Tag: Texas

Repatriation

You can take a boy out of Texas, but you can’t take Texas out of the boy.

This happens to me, not once, but twice. Culture shock upon culture shock! until I feel numbed.

I jog on the street full of motorbikes (nice people would say “Co len”, bad people would try to run me over), or tell jokes at music jam session, oblivious to the fact that half of the audience barely catches the meaning, much less the punch line.

So I made a few mistakes upon repatriation.

Mistakes I have had to pay for dearly, monetarily or otherwise (just stop short of  becoming a social stigma since it’s more acceptable to backpackers to come across as free and loosed, not someone whose outward looks exactly like locals).

There are Viet Kieu, and there are Viet Kieu.

The former, tourists – waving their US dollars , and the later, expats – hiding their VN dong.

Or, as I often joke: the real Viet Keu would react “OUCH!” when got slapped, while the fake ones “UI DA!”.

But it depends on where you go and spend your money. If a place rates you on how thick your wallet is, then it will throw you out the next time when you are a bit short .

Back to my jogging across the round-about. Quite challenging. In the rain, and in the thick of Saigon rush-hour traffic, I had to tap dance, jog in place or run in opposite direction like a running back at the starting line of another down in football).

I do miss my time at Penn State. Just like when I was at Penn State, I missed my time in Saigon. You can take the boy out of Saigon, but you can’t take Saigon out of the boy. At Penn State, I simply wished for a meal surrounded by my extended family, or to hang out with friends, some smoke, some play the guitar. Now, I am back, repatriated. With some new friends who smoke, some play the guitar. Then all of a sudden, I wish for that 8-shaped trail which wraps around the University Park golf field. There, I wouldn’t get run over by two-wheel bikes, but then, I wouldn’t hear “co len” by complete strangers either.

More than once, I have let the outside affect what’s inside. Now, after taking so many punches, I counter-punch by let the inside affect the outside. Like telling a joke in English to an audience of mostly Vietnamese . The experience was diametrically opposite to the time at Penn State when I was trying to blend in without  “getting” the punch line (since I was unprepared for a completely different conceptual frame of reference ). Exile to expatriaton.

At the end of all travel, one returns to the starting point and know the place for the first time. It has happened to me. Like a newborn again, taking in and embracing everything. So familiar yet so foreign.

My Saigon

Like Trinh Cong Son‘s Diem Xua, I got my own imprints of what  Saigon was like.

Especially on Sundays, like today.

Shaded streets, short strolls and sweet smiles.

Who needs all the executive shirt with designers’ emblem on it.

Instead of shirt, just smile even when you are not on camera. “Cuoi len di em oi” Just smile.

Le Sourire.

Flowers for the graves, flowers for the grade school teachers.

Lots of laughters, lots of tears “Ta chi can mot nguoi cung voi ta doi chet moi ngay”

Just a person to pass the time with while awaiting death inevitable.

Hence, Saigonese put on their best.

Last night, at a friend’s private birthday party, I sat outside on the balcony, looking into the glass door, taking in the scene, as if it were a movie set. Was I there, or just watching myself being there?

Am I in or in but not of it?

They say you can take a Texan out of Texas, but you cannot take Texas out of a Texan.

Perhaps the same holds true for Saigonese like myself .

Something about the French cafe, the Vespa, the Chinese noodle, and now, the KFC.

Saigon is a synthesis.

We “cao dai (unitarian) every strand of thoughts and expressions.

No one knows or is let in to our core. Double protection.

Suspicious of foreigners yet embrace them all.

Like on LinkedIN.

Like on Facebook.

Like on Twitter.

Just smile.

Le sourire.

Lots of laughter and lots of tears.

Just one life time.

But in mine, I have seen Saigon live multiple lives.Try every dish, every taste: bitter cucumber or  pickled lemon.

We take everything and leave out nothing.

During my entire life interacting and learning about Saigon , I have yet seen Saigon lose out.

It blends and synthesizes everything.

To the point where you could only recognize it by its smile.

Then the younger generation takes over.

You see the resemblance but can’t put a finger on it.

Turns out it’s that smile underneath the facade.

They smile when they are happy and when they are sad (see Understanding Vietnam).

Saigon’s smile is more of a reaction than an expression. “You always smile but in your eyes your sorrow shows”.

My Saigon. Cuoi len di em oi, du nuoc mat rot chet vanh moi. Smiling while swallowing tears.

Inching back to life

When we face a critical juncture on the road, we need to be decisive.

A liberal arts training doesn’t hurt either. Even when two people arrived at the same conclusion, liberal art thinkers insist that between A and B, a straight line might not be the best alternative.

Just the shortest.

As nature would agree, it favors the fittest, not the fastest among us.

We are having a leadership crisis. Our Job Czar, himself the best job outsourcer, says on 60 Minutes “I work for the shareholders” when asked about CSR (Corporate social/civic responsibilities).  Those shareholders might be Saudi sovereign funds, or  Chinese who couldn’t wait to get their hands on the secret sauce of GE aircraft engines).

The seamstresses and the toy makers who saved, end up owning the aircraft makers who overspent.

Remember, the problem of a declining America doesn’t happen overnight.

