Tag: Starbucks

Cafe sua da

Lately, articles about “banh mi” started to appear in the Bay area publications.

What should have accompanied those articles was Cafe sua da (Iced cafe-au-lait).

The coffee chamber sat on the cup. Hot water drips down, one drip at a time, on top of condensed milk.

Bitter and sweet, hot and cold.

It’s a night-and-day difference from coffee found sitting all burned up at a 7-11 near you.

Because of the long wait, friends start chatting.

So and so just got another divorce.

So and so is still alive.

The Brits got their tea from India. The French got their coffee from its former colonies, among them Vietnam.

Gotta have that coffee. You can hold the OJ.

“Cafe sua da” is found at practically every corner of Vietnam.

I found it in Dalat, at 4 AM, Hanoi at 1PM.

In Orange County, you can have it served by half-naked coctail waitresses.

Everything social seems to revolve around Cafe Sua Da.

Between the Banh Mi, Pho and Cafe Sua Da, you pretty much complete your hunt for Vietnamese export cuisine.

And the interesting thing about all three: you can order them at all hours in the day and anywhere from Bellaire (TX) to Bolsa (CA), from New Orleans to New York.

When cultures collide, there are gives and takes. In this case, Vietnamese contributions abroad have been mostly in manicuring,  cuisine ( as mentioned) and fashion (ao dai).

Last week, in the suburb of Washington  D.C, police moved in to make arrests at some coffee houses (charges false or true remain to be sorted out).

But one thing for sure, the crooked and straight both want their Cafe sua da.

I stopped by there once, jet-lagged and all, to find out I was their first customer. Traditionally, the first customer is supposed to usher in either luck or curse of the day (during Tet, it’s for the entire year).

So, to avoid this superstitious entrapment, I ordered my cup to go.

It did not come out right, because Cafe Sua Da is meant to be shared with chatty friends.

It’s a culture of coffee that Howard Shultz of Starbucks found fascinating during his visit to Italy. In the Vietnamese American case, it offers a half-way home at a Starbucks price, without the pretense of having your name scribbled on the  cup to be belled out later as if you were a regular. The difference between Cafe Sua Da and Cafe Starbucks was more pronounced during this downturn: Starbucks lost customers to McCafe, while Cafe Sua Da still holds, one drip at a time.

Cafe Au Lait has survived , transformed and migrated from North to South Vietnam, and from Southern Vietnam to Southern California. It’s still coffee, but the way it is served, sitting on top of the cup, has been the beverage of choice for many of us to start the day. When the coffee is right, everything seems to go all right from there. Now you know my hang-up and why I can’t stand the burned coffee smell at 7-11 or McDonald. Perhaps because of the way it is served there or the speed at which they collect your money. Yet who am I to ask for more, when for years, on campus, I could make do with vending machines. Those machines, I heard, now serve instant noodles. They said when you were hungry, your brain picks unhealthy food. Hungry or not, between instant noodles-vended coffee and Banh-Mi-and-Cafe- Sua- Da , I pick the later every time.

Ole friends as mirrors

We finally met, at Starbucks. 3 classmates. 39 years and a huge ocean in between.

We could have just waited. Starbucks is opening up in Vietnam soon.

But there we were: the skinny, the fat and the ugly (me).

Past, present, past. Time interlacing.

No preset agenda. No chronological order, or Robert’s rules of order.

Not a multi-level recruiting session. Just a Jr-high get-together after 4 decades apart.

My daughter works at State. My son got eye problem etc..

Me? I am fine. Just can’t help observing, taking it in and connecting the dots. For instance, I don’t think the richest 1% read latest non-fiction about their own exploitation in “the Age of Greed” etc..They are too busy living it.

Or, the failure of “strategic hamlets” during the war (as revealed in the now-declassified Pentagon Papers) has unintended consequences in the rise of Vietnamese women in the manicuring industry (if you zoom out 40 years).

Lately, the only tree I see growing, is Dollar Tree.

In fact, America needs to grow money on tree.

Back to seeing ole friends. They kept looking at me, I them.

We served as mirrors to one another.

No, I don’t touch the guitar any more.

Nothing to scream about,not at this age, not at this time.

I am not Rod Stewart or Barry Manilow.

Those guys got good mileage.

Every one got their 15 minutes.

On YouTube or otherwise.

