Tag: San Francisco

Van’s Cafe pt II

Last Sunday morning was my first time at the jam session here.

Today, my second. It is getting better, sweeter and with more substance.

Thanksgiving weekend with friends and music lovers. It’s game weekend in the US. Or shop til you drop.

Here jazz music permeates the air we breathe.

Unrehearsed of course.

But it flows. The energy, the passion and just a good passage of time together.

I feel jazz. It’s warm, sweet and penetrating.

It makes us human. Playful and painful at the same time. The headache and heartache.

Share it brother!

Hi five.

We take a rest to be real audience.

Forget the bills, the business of life.

Just celebrate it while living it.

Being In love.

Being confused.

And being here.

Join me. I probably be here next Sunday. My friend won’t be. He is doing his numbers now, but will fly back to San Francisco, where he plays in the SF Jazz band.

I am glad he is here this weekend. So I don’t have to be all the way back across the pond to hear him.

Of course Hung brought his amplifier, and guitar. Dat (blind) on the piano and the KC band on drum and base guitar.

They play well together. Jam session.

The audience too. Very selective. Very very much in love with every note, every expression of seeing open soul on display.

“Sometime when we touch, the honesty too much”.

I don’t feel alone here, even at an empty table. They are after all up there jamming.

Beer half-opened and I sip mine slowly, for fear that their number will end too soon.

The Heineken you can reorder, but friendship and the mutual love for music will never die.

I wish you can be here. Not the kind of canned “I wish you a Merry Christmas” you hear all the time.

But I truly wish you an experience as valuable and unique as this one.

Pop, Jazz, French mix.

Like the city itself. Old Saigon, always adapting and thriving on chaos.

I love this city, it’s people and its multiple expressions however unrehearsed and unprepared.

It’s our best and it’s best in my eyes.

 

Goodbye Saigon, pt II

Another friend flew out for Thanksgiving.

There is no such a thing here in Saigon: oven-roasted turkey, croton and mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce , yam and apple pie.

Mouth-watering!  children running around and old folks reminiscing the good old days.

Yes, his destination has a few hallmarks of the American Dream.

Here in old Saigon, the only thing that changes is new names on old streets and schools (no longer segregation, so it came with a shock as I rode pass the old all-girl Gia Long High to see the new mix of male and female students)

My friend likes the quote from T.S. Eliot (In my end, my beginning).

He knows the Earth is round, and that at the end of his short stay in Saigon is the beginning of his trans-continental journey to America and Europe.

Before meeting him, I carry water and chop wood.

After meeting him, I carry water and chop wood.

But he left a vacuum hard to fill. Just like our mutual friend, before him (see Goodbye Saigon).

They have sons and daughter to attend to, paper work to sign and friends to play catch up with.

None of us gives up on Saigon. We all think the place deserves a make-over, a second chance (as if it needed our help and opinion).

Rated as most competitive in the nation, Saigon is quite poised to soar and regain its former glory (Pearl of the Orient).

Skyline and sea harbor, street signs and shops, all compete for clientele. Back-packers have a hard time configuring  their Google-map routes. But everyone here knows or are supposed to know where they are going.

Young work force pour over the key board, while street vendors peddle their wares (walking Wal-Mart).

When my friend was here, we used to sit at one of the ronde’s, French round-about, to feel and feed on the energy of bustling traffic.

Afterwards, we would retire to his quiet alley just a few feet away to recuperate. It’s exhausting and exhilarating at the same time to live the night life in Saigon. More bikes take up the space a few moments ago reserved for buses.

Years ago, they stopped allowing tow-trucks to come through before mid-night. So on this Thanksgiving eve, there is no Black Friday here in Saigon. Only window shopping and online shopping. Tourists find it refreshing to stroll the old boulevard, to discover names like Majestic, Continental hotels etc…

Time seems to freeze-frame here. And we took advantage of this to “re-enter” our past (as if it’s ever possible).

American pop songs overheard from retail shops can lure you back to a time when you were first in love or discover love.

Don’t give up on us, baby.

On the other side of the trans-Pacific flight, my friend perhaps is checking out his luggage, going through custom, with the reflexive greeting “Welcome home, mr Ngo”. I like America. When being addressed by Mr so and so, you know it’s official and that you have paid your taxes and your due.

Consumer confidence is returning with rising home prices in the Bay Areas. I hope it spills over across the pond. After all, Fukushima tsunami waves got tossed all the way to San Francisco bay. Why not this time around, with rising economic waters from the West. When my friend returns, he’ll know once again, his next stay in Vietnam would just like T.S. Elliot puts it, “in my end, my beginning”. No way around the inter-dependence and inter-connectedness of our 21st-century living.

