Tag: Korea

Memory of a flood

I jumped on the divan and sat in the middle of it, as far away from the rising water as possible. For a  3 year-old, the sight of water everywhere must be frightening. Water like what was brought in yesterday by the storm. Saigon was hit direct.

Trees toppled and treasure lost.

The French architect planned this Indochine admin city for less than 100,000. Now it caters to 10 million. Tu Xuong, Hoang Van Thu and Ky Hoa, all saw huge oaks fallen.

These oaks were like heroes of a thousand faces, stood firm to witness the changing of the guards.

I listened to the radio back in 1963. General after general making great claims just to be toppled by another.

Boom, bang.

The city was flooded not with  water, but waves of army men and women. Some from Australia, others Korea. What did they have to gain – showing off their Martial Art and weaponry ?

To lose?

Amerasian children later immigrated to the States.

They were accepted by neither society.

This land is our land, from California to the New York Island.

From sea to shiny sea. America America….?

Can’t even take care of your own, however illegitimate.

Don’t blame it on the controversial war.

When the GI had sex, he was just American as Apple Pie.

When Agent Orange was sprayed, the toxicity was traced back to DOW.

Just as American consumers are blaming Made-in-China dry-wall products.

Have you ever heard of RFID? We got the technology to scan, to search, to ID.

Come on!

Be brave. Clean it up and move on.

Just as people are doing all over this city now. Solve the big problem by divvying it up into smaller pieces. Make for good firewood.

The water is now receding. Life is back to normal i.e. noise, pollution and traffic jam. Yet people are happy to pack away their ponchos. Soldiers during war also packed away their ponchos. I saw them retreat (7th fleet). I saw people toss bags of  currency that were no longer of any value. I saw tears in the rain. Rain like yesterday once more. Rain like when I was growing up. Jumping right into the middle of the divan, hoping to stay clear of the rising water.

Memory of a flood, of rain, of tears and of separation.

Of loss and of despair. Water recedes, rain stops fallen, but tears still flow. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be pain. I know, I know, no pain no gain. But pain of your own choosing is different from imposed pain.

Ask the GI’s who fathered those Amerasians. They would rather forget than be reminded. Yet their Amerasian children are growing up, hopefully married and raising a family of their own. Their grandchildren will surely ask? Why do I look like this?

What event brought my parent here? Who and what did grandpa say if anything when met? How would he react? Shameful? Regretful? Forgetful? Memory of a flood. Memory of a war. Biological memory of humanity in the balance. 

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.

Automation and creativity

What if you had a third eye in the back of your head? (one of the Creativity Test questions). Or how would it turn out if Earth goes without 0xygen for 5 seconds? If you were a car, what would that be?

Gone are the days of “you can have the model T’s in any color you want, as long as it’s black”.

In fact, S Korea not only won the bid to the Winter Olympics, Kia and Hyundai are surpassing Ford to position against Nissan and others.

Apple was quite daring when it tried to personalize the PC’s (emphasizing the P in PC). The result was the Mac series (when Jobs was still “hungry”, he took a calligraphy course, which helped shape Apple’s product  differentiation).

Once we reached full-automation, the only thing that makes us stand out is creativity and differentiation.

In the 70’s music was commoditized with unbundled single albums and in 2000’s for 99 cents (free Facebook Video chat and Google Plus ‘ hangouts).

Even Facebook IT admin jobs are not safe: they dispense hardware accessories via in-company vending machines (automation that cut through the red tape).

We cherish vintage cars (the Mini’s, the VW‘s) because they strike a chord: nostalgia.

Manufacturers will have to consider women in the work force, translating into purchasing power and buying decision. Pretty in pink.

The rise of Food Network and Interior Decor shows our inclination to differentiate and personalize (hence, the rise of my Facebook page or WordPress theme).

Yes, we often choose default template out of convenienc (organ donation default choice in European countries), but we also want to embrace individuality (a taboo in Asian culture).

Yet on this side of Taylorism, that’s what makes us stand out. Personal branding (I could hardly find my little silver Civic outside the Mall).

The age of automation asks: which do you prefer, a black car or a black car?

