Tag: United States

Madonna and child

Not the Seine in Paris. But Rach Nhieu Loc in Saigon. She wore a cone hat. Baby tanning in the morning sun, resting in her bosom. The other hand, she checked her messages from a mobile phone.

It’s  Thanksgiving in Vietnam. People  have a lot to be thankful for. It’s now ranked second on Happy Country Index (the US 25th on infrastructure).

Infrastructure and Index of Happiness. By all counts, the canal stings. But people as a whole are considered happy. Many would care less for the Mayan calendar and its doom prediction.

When it gets too hot, it rains. Nature idea of  a “smart” grid. GE is investing heavily in “industrial internet” (the way Bill Gates referred to in his “at the speed of thoughts”.)

People here move about at the speed of motorbikes. It barely rains and people are already in ponchos and helmets , zooming by non-stop. No delay, no second thought.

Moving forward. Day after day. Only the future. When school is out, kids pour out into the concrete sidewalks, like a disturbed  beehive.

High-margin items are on display, all mobile related (I phone casing, eye glasses and sun glasses, helmets of all stripes, pull-overs and book bags).

Students from the country side try hard to accommodate themselves off campus by working at odd jobs.

I found an eatery with decent meals. Sharing a round table with strangers: meat, rice, soup and iced tea.

French-style cafes are extremely popular, serving cafe-sua-da at all times of the day.

007 is shown here too, interlaced with Twilight.

I wonder if the life style depicted in those movies ignite young people’s aspiration.  The Twilight cast, red-eye aside, all look perfect when they don’t go “hunting”.

Books are confined in a dozen outlets, scattered around the city, still priced themselves out of reach of the average wage earner.

The publisher I am in talk with has a branch office behind a huge pagoda, which is located across from Vietnam’s famous Vinh Nghiem pagoda. So, it’s not just KFC and Burger King who stake out prime locations. Religious outfits do so as well.

Meanwhile, the population understands health and fitness, how they relate to happiness. A nation ranked second after only Costa Rica in Happiness can surely connect the dots.

Their diet is healthy and their movement swift.

It starts early in the morning and early in life.

I saw the evidence this morning. Mother and child. Sun bathing.

Texting and tanning.

All contribute to the formula of healthiness besides discarded Vinamilk pouches on the street.

Perhaps technology has contributed much to Vietnam’s progress. Today, if you found a bicycle moving about, it’s a rare sight.  You can’t reverse history (especially in China, where automobiles are now as common as bicycles three decades ago).

You can only move forward with industrialization.

You read these lines. You know I am at an internet cafe next to my cafe-sua-da.

I do have something to be thankful for. I found a high-speed internet location.

The normalization of the abnormal

Some of us who still remember the Cold War remember how easy things were: black and white.

Everything else “Third World.”

Now, the Third World has emerged. Hence, we live in a multi-polar world.

More complicated world. More are at stake.

People wheel and deal.

Purchasing parity has become less of a parity.

Trading up and trading down. Things and places are interchangeable (Banana Republic , despite its name, used to carry made-in-India or the Philippines – no banana republic there).

Marijuana used to be a taboo. Now it’s legal in some states.

I am confused. My moral sense (put there by my parents who were born early in the 20th century) has been challenged and put to question.

Those foundations are constantly revised and compromised.

First by others, then myself (or else, I am looked at as a loser or an outsider).

Sounds like a teenage phenomenon. But it’s real. Flight or fight.

Cavemen syndrome still.

With technology moving so fast, energy consumed at break-neck speed, our sense of the world and how it should operate needs a relook.

The enemy is now our friend ( for example, Russia as supplier of oil and arms).

Our friend has become enemy (by abandonning us when the coalition calls for joint troops in the Gulf Wars).

What was abnormal has become normal.

In this multi-polar world, China, now the largest automobile market in the world,

doesn’t discriminate imported products, but its export ones are.

For the right reason (unsafe, copy cat etc…).

We have an image problem.

We need to improve our relations with others (who have also changed).

We need new friendnemies.

We need to normalize that which was considered abnormal.

Gay is the new straight , the pheripherals have gone mainstream.

It’s late-stage now for a lot of things such as globalization and world trade (finished products get shipped back to the US and Western countries, turning the US standing into a Third World status by definition).

I am glad we still agree on grammar points and earning points.

Do unto others as we would like to be done onto.

The only thing that is constant is change itself. Grow up!

