Tag: New Year

Yesterday’s Tet

Tonight is New Year‘s Eve (Giao Thua) here in Vietnam.

Senator McCain and Lieberman are also here on their SEA trip.

But many years ago, McCain probably heard the sound of firecrackers. Tonight, there won’t be firecrackers, but everything should happen just as it has for centuries: visit ancestor’s graves or ash stored next to a church or a temple), wash one’s scooter, do one’s  hair and nail, clean the house, and set up the household altar (the Jews could relate to this since they observe Pass Over just as strictly).

Retail stores even gave their mannequins a change of clothes.

Supermarkets cleared out inventories and flower vendors are holding fire sales.

If I can turn back the clock, I would be the one shining the bronze set for the altar, get the confiture tray  and watermelon seeds in the middle of the coffee table.

Red (lucky) envelopes are also stuffed with brand new money.

A friend of my mother, also a teacher, made an indelible impression which has stayed with me for years. Instead of gifting me big denomination paper money, she had me hold out my hands to receive two-handfuls of shiny coins. The act of giving is more important than the gift itself.

Great Uncle, always seen with a beret, would be the first to show up on New Year’s day. His name was Mai, which was the same as our flower of choice.

My brother, a few days before, tried to get a date with his eventual first wife. Two couples and a young boy (me) packed into a Simcar.

At that Flower Festival, we got separated. I immediately with a red balloon, found my way back to and then stood on top of the Simcar.

Needless to say, we are now drifted apart and it would be silly for me to hold up a red balloon every time I want to be found.  To me, Yesterday’s Tet was just as warm and full of memory as it is now.

It’s an occasion to make concessions, to reconcile and to move forward.

New Year’s Eve doesn’t just usher in another calendar year. In fact, the year gets renamed and rebranded (Year of the Dragon).

By the time the next cycle comes around in twelve years, I hope we are all still here, looking back to this one as Yesterday’s Tet.

We will still be laughing, and crying at the same time, for some of us won’t probably be around. Yet Tet goes on, like a line in Reflections of my Life “the changing, of moon light, to sun light, reflections of my life”.

That song was played while Senator McCain was in Hanoi Hilton.

It is no longer known among the next generation of music lovers.

But to those who paid a dear price during the time when Vietnam was synonymous to war, the line between life and death was undeniably thin.

I hope the Senator find a new Vietnam, full of noise, except for firecrackers and firearms. It’s more peaceful now, and just as joyous as ever.

With Tet, I don’t have to exercise selective memory that much. It is happening again, just like a long-lost friend, showing up predictably with set habits and hobbies. Yesterday’s Tet or tomorrow’s: same.

Saigon rocks!

The night before New Year’s Eve (year of the Dragon), Saigonese and expats got a choice to watch the rehearsal at formerly known as Independence Palace, or nurse a beer at Acoustic.

Years ago, this neighborhood was a hang-out place for privileged kids who attended nearby French lycee. Today, at least in this den-like corner, privileged kids shifted their interests to Punk and Hard Rock: we got graced with expat singers’ numbers mixing with local rockers.

At Independence Palace, the rehearsed dance filled the large stage with flags and poles, movement and au parleur, lighting and majestic surrounding.

At Acoustic, it’s the sound, the up-close vibe and all hair.

Collectivity vs Individuality, co-exist and share the same space.

Groupies, bartenders, and some expats who I.D. themselves as being from Portland, OR.

Our mean-looking Black rapper singer turned out to be the mushiest of all with his “Tears in Heaven” number.

Then, of course, “I hate myself for loving you“.

I on the other hand did not hate myself for being there.

I enjoyed it as much as I did years ago, on or off stage.

I am glad the spirit and essence of Rock has found new expressions and entertainers.

Still against the wind, without flag, but gotta to have hair.

I missed my dying friend who belonged to Saigon Rock generation 1.0.

He would agree with me it’s time for a new wave to emerge, even with glowing bass-guitar strings. Those Portlanders kept shouting “One more” because the booze must be accompanied by the band. I bet for a moment however short, they immersed themselves in the company of young and eager music fan, forgetting where one was from, and heck, even where one was going!

