 350 Billion).

The sadness of being uprooted.

Of losing those that were near and dear to you.

Homelessness is a state of mind.

You can seek shelter, under a roof, but you can never come home again.

Years later, when I visited my mom in the nursing home, I had to sign in as a “visitor”.

Evacuees always told themselves that this was just a temporary arrangement until the situation is back to normal. They will keep telling themselves that they will someday rebuild the past to its former glory. But it’s just a dream, and more to it, a denial.

Moreover, the damage of denial doesn’t just stop with financial costs. Other hidden costs such as being uprooted, self-alienation and crisis of confidence.

It’s not just possession that counts. It’s a person’s attachment to possession

long after they are wiped out (savings in safes are found floating ashore along with bodies). Japanese are known to be quite attached to the land.

A recent survey shows junior executives in Japan just don’t like to be sent overseas even when it’s all-paid-for tuition during their stint abroad.

They like to stay put, to derive their significance and social acceptance from the collective society. Ironically, it’s their near-homogeneous  and aging culture, translated to national pride, that we hardly heard of any incident of looting (au contraire, a 9-year-old orphan even surrendered his ration which someone gave him out of turn, to get back in line awaiting his turn). Blanket-wrapped “evacuees” like that boy, will have to seek temporary homes in schools built on high ground , just stop short of waving the “Help Us” signs once seen  from Air Force One flyby during Katrina.

When heads roll, as they always will in that region (Japan Airline President committed suicide over a plane crash) we will see the real phoenix rising from the ash. I couldn’t help admire the scene where fire fighters got  their”kamikaze” pep talk before driving into and spraying water inside the now-disastrous nuclear zone (as of this edit, it is upgraded to level 7).

Take it as a lesson learned. When it comes to dealing with disaster, in this Twitter age, the best PR is a spin-free version. Anything less furthers the damage.

P.S.As of this edit, the nuclear advisor to Prime Minister Kan resigned, seeing “no point of being there”.

http://www.readersupportednews.org/news-section2/338-177/5785-japans-nuclear-adviser-resigns-in-tearful-protest

Where’s next?

In Tech, we ask “what’s the next big thing?” Cloud computing, virtualization, localization, verticalization (BTW, when you can take the online world with you, the distinction between off-and-on line seems to be blurred).

But we have been warned by Nature: tsunami, Haiti, Chile and Japan.

I am glad shaky videos  by viewer-generated-content keep us informed  (can’t help referencing back to the Indonesian tsunami). The Death of Distance is finally here. I am sure with the same technology (Twitter and Facebook), we can mobilize rescue and relief efforts faster than earlier disasters (already out are the Gaga wristbands etc…).

My heart sank for the victims of those devastated townships.

Being ready for disaster was one thing.

Getting hit by what had always kept you up at night was quite another.

All the automobiles once ready for shipping now floating about like toy cars (courtesy of Japan TV).

All for one, one for all – on Space-Ship-Earth.

I was doing my school project (TV production) on Energy Conservation

(when there were long lines at the gas stations). Then I interned at WNEP-TV in PA when the story broke at Three-Mile-Island nuclear power plant. We camped out there for days, with high anxiety and trepidation

(when you drove in to town, seeing people fleeing after emptying out the ATM’s, it’s not a good sight).

Now, the citizens of Japan are going through similar  catastrophe (perhaps some survivors of WWII are still around to witness an encore ).

Let’s take this as a “teachable moment”. Where’s next?

There was a movie about “the things we lost in the fire”.

Maybe we should upload photos and documents up to the cloud for safekeeping.

Maybe we should smile at our neighbors, and hug our loved ones more often.

The Youngbloods had a line in “Get Together” “Come on people now, ….try to love one another right now.”.

It’s comforting to know no matter what language Nature tries to warn us next

(already French-Haiti, Japanese or Spanish-Chile ), we got each other.

America has been resilient through thick-and-thin. It will hold the torch one more time. Rise, baby, rise (to the occasion). Be that search light for the rescue.

We learned from Katrina of what not to do. Now is the time to go ahead and be that heroic “land of the free”.  Doesn’t matter where next is. We got each other.