Switching the script

On film set, writer is often called out on short notice to fix the dialogue.

Something is better left unsaid or sounded odd when in “live” context.

In life, we can’t retrace our steps to switch the script.

It’s live, and happened once only.

There lies the importance of getting the right words first time around.

Another way to lessen the impact of misspoken words, is to come out immediately and retract.

Even the NYT does that.

When the facts are not straight, when a character is mis-portrayed, the best way for editors to damage control is to come out clean.

We happen to live on this side of the communication (data) explosion.

Facts and fiction are both out there.

As mentioned in Brand America a few blogs ago, people do come here and reinvent themselves e.g. name change (anglicized), hair-coloring and new wardrobe. Voila! Boy George and Bieber. Entertainers and sports idols are hot. They are more than hot. They sell merchandise.

Just Do  It.

After all, we move about our days, filtering ads and spam mail.

No wonder we long for those “in” mail.

Someone cares enough to probe and not to pitch.

And we in turn empathize with their plights, the pressures they are under.

If only we could switch the script. Living a new life and assuming a new persona.

Like when we were kids, imagining we had just been adopted by our real parents.

We wished for another life, another script (if only the writer were standing by as fixer).

Then we would be reclaimed, taken back to the castle and live a happy life ever after.

When I grew up, there was such a story. Of a half-breed (African-Vietnamese). Co Ba Xi. The man who had fathered her left only to come back years later as King of his tribe. Vietnamese Cinderella. But that’s just one jewel among a variety of Immigrant stories, ranging from model minority stories to loser’s stories.

One last thing about scripting. As long as we live out our story, and not someone else’s.

At the end of all travel is to return to the same place and to know ourselves for the first time.

It is often said, life is 10 per cent action and 90 per cent reaction. When a large part of life is lived out of reaction instead of proactive, we are not living our life script. Paul Anka would be proud to hear his “My Way” sung by 7 Billion.

Why wait for the writer to come to our rescue?

We are the writers, we are the world.

While still alive, we can switch the script, reinvent the characters, and overcome the challenges.

As long as we know what we want.

Or seek help. There are people who are gentle and kind (not just in San Francisco or down in the Bayou), and whose advice are plenty and fitting (learned this in Vietnam. People still give out free advice as if they were still living in a village).

I am indebted to professionals on LinkedIn, who endorsed my skill set and characters.

I am grateful for “followers” . People who trek the trail of current Recession and the trajectory of Social Media.

What a time we are living in, and what a company we are keeping. Just as we thought we should throw in the towel, then comes help.

I am the sum of my relationships. Two old people in their early 40’s were still at it, hence, creating me.

Now I live out that script, all the while hoping to switch those last pages.

Hope to read about your multi-chapter, multi-tasking life whose script is not written in stone, but evolving with unpredictable twist and turn and whose ending is happy albeit not perfect.

Marconi and Marcom

In the late 80’s, PacTel Cellular boasted seamless connection from San Francisco to San Diego. That is, if you had a battery pack to power the wireless devices (MicroTac? Motorola).

Remember this was pre-Twitter days.

Now it’s 12/12/12 and the Mayan’s calendar is soon running out.

Back when Marconi was experimenting with sending signals across the Atlantic, skeptics had a field day (light and signals traverse in a straight line, and thanks to Columbus, we know the Earth is round. Good luck Marconi!).

Those guys obviously did not play pool (angling and bouncing).

Putting all these elements together. We got Marcom.

The art of positioning your company, your brand and image for the longer term.

Many-step flow. Diffusion of innovation. Crowd-source and users’ Likes.

It takes time for people to adopt.  When MCI tried to attach a piece of equipment to the ATT network, it got stalled and deterred.  Jack Goeken did not give up.

He was trying to help truck-to-truck short-way communicate from St Louis to Chicago.  And in Marconi’s case,   ships-to-shores communication. Both faced hard resistance (today’s equivalence of “Who killed the EV?”).

That was before peering, inter-operability and other engineering agreements.

Currently, we still have to “unlock” an I-phone.  People were put in “voicemail jail” etc… Technology and man’s freedom.

IP issues and the trajectory of human achievement and advancement.

Think back to the age of gramaphones. And fast forward to the i-pod Shuffle.

Then you can see the full sweep of tech (just in sound recording and reproduction).

Marconi sent signals across the pond. Bell asked “Mr Watson, come here“.