One-legged work-out

Most people are out to celebrate the upcoming New Year (Tet). Dzzzzzzzzzzzzo!

Heineken toast!

Except for one young man, crutches aside, lifted his body (one leg dangling, the other with flipping blue jeans) up to train his upper-body. Now, that got my attention. I complimented him on finding out the right angle to wrap his hands around the bar. I mentioned there was a glove with an iron middle finger to protect one’s wrists ,  giving them more support and strength.

That young man could have stayed home, feeling sorry for himself.

Yet, that’s not what happened. He did with what’s left on him.

I had a mild scooter accident the other day (people just washed the sidewalk with soapy water to rinse out grease dripped from barbecue grills. Together, this made for potent slip-slide formula).

On my first few trips back to Vietnam, I saw fatal accidents.

Now, it’s “helmet nation”. This alone must have saved thousands of lives.

Most accidents happened over the holidays in the US (DUI).

It shouldn’t be any different here.

I did not know what had caused his leg to be amputated.

I dared not ask.

All I know was he was cool in my book.

After all, the current leg still needs to be toned up.

He just have to put on half the weight.

Unexploded land mines could have been the cause.

Recently there was a successful operation at Franco-Vietnamese hospital.

http://m.timeslive.co.za/?name=timeslive&i=11263/1/0&artId=6283

The patient’s thigh just grew to become a huge chunk of tissues after a failed amputation. A chief surgeon from where I used to live (Palm Beach) flew over with fund raised by the American Cancer Society to conduct surgery to remove the gigantic tumor.  Happy Tet!

Perhaps our patient from DaLat can someday  join a gym like my cool amputee.

Eventually, we will be confident enough to hold Special  Olympics for the disabled.

That would please Eunice Kennedy Shriver. She must be smiling from above.

Mom’s Ao Dai

When I saw a Vietnamese woman on motor bike with helmet, mask, sunglasses, messenger pouch, gloves and Ao-Dai steering her scooter while holding a baby on their way to the sitter, it brought back memories of Mom’s dress.

She was a schoolteacher, deeply committed to and consistent in her multiple roles: mother, teacher, wife, daughter-in-law and friend (to colleagues who also migrated South, all graduated from the same French Lycee up North, which in her times, was big brag!).

Having spent her semi-orphan childhood in dormitory, she made sure we have what she had not: a loving home with home-cooked meals.

Untrained and untutored from day 1, she tried most times, without even taking off the Ao Dai from work. By design or default, she had a good assistant: me. Here, hold the live chicken legs while I slit its throat (all the while, she would pray for its soul – after all, it had been predominantly an agrian culture, with eco and ethno cyclical living in harmony).

Then she would place the boiled chicken on the altar – an offering to our ancestors on the days leading up to Tet or special occasion of extended families gathering to memorialize ancestors.

I learned by observing and via osmosis (run to the market and get me ginger) and by serving/cleaning.

And clean I did, on the cusp of New Year. Mom would put on her Ao Dai right before mid-night, light up three joss sticks and pray to the four corners of the Earth. There was something so sacred (and safe in the midst of a lightening hot war) at countdown. Inspirational enough to my parents who often competed to compose and read aloud a stanza or two to each other (both were well-versed in French …Lamartine, Chopin and Flaubert). Now lost, but once around, a family photo carefully kept in yellowish album, showing their “mon dang ho doi” wedding, on par with Sicilian B/W counterpart minus the dance. Mandarin don’t dance.

I meanwhile tried to finish up my last rinse for the floor in anticipation of a throng of visitors.

Back then, you could hear occasional boom and bang (Chinese enclave was known to spend a fortune on firecrackers e.g. shades of pink and red – color of fortune, evident in spent shells carpeted their lawn, our version of V-J Day ticker-tape parade).

The whole region threw a big New Year Eve party that makes even the dead want to join in.

Years later, Ao Dai evolved in style (Madame Nhu), hence rid of the collar as temperature often rose above 100 Celsius.

But not for my mom.