(picture of a couple kissing during the Vancouver riot went viral).

Make love, not war.

Google it, tweet it, “like it”, +1 it.

Electronic communication in abundance, yet we lost touch, almost 40 years until a high-tech friend started our Yahoo group to mend bridges.

So, via group-mail, attachment (photo), google map, 3-G mobile phone, finally, we meet over coffee and where else but Chinese buffet.

I told you, it’s the age of electronics and globalization.

We could have waited for Starbucks to come to Vietnam.

We could have just stay put.

Hold it. Build it. They will come. As they have always.

Columbus dispelled the myth that the Earth was square.

But once proven his point, he set out to claim the Earth his spoil.

Gun and steel, plus a lot of germs.

Or, the opposite, agent Orange, to defoliate and deform everyone in its path.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110617/ap_on_sc/as_vietnam_us_agent_orange

I am glad my friends are all right.

The one who was a bit on the wild side, got a daughter who did him proud.

The one who was on the quiet side, can’t wait for me to come and visit again.

I wonder how many social web I have missed out, due to war and its hidden costs.

Yes, we are alright, but the 4 decades in between have just been a big hole. So big that it could hold a 7,000-page Pentagon Papers , or a life-time of loss.

Life’s soundtrack

I have just received a photo showing a hot-air balloon over Seattle, with me and Geoffrey in the basket. We just need a soundtrack to add to it. The puffy hot air, the wind which carried us over the lush-green scenery with Bill Gates himself living on the ground. If given a choice, I choose “Theme from Woodstock”, since we were kidding ourselves that we were “stock East” and “stock West”.

The same lay of the land, without the housing bubble (Seattle and Washington D.C. exempted).

Home to MSC, Amazon and Starbucks.

My cousin used to live there until he died. A former Red Beret and a school teacher.

The last time we spoke was when he wished me a happy marriage. In hindsight, I wished I had made the journey to visit him up there instead of Nova Scotia. By the time I was in that company-sponsored hot-air balloon, my Seattle-based cousin had already died.

Given that context, I would lay down the music track “theme from the deer hunter” (Cavatina) instead for that hot-air balloon trip. Same visual, different feel to it when you lay a different soundtrack underneath.

The difference between the soup lines from the Recession of 1930 and this one, was in how we recorded history: one in Black-and-White grainy photos, and one in crisp digital copies.

Men who carry themselves with whatever dignity left inside of them (even when the fire went out).

President Obama is urging the nation to go back to Community College to get manufacturing certificate. He did not mention that we are living in a disposable society, where the manufacturing sector (which used to produce disposable goods like Campbell soup) is itself disposable, outsourced to lower-wage countries (and downward spiraled from there).

We are lucky now if we can view Modern Times by Charlie Chaplin and laugh.

If he were alive, he wouldn’t think it’s funny at all. He meant to be prophetic, not to produce a documentary about globalization of the manufacturing sector. He wanted to humanize the workers, just to see his audience now sidelined, watching the process repeat itself overseas (with Asian actors).

If I were to lay a soundtrack to these “silent” movies, I would put Theme from the Exodus

(during the Tet massacre of 1968, they laid this soundtrack to show mass graves in Hue).

As in any movie, I need to zoom out now. Back to my hot-air balloon trip with Geoffrey in Seattle.

We saw the lush green, other teams’ balloons, and finally landed safely to the gathering place where we congratulated ourselves for being Ovation winners. Let the bonding continue. Soundtrack “theme from Chariots of Fire“.

Culture shock, future shock, aftershock

We just saw an aftershock in Japan at magnitude 7.0. In and of itself, it’s a major earthquake. But, since it had been preceded by the big one (9.0), it is pale in comparison.

As to culture shock, a man from the Amazon who got transported to Seattle, WA will only hear one thing in common: Amazon.com.
The rest like Starbucks, Microsoft etc… seems strange to him. Off the bet, he needs winter wear to survive.

Like Austin Powers who needs to adjust expectations, majorly, upon stepping out of deep freeze.

Things are partitioned with biometric passwords and cumbersome authentication process (unlike the Woodstock fence which got pushed down and stayed down for the duration of the three-day concert). No room on the VW van or Love bus for Luddites.

Welcome to our digital future, where everything is mobile and online.

Austin cannot use his traditional charm to pry for information.

In other words, his spy craft needs serious brush-ups.