Now we got Youtube and “Concert for Sandy Relief“.

Put together a Marcom plan for yourself, your family and your company.

It’s our modern-day equivalend of yesterday’s black/white photo albums. Our heritage in the making.

Enjoy your Christmas wireless experience. Don’t forget those trailblazers. It’s heart-throbbing to finance those expeditions, today’s equivalence of Tesla and Virgin’s space tourism.

But then, without the likes, we would still be listening to each other from those gramaphones.

On Persuasion

Lights, sound, camera, ACTION!

He is back, still with “Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow” for an entrance and an exit punch line “the Union, as conceived and committed to by the Founding Fathers.”

He systematically laid out the choices, an either-or.

He mentioned the opponent’s alternate universe , where 2+2 might not = 4.

Or…4 more years.

He wanted us to do some gut checks: are we letting them “double down” on ” trickle-down”?

Are we going to rob Peter (handicapped and seniors) to pay Paul (oil rich countries and outsourcing nations)?

Do you feel it? Maybe not yet. The lagging effect (from Fact to Feeling) of a barely resuscitated economy.

Against the Red, White and Blue background, and with proper acknowledgment of key supporting cast (Michelle, Biden and Hillary) while the cut-away shots kept showing Clinton’s First Kid (reminded me of the Kennedy’s clan,  just as Clinton’s goodbye  evoked Carter-like statesmanship) and seamless delivery of a well-crafted value proposition, President Clinton once again established himself  as a premier speech Master, if not, Magician.

He was more in control this time, but still on occasion, showed some emotion (I believe). And no doubt, he does care more for the world (Haiti) then just America, whose leadership in Education has slipped a bit (to no. 60).

I majored in Communication. Specifically, media. And I know a good speech when I see one. This one is for keeps.

Just as Reagan who concluded his reelection speech with a stunning visual “a shinning city on the hill, …” as he recounted a drive on 101 from Santa Barbara to San Francisco. Television tends to favors telegenic charisma (Kennedy over Nixon) and irresistible narrative (A man from Hope).  And we prefer personalities who can tell stories (not just sound bites) that make us feel a lump in our throat.  Last night’s speech at the Democratic Convention delivered a bowl full. Truth that hits home. Music that resonates. And a pitch that gets us on our feet. We need ALL the help, from both voters and viewers. I just know that speech was best in class. We communicate, cooperate and celebrate. Especially in hard times. Now we know who we are by the choice we made of our leaders. Both sides draw a nice picture. But this one spins really good and sounds really good. Talking about persuasion. I still believe in the idea of America, not Exceptionalism, but one as I would expect it to be.

When in doubt, bet on America, exceptional or not.

Be sure to bring some flowers

That voice which slows toward the end of the song as the chord changes:
“If you’re going to San Francisco…” accompanied by the 60’s signature tambourine, has died. But his one-hit wonder stays, perhaps more famous than the city itself.

It’s a state of mine. A period in history, with in-depth expose by Tom Hayden and Tom Brokaw. A new explanation and “a vibration” (today, we got “going viral” ). People in motion.  Keep moving. Keep evolving. Keep changing at the grass root level.

No one wanted to be “institutionalized” (One flew over the cuckoo’s nest). Individualism championed by groups and movement, ironically. Out of the box, out of the can.
We got Papillon, the Great Escape (both played by Steve McQueen, a San Francisco’s familiar face).  We got the ethos (youth), the prop (flower), the non-verbal greeting (peace symbol), the hair, the costume (Indian fashion) and an anthem.

I first heard the song right before Tet 68. School was closed due to the uprising throughout South Vietnam. With a lot of time in my hand, I practiced the guitar. San Francisco over House of the Rising Sun, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road over both.  The girls (older than I) were with flowers on their hair.

Later, when I had a chance to revisit Vietnam, I looked up an old classmate who had been paralyzed, When I played the guitar and sang for him, who lied motionless in bed,  he requested San Francisco (people in motion).

My friend was one of the “gentle people” I have met in my life. He is into poetry, music by Trinh Con Son (Vietnamese Bob Dylan). And he got paralyzed for rescuing some kids who were standing under a fallen iron gate.

People in motion, people in motion. But my friend has stayed immobile.

And the singer of that signature song has died.

Somehow, I don’t think it would end here. I know the spirit lives on, in San Francisco. People are passionate about the city, its livability, environment and ethos.  Legislation there is fierce and uncompromising when it comes to sustainability. After all, we want to see flowers grow there, along with civil liberty and civil rights.