She stayed on in that northern teacher’s style all the way to NE America, where once again, she trekked snowy roads to the Temple on New Year’s Day. I knew then and even now, she had prayed for me, her youngest who has never traveled traditional safe path (heck, I was too young and too late to the Sexual Revolution of the 60’s).

In contrast, the Road Less Traveled strayed me far from our proverbial tree. The first few feet on student car were the hardest, seeing her wave from my rearview mirror.

This made it hard my whole way to Windy-City Wheaton, to grad school and an uprooted life.

Her picture has been on my altar. I wonder what gift I should get to make worthy a Tet offering (bean bun, bouquet and beer?) Banh chung, bong cuc va bia?

Perhaps the best way to honor and keep her memory is to be the best son/student/self.

I don’t want to see in the rearview mirror shadow of regrets. I realize the only way she could have let me go was for furthering education. Of any in my family, she would be the one who understood it best. Always among the 57 students, year after year, at times, second-generations, for 30 some years, marshalling and motivating them with words and deeds.

When seeing a younger version of her going to work in scooter, mask, glasses and helmet, but still in Ao Dai (Vung Tau resort reception?) holding a baby to the seaside babysitter, I was reminded of her: sacrificial and selfless, a role model to show us the possibility of reaching higher, rising from four feet to become worthy bi-pedalist. Her contribution made our human race all the richer i.e. man shall not live by bread alone.

Si tu n’existais pas, I wouldn’t be here. As a humble keeper of fine and fond memories.

Mom’s Ao Dai

Street sweeping in Saigon

I saw a funeral pouring out onto the sidewalk one day, and on the same  block, a wedding the day after.

Meanwhile, the street sweeper just went about his business of sweeping, regardless.

Even if they could use some industrial-grade sweepers, people prefer man to machine. This solves labor problems.

Scavengers make their daily routes by offering to buy anything and everything electronics.

Best Buy could use some help here.

E-waste! What a waste!

As long as one can make a buck, let someone else worry about sustainability.

I love trees but not to the point of being a tree-hugger.

But nothing gives me more pleasure than to see a shaded tree in the middle of a city.

Birds chirping, cyclo drivers napping, and my heart singing.

We got forests and we got trees.

It just that they are “unwelcome” here. Trees take up too much space.

Space for multiple use, such as weddings and funerals, marketing events and Sale Events.

One New Year down, another one (Lunar) to go.

Hoa Mai , kumquat , Lion heads, Earth man, lucky envelopes, confectionary of all kinds.

In the US, they are gearing up for Valentine.

Season changes, but street sweeper goes on sweeping.

Funeral or wedding, summer or fall.

He kept the streets clean, wiping out the past as if nothing had happened.

Bob Dylan’s equivalent , Trinh cong Son, once had a line “the bomb splattered from a distance, and the street sweeper paused to listen”.

If he were to compose a post-war version, it would be “the wedding karaoke party blasted out, and our street sweeper didn’t even stop sweeping”.

Oblivious to noise, dust, and smell, our street sweeper went about his business.

I hope among the stuff that got swept were some dead leaves; it would mean there were still hope of some shades under the scorching sun.

Street sweepers of Saigon keep sweeping and walking man walks on by. That walking man, c’est moi.

Micro Resolution

When you were young and with others, you wanted to start a revolution.

But if you were young, but alone, you might want New Year Resolution e.g. diet, “biggest loser”, learning Spanish, pick up a new skill set.

Then when you have been around the block a few times, you still think of New Year resolution, but just  micro ones e.g. jogging every other day, email your kids every other week.

We need to tell ourselves it’s not been OK. That there is room for improvement.

Never too late. For older guys, to meet someone new, even a new male friend, is a hassle: how much can I put trust in the guy even though he has been my friend’s friend? What does he want in exchange ?

In business, even with benefits spelled out in details, people still want to let it simmer. Fools rush in!

On a larger scale, consumer sentiment makes or breaks an economy already teetering on the brink. It’s been more than three long years.

We haven’t trusted ourselves enough. Nursing our wound feels safer than taking small risk.

