Tag: United States

Stories of Suffering

Unlike America where suffering is well hidden behind locked doors, here in Vietnam, it is in your face: lottery ticket sellers.

They could be an under-age child, a blind man, or the worst case, a young man who dragged himself (both feet paralyzed) along an extremely crowded street peddling tickets.

Even the Cu Chi tunnel, once hot and carpet-bombed, now welcomes visitors to its hollow chamber of suffering.  Underground resistance come clean.

To be here, to see those sites, to feel the heat, the smell, the suffering which might be raw to us, but taken for granted by everyone, is to face reality.

No pain killers, no aspirin.

Just raw sewage and suffering.

And when it heats up, in the middle of the day, you will know what it was like to endure, to persevere and to fight for survival.

A generation of leaders in politics and media have come of age: TV anchors (now retired) ambassador-nominee (J Kerry), committee head ( J. McCain) all had walked this ground.  One word that sums up Vietnam: HOT. Hot war during the Cold War, hot because of the heat, and now, “hot” is used for Retail during Christmas.

First-time visitors to Vietnam, from America, would step off the Cruise Ship.

Checked in an A/C hotel and showed up for tours.

He/she might find out at nearby bookstores that Vietnamese readers browse all sorts of literature from Russia, France, Japan, Australia, Eastern Europe and occasionally US.

In short, military powers don’t equate with cultural influence.

By 2030, studies reveal that Asia blocks and other emerging nations will share the various seats at the table. The dialog and discussions will be diverse.

The best outcome of America’s experience in Vietnam goes beyond the Powell Doctrine. It’s to produce a generation of leaders whose mindset now look beyond the surface (glossy), to the  suffering.

Cu Chi Tunnel or other tunnels. They are there to invite searchers and researchers to face and learn about other people, their aspiration and operation.

I haven’t yet taken that tour, but everyday, suffering is in my face. I shared a table with a blind man this morning over coffee. He stepped off a ten-person passenger vehicle (xe lam), found his way to the usual spot and lit up.

Then he pulled out a pocket-size radio for background music. I listened to that song (about mid-night mass rendez-vous) and felt what he felt: when your world is reduced to darkness and only darkness, you “dig” your way out of it, via other senses (touching and hearing). He used his fingers to measure the level when pouring his tea, while enjoying his portable music.

This was just one story of suffering. There are many more. If one cares and dares to face them instead of hiding them behind institutional doors.

Tears for Connecticut

If this blog were written in ink, it would be blotted with tears.

The photo of a school parent on cell  phone crying says it all.

Tears over wireless. Tears over space. Heck, I am in Vietnam, and won’t be back after Christmas. But I feel the pinch, the lump in the throat (try to listen to Tears in Heaven, by Eric Clapton, while advancing the slides about Newtown memorial service).

Who is to be blamed? God? Gun? or (lack of ) Gut?

The First Lady has been hard at work to improve school lunch (healthier menu). She got some opposition there (how hard is it to add yogurt and sliced apple to the institutional menu? Just outsource to McDonald).

Now, the job is not to add fresh fruit to the school. It’s to take the guns out of it.

The upcoming battle in America is not from outside. It’s right there from within.

Hollywood has taken the path of least resistance (sex + violence =  high revenue).

Porn sites were even lazier (just upload and watch your own).

Moralists are definitely not listened to (Cultural Literacy recommends the public to read Chaucer etc…) since they are way out of touch with mainstream conversation.

That leaves the World Wild West unfiltered.

In Back to Blood, Tom Wolfe painted an America of the future, with setting in Miami (giant projected porn flick on sail boats).

Each President got a four-year term, or 8 years max. Policies and politics don’t take the long view. They can not.

Career officers, of course, just do their jobs (until it changes again).

Meanwhile, no single person, well-meaning or not, can affect the outcome of the country. It’s natural selection. It always has been since its founding.

Checks and bounces. On the other hand, it’s this and that. When in doubt, we debate. Once in a while, we listen to Ron Paul, at least, out of courtesy, since it was his last speech before Congress.

But then, we move on. Short-term amnesia. Until the next tragedy. Aurora seems so far away. Now, it’s Newtown, Connecticut. Then, who could pro-actively prevent Newton, Mass? Wipe those tears away. Then, stand up. (as of this edit, there was a similar tragedy averted in Central FL University).