(incidentally, dentistry has advanced quite nicely since his time).

He will hardly get any service or human interaction: at the gym (finger print pad, more sophisticated than Austin’s spy school,) on the phone with “customer service” (speech recognition and voice activation before you get a live operator, from call center far way, whose accent Austin incidentally can ID, but may be doubtful if he had mis-dialed the country code).

Even kids check text messages while talking to parents. The Dad still checks out stock quotes while his wife nags that dinner was ready.

Yet one deadline remains the same: April 15th. As sure as death, tax time is due time for everyone. Government might get shut down, so pay up.

The future is now. But it comes not without a few shocks of its own.

Meanwhile, ROW (rest of world) is playing catch up. Emerging countries all try to export their stuff to the Walmart near you. Pretty soon, we are surrounded by Dollar stores, where everything is priced at one dollar, inflation-adjusted.

BTW, when our Austin Powers runs into our Amazon man in Seattle, they can agree on one thing: we need to take care of Mother Nature, because these aftershocks are not funny. Quite inconvenient indeed. Whether you are a primitive man or a hit man, you know that when the bell tolls for thee, it’s also for me. Culture shock, I can adapt. Future shock, I can embrace. But aftershock, …. it keeps me up at night. Just check with Fukushima and Sandy refugees in the shelters. They can tell you, it may take years, not months, before they can return to “normal”. I can empathize, having absorbed all three shocks myself.

Austin

Tech campus turned Mall (still keeps the “DOMAIN” name).

Borders out of business, but Apple store is thriving.

Austin, ranked as most tolerant city in America, saw Chinese Graduate students hang out leisurely on a Sunday afternoon, complete with rocking chairs, very well be made in China.

Welcome to America. Welcome to Starbucks. What’s your name buddy? My name is Buddy.

Howdy Buddy. Wait over that line for your gourmet latte.

It’s the one spot in the middle of Texas where even a native feels out-of-place.

It could have been a page right out of the San Jose playbook.

Silicon Valley meets Silicon Hills. If only they can pull off a Chinese New Year Parade as does annually in San Francisco.

Fifteen years ago, there was little of the town as far as Asian groceries and shops.

Now there exists a large, newly built compound, unmistakably Asian with names like  Pho Saigon, Saigon Baguette, Chinese barbeque. There even is a Chinese bank at the corner, as well as Chinese church at the T section of Braker and Dessau.

The Recession made strange bed fellows, at times, literally (interracial couples seen walking down the street, forcing senior citizens to pause and be puzzled: are we at war with China? The last times Asian girls seen walking with white guys, was during war-time that brought them together were during the Korean and Vietnam Wars.).

So, there it is, a new Domain, complete and transformed from a once overhyped dot.com era.

Yes, Austin is thriving and aggressive to win over California businesses and elsewhere. UT students are benefited from this microcosm of the larger world.

Gaming and software companies are source-coding every minute of the day and night. It’s fitting that 24-hr gyms pick this city to expand.

One thing that was left out in The Rise of the Creative Class. Austin, although ranked as most tolerant city in America, is also home to most allergies in America. I knew it’s too good to be true from the Chamber of Commerce web page. It is now a certified truth that one needs to walk the ground as well as see things from afar. GPS alone can’t quite do the job.  Onward, adapt (euphemism for step back), then onward again.

Starbucks knows it best. Until the McDonald guy catches on. He asked for my name (first time in 36 years). I gave it to him too. My name is Buddy.

On Seeing

With YouTube, Skype Video and 4-G network, we will be watching a lot of video.

Some content was finally “remastered” to be added on to the collective archive in the cloud.

Yet, we neglect to clean our lenses and learn to see as if for the first time.

The sense of wonder, curiosity, marvel, or just discover what’s been there all along.

(The National Archivist picked Star Wars among others for future

generations).

I had my glass redone last week. After trying the new lenses on, it got worse. Turned out that the store had the wrong measurement for the order.

What you see depends on where you stand.

A or B? Is this better or worse?

Yesterday, on Bloomberg, Pimm Fox had a great interview with Howard Davidowitz, who pointed out that with more online shopping, we are stuck with so much excess in commercial retail space.

I live close to the near-abandoned Palm Beach Mall. All stores had moved out, except for JC Penney. Even when it’s not “last chance bargain” store, it feels like it.