Government gets bigger, but our paychecks smaller.

The skeptics have had a field day: they would never run out of materials for late night TV.

David Brook of the NYTimes noticed a trend in communitarianism in a small town near Baton Rouge. The kind acts were so real it could be surreal.

Neighbor actually lighted the candle at your loved one’s grave?

Makes me want to live there, to be a part of this “Utopian”.

(in fact, the main character in the story did just that, with their move from  PA back to LA).

Right now, I am living  in a city of roughly 9 Million. And tonight, there will be at least one tenth of the city gather near the river to watch the fireworks.

I am sure there have been small kind acts everyday (I helped a kid in a toy car roll up the stiff sidewalk just now).

Here, people are “white-skin envy” (mannequins in stores are all white).

If you found a black person, perhaps he/she is around 40 years old, fathered during of the Vietnam War. Other Africans who did not make the soccer team also decided to stay on but constitute a tiny portion.

I read somewhere that the greatness of a nation is in how it treats its weakest link (the US with its handicap law enactment is undeniably civilized). Nordic countries are way up there on this scale.

In the end, it’s our every-day act of kindness that adds up.

Let’s make this our micro resolution.

President Bush was sincere when he urged the nation to go about daily routine, such as shopping (right after 9/11). That resolution could be taken out of context. I would rather understand him as saying, let’s have our micro-resolution of many as answers to the macro-barbaric acts of a few. The key is togetherness. His dad’s adage was “a thousand points of lights”. Let 2012 be the year of our thousand micro resolutions.

Pay it forward!

Old market New market

It’s a norm here in Vietnam that a certain market, after being moved to a new location, still has its old location called “cho Cu” (Old Market). My Dad and I used to go for breakfast in Cho Cu, which no longer does brisk business despite its prime location near the harbor (people are shopping at SuperMarkets, whose plastic baskets are overstuffed with stuff). Now we even have night markets such as Hanh Thong Tay, which during the day, is a “ghost town”.

http://www.eturbonews.com/27000/vietnam-wants-move-away-traditional-markets

Happy New Year, Happy New Year…..

The old markets  offer a common roof, spare ventilation and without piped-in music, whether it’s in the North as in Ham Long, or the South, as in Binh Thoi.

It is said that soothing music induces more shopping. Upscale shoppers want to assert themselves (life-style) and their social status.

In the States, Walmart has crossed-over to Supermarket’s turf (best-selling item: bananas),

Supermarkets crossed over to drug stores’ territories, and Walgreen-CVS crossed over to both.

In the alley outside where I live, people hold make-shift market in the morning: vegetables, fish, pork and fruits. The supply chain is simple: slaughter house to your house, with no refrigerated intermediaries. Chicken got charcoal-grilled inside a bamboo trunk or wrapped inside wet clay, feathers still intact.

It’s a good thing I blog about these things right after lunch (mouth-watering still). Fish glistened under the golden sun, while crabs got lined up in rows and columns neatly like an Excel spreadsheet in a tray outside a restaurant (normally when alive, these legged creatures crawl uncontrollably in all directions). An old American Indian captures this scene: when one tries to crawl out,  the others try to grab it right back in (as in Mission Impossible team rescue to highten the vertigo suspense on top of Dubai’s tallest building).

I had a late lunch next to a table full of restaurant staff. They were getting ready for their busy evening shift, Quang Trung style (celebrating Tet early, to pull off a military campaign that surprised the enemy during the Holidays).

I notice the stark difference in attitude and service between old and new markets: the mom-and-pop folks know your face if not your name.

The Supermarket staff work for a corporation, tend to be younger and can’t wait to get off work (factory style).

College students double up as city workers. College students as bus riders, and consumers of all kinds of goods (sweet and snacks) and services.

College students scramble for exams, for seats on the Last Train Home, for a table outside in the evening.

College students in Old Markets. College students work in New Markets, but can’t afford to shop there.

College students who Google but can’t connect the dots (not yet).  Educational managers whom I visited realize those gaps between High School and College levels, and between academia and active world of work.