Those gun laws were written in their times within the agrarian Frontier contexts. Take the meaning, reframe it in new context. Yes, there are timeless stuff (right to privacy, right to self-defense and freedom of expression; all the good stuff that makes America what it is, a magnet to the world’s braves), but then, would you, as an Iraqi refugee, an Egyptian businessman, a French chef and Australian educator, think twice about coming to America, risking everything, including the young lives of your children? It makes for poor image as world’s leader.

Traffic dance in Saigon

First-timers to Saigon are shocked on arrival: the dance of two-wheel traffic.

Some even had to flag down a cyclo (three-way cycle) to take them across the street. An Ivy-League Math Prof was killed when crossing the street. He was there for a conference on solving traffic problems.

I have slowly built up confidence and coordination not to fight traffic but to dance with it.  Here are some observations:

– People ride on survival instinct and years of communal living: negotiating, turn-taking…

(unlike Western’s right of way)

– Expect the unexpected (scooters that go the wrong way)

– Traffic signs are not hundred per cent observed. In short, break all rules

– At rush hour, people tend to ride more slowly to accommodate heavy volume

– With the helmet law strictly enforced, there have been fewer accidents

– Almost everyone has been hit, ran over, or got a scratch. It’s a badge of honor

– When in an accident, people quickly blame the other party (emblemic in face-saving culture) then move on

– Buses, automobiles, scooters, cyclos, pedestrians, handicapped people v.v… all have equal right of way, but buses have louder horns and weave in and out of traffic per passenger’s request

– best way to navigate rush hour traffic is to take a “xe-om” (taxi-scooter) since these drivers know which alleys and arteries for short-cut

– when it rains, it’s best to stay out of the street, since available surface is taken over by undrained water (sewage problems).

Traffic don’t just get to be this dense overnight. It’s been built up over time.

The same with your capacity to become one with it. It takes time. In my case, many trips and trials (got whacked once by a wrong-way scooter) barely got me to be a member of the club.

After that, your next lesson will be how to stay out of the sun given a few shades left in the city. For now, watch in ALL directions when crossing, not just the designated flow of legal traffic. Survival trumps legality. Be brave and smart. Watch before you leap, but then, he who hesitates is lost.

If you got in an accident, blame the other party first, then move on.

On “Fraction of a Whole”

We are not invited into this dysfunctional family of three generations, all 750 pages of it.

Crime fiction, social commentary and extremely hilarious saga.

I stayed up late last night for its racing conclusion.

A year and a half ago, I read Freedom by Franzen. As engrossing as Fraction of a Whole.

This family questioned everything, but centrally, they wrestle with Death inevitable (committing suicide is to take the wind out of “natural” death’s sail).

From cover to cover, we learn to think and reason like Martin, Terry and Jasper Dean (Father, Uncle and Son), given ample details for contextual understanding. On the way, we learn to like the women in their lives as well. The settings took us from Europe to Australia, to Thailand and back.

I know a few Aussies. But this book took me deep in the woods, where to warn his family of imminent danger, Jasper had to resort to telephathy.

Terry Dean later resurfaced as huge as could be. With the locals taking the law into their own hands (machetes etc…), it reminded me of a scene from Apocalypse Now “horror, horror”.

It’s Jasper Dean who played memory keeper. He had his own set of problems: trying to find as much as possible about his deceased Parisienne mom.

This book  raises an important question: are we 100 per cent ourselves? How about our neighbors? Perhaps we all try to blend in, interacting with the lowest  common denominators (in the age of carefully crafted image on social network). If so, then, let’s turn the page and hear Martin Dean’s speech on the night his grand idea got implemented (making the population of Australia all millionaires).  Even fools sometimes got a point. And for someone whose debut got a finalist vote on Man Booker‘s prize, this is as good a read as can be. For me, it’s a rare treat,to follow the Deans in Vietnamese version. Fraction of a Whole. And that “whole” will soon be 9 Billion souls by 2050.

Each with a story to tell. In Deans’ case, a fraction turned out to be quite a hand full.

When dreams are gone!

A few blogs ago, I wrote about Noel Decoration in Saigon.

A few weeks from now, the glitters will have been all gone.

Party is over.

Then, it’s a long grind. 2013.