Even so, be sure to bring (and wear) some flowers when you go there.

The Bay areas get nice weather, gentle people and lots of hills. I even ran a Bay-to-Bridge race once, just to take in the scene. And the Chinese New Year Parade there is the event not to be missed. That era, those street corners and the people once flocked there to search (for a new explanation) and share (laying foundation for today’s internet peering, open source, wikipedia and interoperability) under one huge umbrella: McKenzie’s San Francisco.

Heck, I was just trying to get to Middle School in Vietnam. And I just stopped short of wearing some flowers in my hair. Instead, we settled for those flower stickers, along with the peace symbol, despite living at the height of the war. RIP Scotty.

They keep coming

In a few days, they might put on Neil Diamond‘s America.

Voter registration. Organ donor. Vehicle registration.

They bring some cash (let’s hope so) and a load of dream.

Many had left personal chapters of their lives before boarding that plane.

Just like the Irish and Polish a century and a half ago.

Except that the ports of entry may now be in Miami, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

The new Ellis Islands.

First stop often are ethnic enclaves which help ease their transition and acculturation (euphemism for losing out that which had made them them in the first place).

Gone are the scarves, the beards and the cone hats.

Instead, we have everyone wearing some sort of emblems: American Eagles, Newport Beach, Disney and sports teams.

I used to proudly wear PENN STATE grey and blue.

I still am proud.

But having been here too long, I started to realize I had overcompensated to becoming an American. It is a melting pot which frisked me of my ethnicity.

Once in CA, I realized everyone had come from somewhere else.

It’s LA. Dream factory (Hollywood) and Disneyland.

Not just people who reinvent themselves. The city itself has done that (you will not find the setting like you saw in the movies).  You are lucky to buy a map and take a tour where the stars might live (if they don’t check in a secret hotel to hook up).

Stuff of dream, of mirage (farther out, it’s more true in Las Vegas, but then, what happened there stayed there).

Yet they keep coming. Keep driving the vehicles. Keep smiling for the camera (except for the traffic control one).

And best of all, like one of the two Google founders, parents raised them to be good in math, which indirectly give us “Search”.

I feel lucky.

America feels lucky. And should be thankful (two-way street).

OK, now you can fade in Neil Diamond’s America. It’s Fourth of July.

If you hear a lot of fireworks, you know the economy is back in full swing.

One more reason to celebrate, besides Independence from the Brits and wherever else they – we – were from. But keep a toe back there, because

it’s good to know where one was from, and appreciate that unique root. May your descendants give us all the “googles” in this land of opps, starting at the DMV line. License will be in the mail in three  weeks.

Tears in the here and now

I am not Italian.

Yet I broke out in tears yesterday, at least three times.

A medical check revealed that I had a minor stroke five years ago, which means I have lived on life extension without knowing it.

Had I known this sooner, would I have lived my life differently?

Or moving forward, what corrections must I make.

I forwarded medical facts about stroke to friends.

I called up close friends and families to tell them I loved them dearly.

I hated myself for letting distraction become attraction, and 80 become 20 (80/20 rule).

Clapton nailed his emotion in “Tears in heaven” after his child’s accident.

Tears wash away regrets and cleanse our hearts. One could fake a laugh, not a tear.

Not men.

Not non-Italian men.

If I had died five years ago, I would have regret not meeting new people, attending live music and seeing new places (good, bad and ugly).

I would be a lost soul, floating near Earth‘s surface to “crash” the gates of aristocrat’s parties, rock concerts and launch parties (movies and books).

I would nest near my daughters’ beds, so as not to wake them.

I would cry, shed ghostly tears when boy friends broke my daughters’ hearts.

And I would laugh at friends’ jokes without consuming the beer.

I would still submit requests for my favorite 70’s songs and wish that generation never disappear.

My spirit will continue to look for a heart of gold, still do it my way, and clip a flower on a girl’s hair in San Francisco.

Yes, there have been tears to pepper laughter. After all, it’s part of the script. Life script . Of growing up, growing old and growing wise.

Best part of living in spirit and not in body is that you get to travel for free. In weightlessness, we are free to carry one another’s burden. He ain’t heavy, he is my brother.

Something to learn

IT workshops and seminars are happening on a weekly basis here in Saigon.

Monsoon season is almost over. Except for some cigarette vendors, the Sheraton  downtown could trick you into thinking you were somewhere else, like San Francisco.  Lunch was ready for a group of  CSO‘s and Software testers, uniformed attendants mingled with pony-tailed guests.

Something in the way he moves (my friend, that is).