We view others and being viewed within a context. I have my daughter’s high school graduation picture on my desk. I might be looking at her picture, but actually, she has looked at me, watching Dad struggle, put on his best face, war face if need be.

We also see differently when we are intoxicated, or with a pocket full of money.

It’s sad to hear that attempts at micro lending in India have failed due to loan sharks.

Noble idea but not without some hiccups.

With a new decade comes new configuration, if only we can “see” (IaaS for instance).

See what’s left standing. See what’s coming up from behind.

See who are still with us when the dust is settled.

And most importantly, seeing our real selves: that which has actually emerged due to so much contextual stimuli (that draw out our characters, and sharpen them in the process.)

The old Western movies extolled the Alpha Male (Last Man Standing).

Somehow, our Capitalist society got a page from that same script. The result is, Chase  branch at every corner, and JC Penney the only left in the block.

I know now what’s tomorrow’s blog should be about: on becoming.

New terms such as “coffice” (in Korea, you pay for the coffee like at Starbucks and sit down to commandeer a table from 9-5), TARP, CDO etc…New Year Celebration, on ABC, I heard Ke$ha (We are who we are) say “let’s make twenty eleven a bitch”.

Underneath it all, we should be glad that next-gen are holding it quite well.

If twenty eleven turns out as expected, then we are going to be OK.

That’s how I “see” it. So much wasted retail space, so much wasted US talent.

 

Vietnamize the franchise

Carl Jr, Starbucks, Hard Rock Cafe, KFC, BK, MacDonald, Circle K, Domino, Pizza Hut.

The age of franchise bull run.

When I said I had been to 40+ cities in N America, I actually meant, I have been to only one. The one with MacDonald, Starbucks, Walmart, Target etc…

You got the idea.

The funny thing was, per my  job, I had to zero in Chinese and Vietnamese niche markets in those cities.

And within these niches, I ran into Lee Sandwiches, Tung Ki noodles, Pho Hoa,  Hoa Phat Money Transfer, Le money transfer etc…

Can’t seem to find the authentically local flavor (maybe in New Orleans and Biloxi).

HCMC and Hanoi will soon be filled with similar landmarks, once the invasion of franchise outlets saturated those two engines of growth.

For now, it’s novelty to sit in a new establishment, place your order and self-serve your drinks (the age of prosumerism).

I ordered an iced coffee milk this morning at a local MacDonald. What I got was iced milk. And the cookie I ordered, I had to pay three times for it

(because the system doesn’t allow for customer to buy just one).

So, welcome to supply chain, branding and upselling.

And good luck with getting customer service at those places.

Indeed, one can go through life, at least here in the States, for a month without ever getting any help at all, over the phone or the counter.

See my other blog on “machine and me”.

It gets to be lonely. Hence the blog.

I hope Vietnam doesn’t get that way, at least, not yet until I can find a Carl Jr at every corner, right next to the Starbucks.

Third place, third screen, third world

Known as the third place (away from home and work), Starbucks did not stop after opening up in Forbidden City, China.

It has just opened for business in Vietnam (where the I-phone, our third screen – after TV and desktop – recently made a stirring appearance).

Vietnam young consumer segment and older generations with French-cafe habit are low-hanging fruit.

It will have to acquire prime real estate and make an inroad into tourist centers, or M&A with existing Viet-Thai International who operates Highland coffee chain.

Either way, the WiFi Third Place is here in once Third World., Cheryl Crow‘ s pipe-in music (if it makes you happy, and why the hell are you so sad).  After all, Hard Rock cafe has beaten Starbucks to the punch.  Now the hard part is how to translate those “tall ice latte” into Vietnamese.

Those slim bodies are ready to put on some weight.  Soon, location-based promotion will pop up on those I-phones, showing tourists where to get a foamy caffeine fix. It’s no longer Third World but where ever there is a Third Place with Third Screen, that’s home.

No need for coded song (White Christmas) to launch an evacuation. Just stay put for the next Cheryl Crow’s spin on an old Carpenter’s song “While life goes on around him everywhere he’s playing solitaire”. Third Place, third screen, anywhere.

Monk in Wal-Mart

God, guns and country.

Then, a monk, not outside of Wal-Mart soliciting for donation, but inside, at the cashier line, waiting to pay.

It’s a common sight today.

But by turning the clock back a few decades, you wouldn’t expect both (Monk and Wal-Mart) to coexist.