It is a confluence of factors, none of which favors the American work force (the missing middle class).

It would be easy if it had been a series of  A/B forced choices. I look at Steve Jobs timeline, and notice a parallel between his life and America’s:

starting from 1976 when he built his personal computer in a garage to the latest I-phone roll out.

At roughly the same time, America hosted Deng’s visit to Texas  and ordered a bunch of toys (remember Mattel then, Foxconn).

The rest as they say, is history: restless children play at stationary desktops, while dumb adults tinker with smart phones.

Light-weight, high-yield processors have upended America’s growth trajectory which began with heavy industries ( 50’s American autos are still popular in Cuba).

This shift doesn’t just level the playing field. It erases the whole map (employees carrying personal smart phones to work, hence, increases both personal and corporate productivity).

Now we have to crawl back to life, like in the Wrestler: feeling the rope and relying on muscle memories.

We need to inch back to life with new digital instincts. We need to be the fittest again before resigning ourselves to fateful and final acceptance of defeat.

I never know an America that is fatalistic. In its short history of warfare, its people always take up arms when challenged. In that spirit, let’s reverse course, inch by inch, back to health. It might have been a step back, but who knows, this will end up with two steps forward.

Success always rewards itself with more. It just that we haven’t tasted it lately to remember how intoxicating it once was and can still be.

Small is still beautiful

I clicked on the “Place Order” button, and a few days later, arrived the used paperback copy of Small is Beautiful, by E.F. Schumacher. Its tag line ” Economics as if People Mattered”.

I thought I had that same yellowish copy somewhere after years of moving around.

Back then, graduate students already drove small cars (Pinto).

Unless you long for a Detroit of yesterday, then visit Cuba, where those old but sturdy automobiles still ride.

Evergreen of Massachusetts had decided to move to China.

New tech, new frontier.

After a great job marketing Hyundai, Mr Akerson “thinks about it”, and helps GM stay competitive in the new Detroit, where people now build cars as if oil mattered.

I clicked on “Both Sides Now” by Joni Mitchell on YouTube. Same song, decades apart. But this time, with deeper understanding.

As of this edit, it’s Buddha’s birthday. Compassion and empathy. Perhaps we too, in our dealings with others, can view the situation from both sides. A call for empathy on this side of future.

In China, everyone seems to be happy that their President was well-received (and not having to travel to Texas and put on that cowboy hat as his predecessor did). This time, it was Chicago, instead. And the visit was to a Chinese-language school. Credits were due to Mayor Daley. Someone saw something that needs to be done (picking up a second language to stay globally competitive), and did it. Aim, fire then be ready. Just remember, small is still beautiful – economics as if people mattered.

Viet-Am Third Migration

First wave: 1975, 4 “ports of entry”: Arkansas, California, Florida and Pennsylvania.

Second wave: 1978 -2008 South Westward to California and Texas.

Third wave: joining everyone else during this Recession to the Lone Star State, where 8% unemployment still looks better than 12% and 10% in Florida and California, respectively.

Part of the American Dream is mobility: chasing the tornado to find the rainbow in the end. If it’s out there, we will hunt it down, dead or alive.

So begins our journey, to the moon and into the cave (found one recently near Lao’s border in Central Vietnam – see latest National Geographic).

Like Gordon Gecko in Oliver Stone‘s latest installment, Viet-American, over a bowl of Pho in Hong Kong Mall, Houston, says, “it’s a game, a game between people”.

I have yet seen a set of more competitive people. They push their children and themselves to achieve and acquire: straight A+’s for the kids, Lexus’ for moms and Heineken for dads.

Pajamas culture in collision with Long Johns’. At least, both extol strong work ethic. Size apart, third-wave Viet-Ams (mostly in Houston and Dallas) found natural affiliation with Texan (machismo) in dominion over the land (agrarian bent), the sea (Galveston) and exploration of natural resources (oil).

Herd instinct kicks in. Warmer weather, Sun Belt migration pattern which already started since 1978 (with one hiccup during the oil burst in early 80’s – to preticipate Silicon Valley dot.com burst 20 years later).

No wonder they opened another Vietnam consulate there in Houston to ease Visa processing. It’s time to roll that dice again, Texan style. There was a Rock and Roll band already stationed there. The CBC, after a stint in Hawaii, are content to stay put (instead of “born to be wild”). The aged fan base got two phases of the past all mixed up: ball room dancing (French influence) with R & R (GI’s influence during the War).  Oh Suzie Q! Napalm girl now turned 40.

For the Viet-Am Catholics, this would be their fourth and final migration: 1954, from North to South Vietnam just to join every else in 1975 and later years out to seas, and risk becoming pilgrims at the mercy of pirates while looking for paradise.

Their sons and daughters now have Anglicized names. Some ran for office, others turned accomplished journalists. One of them had a piece on NBC Nightly News . Thanh Truong covered a fire-causing death of hobos’ in New Orleans.

Ending his report in a note of empathy, Truong commented “they came here seeking shelter which turned to be a memorial”. Let’s hope the same comment won’t apply to Third Wave Viet-Am U-Haulers to Texas these days. Just another untold tale from a lingering Recession.