The quants have already crunchedl year-end data: sunk costs, margin, consumer behavior (irrational at times – hint: sell spirits over the holidays).

The monks look on Christmas helplessly. They wait their turn (Buddhist birthday).

Girl friends are hoping loudly for gifts, employees for bonus.

After all, it’s Christ‘s birthday.

The author became a character in a  play he had created.

Empathy. Homelessness. Rejection. Illegitimacy (ask him for his birth certificate).

Our consumerist society has co-opted and corrupted every single occasion to sell merchandise. Together, we build “brand”.

The dream goes like this, “it’s Christmas, the season of giving. So borrow and buy, first for your miserable self, then for those near and far, like them or not. Ship them, don’t like them, then return them. We will send something else, or give you store credits to shop some more”.

Many of these “gifts” end up in the closet along with next year’s wrapping papers.

And dreams just don’t stop there. New Year’s Resolution, ranging from vocational training, weight loss program, and cosmetic surgery. We keep trying, because after all, “life’s a moment in space” with a few surprises around the bend (hopefully they installed mirrors around the curves).

“When dreams are gone, it’s a lonelier place”. In a few weeks, those same hot spots where decorations are now up, will be desolate.

The crowd will have moved on, from Bethlehem to Babel, from cashier to customer service. Next! Return or exchange? 2013, long grind.

From Mandarin to Model (Lung Dai-Chan Dai)

My generation have been a betweener one: from Mandarin to Mobile phone system, from French Colonial to Fashion TV (with Asia Next Top Model).

The saying goes like this “Vong Anh di truoc, Vong Nang theo sau” i.e. when a man passed the King’s exam, he went home to the village , with his lady in tow. Now, it’s the Model who get the gusto.

The Mandarin was supposed to quote from literature (like the old Hamlet), his back elongated from years of reading lying down. Now, it’s the Model whose legs stretch out on catwalk. Hence, from Lung Dai to Chan Dai.

Something is happening in Vietnam, very subtle and sensitive. Women assert  and insert themselves into traditionally male arena: homosexuality, clubbing, gang fighting, adultery, cougars, even robbing (as accomplices). Just stop short of having female wrestling.  The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo got translated and sold here.

Conversely, some guys went to Thailand for sex change.

It’s one thing to turn blind eye, in praise of equality. It’s another to acknowledge that with new-found freedom, Vietnamese women have yet figured out what to choose from the menu. The other night, I kept inhaling second-hand smoking from two young gals in an extremely crowded club (thankfully, those trendy cigarettes were slim).

Career? check. Stress? check. Marriage? no.

Kids? impossible (very cramp and tight space in Asia). Cosmopolitan? check.

In trading up their aspiration, they down-grade traditional mores.

Something must give. Tension abides in their climb to the top. Boy friend from the country side? Machismo? Spouse abuse? Out. Sugar daddy? Negotiable. Sugar Mamma? All the better and safer, with less complication.

Those who went abroad acquired sophistication and success (cosmopolitan). Those who stayed behind in the bubble, followed their instinct and insisted to have the cake and eat it too.

Change could go three ways: up and down in class, sideways when country side collides with city life, and speed of adoption ( women adapt more quickly with modernity than men.) With overseas travel, cable TV and internet,  the flat world pronounces mercilessly who the winners are (and the rest can just pack their bags, as in Next Top Model).

Vietnamese women, and counterparts around the world, walk the tight rope between: how to keep up a sense of self (motherhood and womanhood) in face of change (technology enabled and a more tolerant environment).

Don’t blame them for banding together for mutual support. (as of this edit, I am not sure Sandy’s book, Lean In, would soon be translated into Vietnamese).

Knowing this culture shift, one no longer is in shock when seeing women main-dans-la-main on the streets of Saigon. And those manifestations are just the tip of the iceberg.

The funny thing is, Mandarins are slow to catch on to this trend. Lung Dai-Chan Dai shift presents a dilemma. A very painful and irreversible one. Welcome to Mars, our next frontier for men and women. (Moon was mostly men’s discovery).  From here on out, it’s a two-way street for all.

The Filipino Invasion

You will find a bunch of Filipino bands around Saigon, from Hard Rock Cafe to Acoustic.

When the British rock bands gained noteriety in America back in the 60’s, the phenomenon was coined The British Invasion.