At least, it’s not quite as contrast a sight as a Monk in Rodeo Drive  or Worth Avenue.

With the growing  Asian American population , there is an increasing need for “homegrown” spiritual nourishment.

Back then, young Americans would have to be so “rad” before “turning East” (that is, if they did not go North to evade the draft) That tide had been stamped out or overshadowed by the theocratic Moral Majority until the 90’s when the South Asian and Asian American population

(second generation) started to gain traction, and their parents could afford to upscale their kids to Ivy-league schools.

Studies show bi-lingual bi-cultural kids excel in school. Where else can they go to hone their first-turned-second language besides the Mosque, Pagoda and Churches.

The monks started to come (no more burning monk – an event which I eye-witnessed, and which Madam Nhu said if they wished, they could just “barbecue” themselves, since they had done it to themselves).

I have high respect for people who before green is cool, already subscribed to the tenet that we brought nothing to this Earth, thus try not to harm it. And that the path to Enlightenment is NOT to want things. With this backdrop in mind, it is quite a cognitive-dissonance to see a monk in Wal-Mart .Monks are taught to consume only if/when necessary, while Wal-Mart is a hotbed of consumerism in bulk. “Save more, live better”.

Recent numbers are showing that chains like TJ Maxx are doing well, unlike Macy and JC Penney.

Near where I live, in West Palm Beach, the JC Penney mall has turned ghost mall during the downturn of the economy.

Meanwhile, residents in the area feel like they are singled out to live in a ghost town . Incidentally there is a Hummer dealership nearby, which makes it worse if it ends up being own by the Chinese. All we need is a Haier,

a Hummer and a Huawei store to make this a nouveaux Chinatown, complete with spiritual tending by a Buddhist temple nearby. The Mormons and the Monks can stake out their turfs in this new world order, a sort of  World Cup for religious ideas.

What we need is public education on the environment, ethics, and economics. We have experienced enough devastation to appreciate their importance. And when the Earth cries out for attention like Katrina, Fukushima or Haiyan; when greed got the better of everyone (the Ponzification of America) we then start embracing Wal-Mart over Wall Street. The monk was probably too busy tending to his expanding flock to notice the difference. We prefer to roll back the Yuppies decade, trading up at Starbucks’ and while at it, throwing in a Bob Dylan CD (with T Shirt box set). That in itself is an irony (icon of protest now peddles his merchandise co-opting with yuppies, not hippies). When you see Starbucks come back, you know the economy has recovered.  For now, I will stick to instant coffee, while wholesale supplies last, at Wal-Mart. I am right behind the monk, in Wal-Mart.

A girl walks into a bar…

We all need a “third place” (neither home nor office) to let our hair down.

It used to be Cheers-like place “where everybody knows your name“.

And lately, it’s been Starbucks, which struck a yuppie nerve (male and female).

With the lingering recession, I suspect that jokes will have to start with “a girl walks into a Starbucks…” or

“a Mr Mom walks into a MacDonald…”

for both men and women share equal stress load during hard times. Except that women are more prone to explore

and share with one another their feelings, much more than men. I noticed a string of suicide by men, taking with them

their families, children included. The American dream had turned nightmare for some. We were more confident

to overspend money which was not ours than we do this side of “green sprouts” with money which is ours.  There lies the paradox:

economic activities are powered by collective trust and confidence, and slow down in their absence.

I saw the Verizon‘s CEO interview on Charlie Rose last night. He came across  astute and ambassadorial: “it’s getting back to the quality of the network”…(can you hear me now?).  I came away with higher appreciation for the smart phone category. And I couldn’t help agree more with Charlie’s last word ” wonder if the US will put more emphasis on tech adoption as some other countries did , so its citizens can take advantage of the network effect“.

We will learn to communicate in ways we have yet known how (from the early days of gossip news at the boat docks, and in the bars, to today’s instant tweet). I told you, we all need a third place, the place where everybody knows your name, where they can see what you are up to and maybe, share a laugh: “a girl walks into a bar, she demands to buy that TV behind the bar. Bartender replies, “No, can’t sell”. She asks “why not” Then the next day, same thing, except this time, she brings cash, lots of them. “I still want to buy that TV there behind the bar” Mam, can’t sell it to you. Why not? Well, for one, it’s not a TV. It’s a microwave.”