(in ICT, this gap is even deeper when work means taking an outsourced load from overseas such as US and UK.  In that space, competitors are India and other Asian Tigers).

Welcome to the new market of talent, place and logistic cross-over (such as Boeing and I-phone, all made from parts supplied elsewhere, and later, sold back to those same countries as complete product.)

Old market, new market. Will one survive in the new century with just a warm smile and a broken back? Happy New Year, Happy New Year. May we all have our hopes, our will to try.

Let’s hope when one chapter is closed, another one will be opened. Places and time, people and opportunities: we are all in transition, from the old to the new.  So is the market. Just make sure you stay alive and hungry! Better that than be “confetti on the floor”.

The General Temple

When my mom, a teacher, took me there, I was 5.

This time, I  went there by myself.

Happy Teacher’s Day!

The Temple has always opened to seekers .

On New Year‘s Eve, it’s the equivalent of Times Square .

The crowd, the smell of incense burning and the long line at fortune teller’s dispensary.

It could last till morning.

But then, it’s not surprising to see less traffic here on New Year’s day.

People hesitate to be the first visitor (uninvited) for fear of initiating a chain of  bad luck.

I noticed how spacious the court-yard was, as compared to New Year’s day in my memory.

It’s a 20/80 use of space: 20 percent of the Temple were occupied by 80 percent of worshippers.

According to history, the General went down, like a Captain of the ship, after having set the castle on fire instead of letting it fall into the hands of  advancing French army.

Where once a ruin now an attraction at a busy intersection.

Art students whose school was nearby, sat in groups, in front of their canvasses, and sketched.

Upon entering its gate, I felt small again as memories of boyhood rushing back.

“Hang close to Mom, you don’t want to get lost”.

If I had a wish here at the General Temple, it would be to do my mom proud.

It is undisputed here in Vietnam that education is a lever to a better future.

Unfortunately for many, time in the classroom is perceived as time away from earnings.

Worse off, educational loan has reached 1 Trillion dollars in the US.

With no end in sight.

No one wants to Occupy the school.

Although their parent’s couch is still available, no one wants to occupy it either.

Although the lack of education limits one’s career choices , too much educational debt leaves a bitter taste in the mouth.

Not until their golden years will students come to appreciate the value of education (life enrichment, art appreciation, in-depth sense of history and personal fulfillment).

For now, what society wants is productivity at the least cost.

In short, harnessed knowledge and repetitive actions (to the point of auto-piloting) are preferred over a contemplative mind.

Charlie Chaplin all over (Un temp modern).

Think not of tomorrow.

Spin the wheel today.

Worry not about the past.

What is the value of a heroic figure who went down for his nation and neighborhood?

What is the value of human intervention and interaction?

What is the value of an educator, a trainer, a mother?

What can’t be monetized, quantified and duplicated , is set aside. Park it.

In Seven Habits of Effective People, we learn that our society values quadrant number 1 (Urgent and unimportant) over quadrant number 2 (Urgent and Important) e.g. environment, worker’s training, infrastructure investment and community development. In short, no commons. Just Ego over Eco.

No wonder on Teacher’s Day, I found the Temple absolutely quiet except for those Art Students.

Outside, the city was bustling with commerce. Perhaps quadrant 1 will continue to occupy everyone’s mind , until New Year’s Eve.

That’s when the wheel pauses, the workers (cogs) can then get off. The soul gets tended to. Incense burned next to fruit offerings on the altar. Just in those few days, the General spirit will be extolled, his legacy affirmed. I can’t even image being there on New Year’s Day. I hope his spirit doesn’t discriminate any one or any day, like today, Teacher’s Day. Seek not the crowd, for they know not what they are doing. At a fork in the wood, I chose the road less travel. Quiet and safe, though not popular or prosperous. Sometimes you have to let the soul have its quiet whispers. Mine got a small dose of stimuli at Lang Ong (the General Temple) and a flashback to those moments with Mom, a dedicated teacher and educator of Vietnam‘s previous generation. Happy Teacher’s Day.

Yearning for the new

The Year of the Cat.

