Tag: Roman Holiday

Par Avion

I almost stepped on an envelope with imprint of an airplane on the cover.

It’s been a while since I saw that design. We used to write intimate letters, telling in detail what had happened in our lives, then “seal with a kiss” an envelope which had “Par Avion” on it.

In fact, when Vietnam was still North and South the way Korea now is, we were allowed to mail only post cards across the DMZ. So and so just had a third baby, the youngest finally got married and moved out etc….(Good news!:)

We lived with what was available at the time:  American cars for wedding rental, Pan Am flights, and Vespas (Roman Holiday without Gregory Peck).

Now I heard of $3,000 Chinese-made cars.

No thanks.

I’d rather get married and chauffeured away in a ferry or a bus, slowly but surely.

Best off is to take pictures in front of Notre Dame De Saigon and walk across the colonial boulevard to a Bowling Party at nearby Diamond Plaza.

Speaking of Malls.

Shoppers in the US are anticipating Black Friday shopaholic reunion.

“My name is Tommy, and I am a shopaholic”.

The prayer of serenity will be recited in unison.

Friendship fosters via common interests. And what is more popular than the love for shopping?

I used to be into ties and books.

Now, if given a choice, I still am into books, and you can keep the ties.

Except for when I attend a wedding. Like yesterday, of all places, in Cu Chi

(No, I did not wear a tie to crawl into one of those war-time tourist “traps”).

Still, a wedding in the country, especially in Vietnam, brought out major “players”.

I got to meet a very important man in the vice squad.

Go clubbing safely my friend, from here on.

It’s important who you know, not what you know.

Back to modern mode of communication.

Vinaphone and Vietel will offer 4-G.

Who is going to write letters and “seal with a kiss” before sending them via PAR AVION letters any more?

Even fax, chat and e-mail will soon be obsolete.

When I saw the young groom, tall and slick, I know time has moved on.

His kids will be of the 4-G + generation.

Text, voice and video, simultaneously.

No more Concorde or Cu Chi.

Messages will be instantaneously delivered.

As we think, shall others know.

Par Avion will be too slow (turn of 20th century not 21st).

My parents did not think so at the time.

To them, buying a stamp that had “Par Avion” meant having less meat for the meal.

Faster mail= leaner meat.Perhaps the same is still true today with many families in emerging economies (I-phone 5 = less milk).

One will have to grow stronger, swifter and smarter. Welcome to an increasingly flat world, at the speed of light (fiber optic).  But that envelope on the street did trigger this lengthy flash back to the past.

Proust would be proud! After all, I did not title this “Air Mail“. It’s Par Avion.

Saigon upgrade

In 2000, I was sitting at Cadillac, a semi-enclosed bar, whose band played Hotel California and I Will Survive.

In 2010, I found myself at Rolls Royce, which also played Hotel California and I Will Survive.

2013, at Van’s Cafe, its band plays Bon Jovi’s number lacing with Santana’s classics.

Nouveaux riches, yetl good oldies.

The expats came and went. The FDI-enabled buildings and factories were built then abandoned. Investors fled, yet their dollars and euros stayed.

The spill-overs pay for the infrastructure upgrade and remodeling of multiple entertainment venues in the city. Saigon District 1 is still prime real estate. As a song goes, “Ngua xe nhu nuoc tren duong van qua mau” (Horses and buggies zip by on the streets of Saigon), it’s the kind upgrade once seen in New York of the time of Henry Ford.

Taxi pulled up, dropped off, especially when it was pouring.

And the youth, on motorbikes, couldn’t get enough of drag racing (richer counterparts have moved up to Vespas and Roman Holiday).

They did this during the World Cup. Now they practice for the next World Cup, keeping local police busy.

WIth all its pent-up energy, Saigon is upgrading and up to task. from Cadillac, to Rolls Royce.

Female singers with tattoos and cigarettes waiting for their gigs.

A  sequel of ” the girl with a dragon tatoo” could easily be filmed here.

And at the bus station, film crews were busy at work, with  PA’s in black T-shirts doing crowd control. With only that much space, and limited infrastructure – to get around, young people either have to wait until 2AM to race, or they go online during the day. By-pass bridges can’t be built fast enough to accommodate break-neck speed of urbanization and modernization (tallest high-rises, then, another taller-than-current-tallest is proposed).

Airport proposal and counter-proposals dominate tabloid news.

Digital content are thriving here. So have cosmetic surgery e.g. eye lash clip-on, hair extension, All things for personal-brand reinvention.

Those rock band members are splintering off only to regroup somewhere else. Bar ownership change hands as quickly as the names on the doors.

But “I still survive” if failed the US interview to live in Hotel California (background Karaoke screen often shows Golden Gate Bridge).

Those who were lucky to migrate to the West can’t wait to make enough money to return to the “village”. This time, to their surprise, the place has changed. From Cadillac, to Rolls Royce. And you can take a working elevator up to the joint as well. No more semi-enclosed bar (Cadillac) where rain would disrupt a fashion show in progress as often did.  Siting from the inside, you might think you are in a Vegas joint. Gaming and gambling are pushed to its neighboring Cambodia..

As of this edit, a legislative proposal is on the table to legalize sports betting modeled after Singapore recent successes.

With only eateries and spirits as socially acceptable vices, everyone  “dzo”, eat, drink and be merry. Tomorrow will take care of itself, that is, kicking the can down the road for younger population to step up and take up the torch. That torch might not be the same. This time, new issues have emerged: gay, abortion and single mothering. I hope they don’t carry real burning torches on their next drag race. Arson is a kind of upgrade no one needs. If upset, just go ahead and torch yourself.

Me, I will survive. With or without Hotel California.

 

Vespa in Vietnam

The brand is revitalized and resuscitated here in Saigon.  If not for the helmets, I would think it is a replay of A Roman Holiday.

Back then, the burning monk was pouring gasoline on himself and asked a younger monk to lit the fire.

He earned a memorial in that intersection.

Another Buddhist temple a few blocks away took collection to renovate. The presiding monk took off with the proceeds, leaving behind an abandoned project. Good monk bad monk. It’s Mid-Autumn Festival. Children with lanterns and adults with sweet cake. Fairy tales that had to do with an uprooted tree now replanted on the Moon. VIet Nam in the Sputnik and Space age.

The city is now catering to whatever clients demand and could afford: Gloria Jeans Coffee and Ha Long Bay tours (without Catherine Deneuve).

And back to my French coffee, Italian Vespa and USA‘s Hard Rock Cafe. You would have thought I am someplace but Vietnam.  I can assure you it’s Vietnam, with multiple English schools and exam prep “store fronts”.

Young Vietnamese design games, play games online and love watching soccer. They have street racing here too. And while doing it, they might as well feel the wind by taking off their helmets.  Electric bikes couldn’t make an inroad here, especially after they changed the regulation which required electric bike riders to wear helmets.

So forget the love for sustainable environment or the disgusting gas price. Young people zoom by on Vespa, adopt I-phone and continue to play games online. There isn’t enough open space for them to play soccer ( I notice a strange absence of basketball, US urban youth favorite past time sports).. On this Mid-Autumn day, my old neighborhood gets one less choice of temples: the abandoned Temple is still sitting there, “torn”, but not completely torn down while Vespa after Vespa zooms on by. Thang Cuoi in a Space Age. I will never look at the Moon, or Vietnam, the same way again, even with some familiar handles into the past like Vespa and lanterns on the street.