This was his second time organizing software testing conference.

Forever curious, always testing, probing, “jazzing” his way in hope of “bumping” into the unexpected.

How do you debug something you have never used?

Put it through imaginary scenarios.

Use the parameters and practices.

Niche on top of niche.

That’s how one thrives in a “me-too” market (for instance, India now considers to open its retail market to MNC’s). Another “me-too” market with logo, look and label.

India will be the most populous country on Earth in the next century.

Watch out, retailers.

Follow the money.

Something to learn.

The IT talent pool there are unquestionably top-rated.

The question is, who is going to be number 2?

When India itself looks to outsource some lower-value activities so its engineers could focus on McKinsey‘s level, where would it place its chips?

Malaysia seems to “get” this as shown in its laser-focused software parks and tight coordination between academia and corporate entities.

Thailand has realized that more could turn out to be less.

Back to Korea, back to Singapore and Taiwan.

Expensive? Yes.

Quality? Also a Yes.

You get what you  pay for.

Something can’t be manufactured overnight like curiosity, creativity and connectivity.

I read somewhere that the British Intelligence Service made a job offer for who ever could hack into its  system.

Again, why not use the talent that is out there.

In our digital age, anywhere-anytime connectivity opens up tons of opportunities for both the good and the bad.

Never a boring moment.

7 Billion  people in motion.

Key board got tapped.

Cursors blinking and moving, one word at a time.

Thoughts are formed and sentences completed.

New age, new idea.

Something to learn, to test and to share.

Facebook promised to “blow us out of the water” when it unveils the new Facebook. I hope someone inside Facebook did a study on the New Coke.

It’s a historic brand mismanagement.

But then, because of New Coke, we now got Classic Coke.

Coca Cola still rules. Something to learn from. And that is, brand endures even when challenged. When it comes to people, it’s character and not charisma. No wonder companies like SouthWest Airlines just kept growing , methodically and efficiently year after year (per Collins). It would not be far-fetched to say the 10,000 hours that are required for an individual to acquire a new skill set, is also applied to companies as well. Something to learn and learn well, time after time, day in and out to develop second nature.

Crossed markets

Forbes kept praising the success of luxury brands in China while web sites in Vietnam and China mentioned “Pepper Spray on Black Friday”. Chinese-made goods, sold as lost leaders, to the first 100-early-bird shoppers.

Planned scarcity.

Hype-creation.

Sensational, sizzling headline-grabbing video op for YouTube.

We need attention. The media need it even more. (For some counter-intuitive reasons, Warren Buffet just spent a chunk of change buying his hometown newspaper, which was bleeding financially).

Maybe he knew something we didn’t.

Here in Vietnam, I found shopkeepers, “loss prevention” guards, and people at the coffee shops all trying to read something.

Literacy rates are high (low 90’s),  perhaps higher than a lot of their counterparts in Asia.

People in motion here at night market in Hanh Thong Tay (budget shoppers for style).

The demographic (mostly young) definitely is an advantage (they won’t die half way through your projects).

Young people here are very assertive in expressing their ideas and opinions.

If you can ride the scooters to and from work, you can definitely work.

And if you can ride to work, on an empty stomach, you definitely need to work hard.

And if you can ride to work on an empty stomach, while at home, there are more empty stomachs, you have no choice but to work and study hard.

What do young people do with their leisure time? That’s right, computer gaming.

Next thing you know, they upgrade to mobile gaming, the same way they have grown up wanting  to get behind the scooters.

Nation in motion.

Back to China with luxury goods and 200 million people moved out of poverty to the middle class.

In those same thirty years, we saw the decline of the West.

Next thirty years, the rise of the Rest.

Stock up on your pepper spray. Stock up on Christmas decoration.

Stockpiling your weapons of mass consumption.

Shopping has always been a patriotic act in the US.

Shop to save: what a contradiction in terms.

Meanwhile, people in China are putting away money for their “only child’s” wedding.

There will be a lot of empty-nesters in China.

There will then be a lot of old tourists from China.

They got tired of their own Great Wall (of China).

They want to take photo standing in front of the Eiffel Tower, built for the first World’s Fair.

They want to experience Paris of the 50-60’s, where “tous leas garcons et les filles de mon age se promaine, dans la rue…”

Everyone is entitled to their 15-min of fame.

To the childhood’s dream.

Of  strange shores and leaving the familiar behind.

Materialism trumps sentimentalism any day, any time.

That’s how the world is flat: consumers are kings and queens, on Black Friday and any Friday.