Al Stewart in white suit.

Cyclical, eternal and in sync with nature. No “dominion over the land and seas” as in Western theocracy (in an ironic twist, outside my window, the work crew keeps digging, plowing, flattening and paving the sidewalks – one after another, from water to power, cable to phone companies – one dead-end street, multi-crew, stretching on for months).

People just want to rest, renew and reinvigorate.

Eat the fruit and replant the seed.

Eat the fruit, and remember those who planted the seed.

Greet the young and remember the old.

In letting go, one is free to receive the first visitor on New Year.

I could always tell who was going to be our first visitor while growing up in Vietnam.

Great Uncle, in bow tie.

(It would be an equivalence of man in black during New Year Eve’s party).

The bouquet, the basket of fruit and a bowl of brisket, all symbolize abundance from nature . This was during a pre-supermarket era i.e. fresh, not frozen.

Lunar New Year presents a different perspective.

I remember a movie joke line “the only restaurant opens over Christmas is Chinese“.

And perhaps the opposite is also true: the only establishment that is open in Vietnam during Tet is Circle K. (backpacker’s alley).

I miss the firecrackers. They replace them with fireworks now.

But the scent and sound of firecrackers truly marked the changing of the “animal” (from Tiger to Cat). New Year Day saw various shades of pink and red firecracker’ s ash on rich man’s lawn.

Everyone yearns for the new: new clothes, new money  and new coat of paint. The ancestral altar also got buffed up. My late parents used to pen some poems right after midnight.

If they had Web 2.0 back then, they probably would have gone on Facebook and “status” it. People forgive and forget. Life is hard enough with war, separation and loss.

For three days, food is taken for granted.

Sit back, relax, and enjoy. Let’s hear it! 10-9-8…count down. No, there is no such clear-cut.

Just a crack here and a pop there, and before you realize it, New Year has arrived . It dropped a ton of optimism in a hurry, like an overtime UPS man running late. Growing up in war-time and in poverty is like doing exercise: you have to do it every day to make it work for you (you learn to look at yourself and others not by the amount of possession,  but by the richness of one’s relationships).

New Year in Vietnam is  a time for communal self-renewal. Everybody yearns for the new, for a better tomorrow. For now, Al Stewart’s the Year of the Cat will do just fine, since it was a top hit back then. Every twelve years, it becomes relevant all over again.

 

Calling on Leaders

Mongolian Khan, upon his first day out of jail, jumped on the horse to lead his nation to new height. Lennon and Yoko still purchased full-page ad in the NYT to run the same poster as they did 40 years ago “WAR IS OVER, if you want it”.

With the new digital order, thought-leaders emerged to shape our agenda and culture.

Gone are the days of orators speaking for hours in the arena.

In our digital age, one just looks you up, at his/her convenience.

The audience no longer has to shout out , as in the Network, ” I am mad like Hell, and I won’t take it anymore”. He or she simply clicks away or types in a negative comment.

Leaders will need to be transparent, harmonizing his/her on and offline persona (only a third of respondents said they were truthful on social networks). Past leadership styles e.g. empowerment, alliance,  command and control, and laissez-faire; need to be revised and perhaps, recombined.

Today’s leaders are real people, with hope, fear and dream, just like their followers (on a Harley over the weekend or ride a bike to work, New Year, New You in New York.)

In Matterhorn, we followed the new Lt of Company C through war-time Vietnam.

He learned to make hard calls, to sweat and to cry.

Leaders also face doubt and indecision.

But they are not philosophers. They do think hard but also act decisively.

And mind you, leaders are not accountants.

One of the Kennedy’s whiz kids regret having led the Vietnam War solely by number crunching. (Even the press briefing bore the cutting humor “5 O’Clock Follies”).

Leaders lead without regrets. When time calls for it, leaders are ready .

He or she is not a line manager ( who leads from behind or on the side). Leaders lead from the future, set the tone and inspire excellence . They reframe and rekindle while being “one of the guys”.

Leaders lead people to their deaths, and they thank him or her for it.

We have a few still around. Calling on leaders.