Now Vietnam is experiencing similar invasion by their neighbors.  They got the language (English), the look (still brown-skinned), and the connection (E2 in cross-cultural distance).

Acceptance rates have been high.

You will find in Saigon clusters of APEC (Japanese Alley, Korean district , backpackers district and Chinese district).  The Filipino bands just show up, when it’s their turn to play.

Rap and rock.

All with long key chains, tight jeans and wool caps.

Some Western faces were there in the audience. Beer choices are also varied, from Tiger to Heineken, Corona to Coors.

To see Saigon of the future, you need to tap into this crowd.

Kids who first are in step with the beat from strange shores, then to eventually be resettled there (Ivy League even). It happened to me with “California Dreaming”. Now, a bunch of my classmates are living there.

This Christmas will see a wave of Vietnamese from overseas back for a vacation.

Fuel to the fire.

Rock on.

The irony is the Filipinos who taught ESL in the refugee camps back in the early 80’s, kept staying put, while their Vietnamese students (the audience in this case, which often had a feel of a “repeat after me” English class ), moved on to America, where the British Invasion once took place.

For now, while the set last, nobody noticed if you were black or white.

Music unites. Especially when singers stick their mikes to the audience during the refrain “I try so hard, and get so far, in the end, it doesn’t even matter”.

Matchmaking

In Vietnam, one of the first questions is What animal represents you? (12 symbols of the zodiac).

Second question is, how come you are single. Find someone to alleviate your miserable state of being single (collective society).

Third and logical conclusion: find someone, whose symbol matches yours, yin-yan, fire and ice, earth and sky etc…

I found this mechanism an easy way out, as opposed to Vietnam Got Talent, where candidates are picked base on their merits.

What do you expect? You are known to others as son or daughter of so and so.

This reminds me of the Museum of Innocence which recounts a story of a character who fell in love with his distant cousin. No where can you find individualism collide more with social more. He managed to collect even her hair to be displayed later in what he called, the Museum of Innocence.

I found a public comb hanging in the men’s restroom at an ACB bank branch here in Vietnam. Apparently, it’s common property, to be shared among the men.

Part of my missing education, was that by the time I was supposed to reap the benefits of all that our country had to offer e.g. matchmaking system, shared mores, shared pot of luck (guests would pitch in to jumpstart a new family), I instead launched cold turkey ino the culture of sports at Penn State, of extreme competition although we always chanted “We Are”.

The “We Are” in Vietnam is quite different from the “We Are” at Penn State.

The latter nailed Coach JoePa to be the fall guy (while it’s Sandusky who was supposed to be nailed).

I am not defending the former “We Are”, nor do I accuse the latter.

But in Vietnam, for example, a rape which occured within the four walls, stays within the four walls.

The victim would rather be dead than seeing her family be put to shame.

So life goes on. What’s your animal symbol?

Use that comb. Shake off  the past. Forget and move on.

You will never find a public comb in Penn State lockers, where We Are is the chant.

But you will find it here.

and maybe, even a suitable other-half, if you can answer the first few questions by the matchmaker.

Oh, by the way, these days, they also asked if you had own a house. A scooter was a given. Just as back then, they assumed you own some buffalos to tend the field.

My sister has lived a hard but productive life. As symbolized by the animal represents her.

Mine? you guess. It’s the monkey. Jumping from tree to tree , culture to culture and not commit completely to one set of beliefs. It’s boring for a monkey to sit under the shade of just one tree in a forest full of them. It would bore him to tears. Scratching that ich all day wondering if the next tree might be worth the leap. Who knows, I might find happiness at the next bend, next road less travel. And if not, the journey itself is the reward.

What’s your animal symbol? or Avatar? You see, each culture has its own way to move beyond one self. To break out of what’s given, what’s restricted.

May you find your match, off or online.

No pure love

I am half way through In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson. The book was set in the time of Hitler as viewed by an American ambassador’s daughter.

She seemed to have a grand time: dating all sorts of men , even of at opposite end of the political spectrum; shifting and evaluating them with a fine-tooth comb. What makes this book interesting is that while Evil was reincarnated in grandest scale , we follow this “naive” and novel socialite in her insulated circle. Will there be Love? Lust? or Liberty?

I can’t wait to find out the rest.