I applaud S Korean’s dare-devil (as opposed to highly conforming Japanese culture) choice for pink car. It must have been an eye-sore to older generations. After all, it’s the same over here when Mrs Robinson song was in full blast with Dustin Hoffman, the Graduate, zooming down the coast in a red convertible. You can cutaway to modern Korea, and visualize how the Presbyterian congregation there react to their  version of “Dustin Hoffman” in a pink car. “Heaven holds a place for those who pray” hey, hey, hey.

churning, down the river

The foreclosure process has still been at work, churning homes back on the market in CA or FL.

Behind the statistics are people bewildered and shattered.

As a nation and the world, we are faced with two choices:

– pretend it never happened, and rush out to shop

– acknowledge that it happened, and rush out to shop.

Kid Rock on American Music Award a few years back sang about his hometown Detroit.

Something about “bringing us to our knees”. I realize that technology and market , when in sync, offer us convenience and low costs. When collided, as in collateral obligation, forces us on our knees.

It makes you feel like you have just been eliminated from being America’s next top model.

Pack your bag, and leave the set. Now!

Do you have some place to go?

Of all the misfortunes  that beset this country e.g. Dot.com burst, 9/11, Katrina and the two wars, lower our confidence a bit: an Ireland with lost pride, China with deep pocket-book, and Russia asking, hey, dance anyone?

First thing first, Covey advises us. A nation, as a people, needs to learn good habits.

Focus on the most important and work everything from that core (rocks first, then pebbles into the jar).

We have put out big and small fires. That leaves us too exhausted to do what’s next and necessary. The rules of law, the checks and balance etc… help protect us from abuse, but not in the realm of economics.

When do we see you hungry and not feed you? Or without a roof over your head and take you in. Rolling down the river.

 

transitory stage

I once got a 12-hour lay over in S Korea. The airport boasts itself as ” a world best airport hub”, w/ picture of a janitor-on-duty in men’s bathroom. Every hour, there were a  procession of some sort, complete with traditional gowns and ceremonial hats. Passengers-turn-shoppers (the airport was designed as a Mall) paused and expressed curiosity, but only to resume window shopping.

A flight to Istanbul was full, not with Turks going home from S Korea, but with Koreans vacationing or visiting Turkey, their launching pad to Europe.

The Financial TImes ran a piece on how for the first time, a new release was sold more in e-version than hard cover. Paper or I-Pad?

And social networking turned intranet, turned outsourcing product for other companies to adopt social networking as an official backroom function.

Steven Hawking argues that gravity and other natural forces alone created the Universe (via Big Bang).

Babson (later Babson College) wrote a book entitled “Gravity is our greatest enemy”.

When we buy a pair of Jordan Air, we conspire that “I believe I can fly..touch the sky”.

Anti-gravity urge. Immortality urge. Anti-inertia urge.

I know one thing: I heard so much about Korean ubiquitous broadband connection. So, here I am, with Samsung notebook access for free.

Blog-in-the-air. On the ground, and everywhere.

The new Korean airport appeals more upscale than Korean American Mall in Los Angeles. Perhaps their success lies in grand design, homogeneous work units and morale -average work week of 50 hours, as compared to the French 35.

It rained slightly at noon here in S Korea and made the place seems surreal.

I read about the bomb scare in Miami airport. And hurricanes in N Carolina.

Hope my plane can land in Atlanta as planned.

There will still be another short hop before I get to sleep in my bed at home.

Unemployment figures are still bad. Made the Federal Reserves frown.

They should send us money, hence turning jobless folks into active shoppers

(by sending vouchers good only for shopping, similar to cash-4-clunkler). The Korean airport certainly did this by having it built into their architectural design. People were crowding at the tobacco and malt counters. I remember that Korean’s GDP growth, the last time I looked, was somewhere positively .01 percent. At least, in this part of the world, one can find some positive signs, besides the janitorial logo which boasts  “a world best airport hub”. I concurred, since I took a nap undisturbed (unlike chairs that were designed to deter such activity in Miami airport or others). In marketing, it’s called differentiation and late mover’s advantage. You can change marketing practices, but you cannot change the man and his habits. Much less 7 habits of ineffective people.