But then, like any work of fiction, we project ourselves onto it.

Will my life end on a high note? or simply fizzle out? Will I be stopped at One-Stop center in America. To learn how write a resume, to wear a tie, to shake hand, and pretend to exude confidence.

When Martha, our central character, met briefly with Hitler, she found him neither charming nor charismatic.

Yet as we now know, he personified Evil numero Uno in modern history.

Pure race vs chosen race. Let the game begin.

I am not sure who is chosen by whom.

I just know that besides those suitable criteria i.e. age, appearance and aptitude, female species negotiate within themselves to find suitors  before the age of 30. In Martha’s case, the married Russian KGB man was picked despite his previous marriage and hers as well.

I must conclude: there is no pure love, just as Hitler and Asia cohorts found out the hard way about pure race.

Sorry to bust the bubble.

Sorry to face this cold hard fact.

Sorry to lower the curtain on Romeo and Juliet.

People compromise standards previously set for themselves when a certain deadline occurs. Then, they hang “Sold” signs.

In a social auction, the deadline dictates who the highest bidder is at closing time.

Once on the hook, we got the salesman’s treat (to yesterday’s prospect): too bad, today you are our customer. Go see Customer Service.

Yet we still hum those tunes, of love and purity, of sacrifice to the highest ideal.

We long for yesterday (selective past) and better tomorrow (dream on).

People hurting people, which triggered a chain of downward spirals.

Those who try hard to Pay Forward, to build up a reserve of good will, often find themselves cheated.

They look foolish, defeated and rejected.

The heart is the last place we can see and understand.

In the Garden of Beasts, we find our Martha in tow within her circle of SS men, Russian men and US men. Will this beauty find pure love in the Garden of Beasts, whose propaganda extolled pure race?

Will we? Or should I give up and look no longer to the blue sky.

P.S. Martha ended up with a wealthy American widower with a liberal bent.

A synthesis between Boris and her Dad’s Privilege club. But then, they end up living in exile, on the run, in an European country she found estranged.  The End.

Reflections of my life

” I am changing everything” …Like Holden Caulfield, catcher in the Rye.

“Oh I don’t want to die..”. The future that I once fret is my current present.

“All my sorrows”….were for nothing. They said 90% of our worries didn’t materialize.  Yet we keep worrying. Like a plague. Dec 21st or 23rd (Mayan Calendar).

Just shop til we drop ( even right after 9/11).

The world is, a bad place, a terrible place to live (lyrics).

The hardest part is to face and live with one’s self.

Tend not to those urges ( self-sabotage and self-destruction.)

Who planted them there? Those seeds? So the Earth would be less populated?

Take me back, to my own home (Lyrics).

Those GI‘s who listened to this song from a transistor radio, deep in the thick jungle of Vietnam. Have they often reflected on that experience? The Amerasian children they left behind? The bodies and chemical agents?

Who won that war? Or any war for that matter!

Perhaps both sides have lost.

Lives destroyed, and environment contaminated .

Bombs and napalms have fallen here when “Reflections of My Life” was at the top of the chart.

A generation of young people were forced to grow up really fast, to reflect on death and dying, to ask hard questions.

All my crying (lyrics)

It hurts to face separation, from neighbors and friends. The comfort zone.

Gone forever. Like a movie reel that got torn at one of the splices.

Tran Hung Dao, the Sea General, was back to sea (his imprint was on the then currency). Dust comes to dust.

In Vietnam, it’s considered “luck” to run into a funeral, not a wedding.

Yet, with Christmas season in tow, I saw 2 weddings this morning.

It’s peace-time Vietnam. The Wedding Hall is named “FOREVER“.

More optimistic in outlook now.

Fewer funerals, more weddings.

Less “reflections  of my life”, and more “accumulation of stuff”.

One thing is missing here: Black Friday shopping. That was because, American landed here back in 1965, Pleiku and not Plymouth. Hence  there was no Macy’s Thanksgiving parade. No turkey dinner. Just another weekend of laundry, coffee and a rare treat from the band. You can guess what they played here.

Yes, Reflections of My Life.  Take me to my own home (lyrics). Holden Caulfield got expelled from school. Not wanting to go back home just yet. Just ride the rail, the taxi, and anything that moves, with no particular stop in mind. The journey is the reward.