2012? Almost

For those who are now living in Tent City due to Sandy, 2012 does seem like a doom-prophecy year i.e. INVOLUNTARY departure from their homes. Others in 20 States, mostly Red, willingly sign a petition to secede (VOLUNTARY departure from the Federade).  Essentially, they want to vote again.

Grow up.

We do have to zoom out and see where we are: globally and ecologically.

A warmer temperature means melting snow for the penguins. A butterfly in the Amazon still has that connection to Sandy, however small. (In the US, one can drive out of any house, to arrive at any person’s driveway; the power of inter-connectedness).

I was walking into a restaurant last night when the power  was suddenlyy out. For a quick moment, I knew how  people affected by Sandy must have felt.

To us, 2012 is just another calendar year.

To them, it’s dooms day.

Once again, the nation is showing its solidarity as in the days following 9/11.

Governor Chris and Cuomo, of Garden State and Empire State, were seen touring alongside the President.

A show of unity and solidarity.

People are hurting.

Groping in the dark.

Tested and bewildered

It happened before in Florida, then down in the Gulf with Isaac and Katrina.

People moved on, but those regions bore the marks of being whipped.

Bent out of shape (tourists would conveniently cherry pick the best spots in the world to spend their hard-earned dollars).

The hypocrisy of pleasure-seeking.

Since when do you hear a doctor take his/her vacation to give vaccine to an emerging nation? I only read about Melinda Gates Foundation doing this.

Meanwhile, we are in wait for another round of doomsday prophecy, often comes at year-end.

Futuristic stuff that may or may not fan out.

Yet we believe. We want an edge, to position ourselves for profit, or to hedge our bets.

Good luck with the rest of 2012. We have yet seen the end of it.

Still with a good two months to go.

I would line up my all-star team right around this time.

To charge out of the gate. To win. To seize the day, the year.

To plan that next play. Winning is easy when planning was hard.

2012 is not over until the planning for 2013 is complete.

Spending spree

Right about now. If the economy is going to pick up, authorities should push spending. Credit card spending.

Gadgets are out. Electronic devices miniaturized. Skirts cut shorter even when it says Winter Clothes. Victoria Secret pulled Native American outfit from broadcast. Planned controversy or not, we don’t know. We just know that things are back to its normal pace.g. Windows 8,  I-phone 5 release etc…

With Halloween behind us, Veteran Day being celebrated, what else to look forward to besides Turkey and Tree.

We got the calendar seasons, then we got shopping seasons, but for centuries we live with only a few seasons (until they made up Fall and Autumn).

Seasons are good for the Soul. They roll in cyclically, to remind us there is a rhythm of life: hard times and good times.

Unlike compound-interests chart and monthly bills. These come in under a different chart and graph.

We still respond to seasons in awe: autumn foliage, first snow etc..

When something like Sandy screw up our lives, we are at a loss (blaming it on those new voiture in China and Brazil?)

Meanwhile, those with or without money still have to spend. For loved ones and for oneself.

Gotta get those midget gadgets: i-pod and tri-pod.

Who would find out that our taste for music has been the same for decades? or what content women read on airplanes (E-readers).

Something strange has happened  lately, but then nothing strange has happened lately (covert ops but overt affairs etc…)

Banks and retail stores are still into collecting ROI perentages. And we consumers still fall for it, willingly.

We are creatures of habit and of harmony. We put on warm clothes and winter clothes. We feel a warmth in our hearts when we see Christmas decoration  all around us. We  miss that fireplace scene and the gathering of the faithful. We long to belong and to be home (Train, plane and automobile) . We long for rest and comfort.  The world knows this. It will offer a different version of our hopes and dreams. It will instead offer false hope and unreachable dreams. It will in fact give us the opposite of what we hope for. In the race to embrace our dreams, often times, we have to outsmart those who claim themselves to be dream providers, of essentials that we need like homes, health and happiness. We gotta to own the process of attaining them ourselves. When we do, we will be rooted firmly in that which we can call home, that which anchors our restless feet and soul. True happiness lies in the heart of those who feel content and are not in denial of death, the only reality that matters most. So spend, spend, spend. But keep in mind that those gadgets will be obsolete next year. In their places, are successive versions and newer generations. That’s what keeps us awake at night.

Progress has its pain and price to pay. To stay in the game, one needs to constantly pedal forward and uphill.

Again, I admire people who stay up all night out in the cold for a shopping spree phenomenon we call Black Friday.

Just remember to leave those pepper sprays at home this year. Walmart is trying to outsmart the competitors by opening early. Thanksgiving night as a matter of fact, for your 24/7 shopping need.

Hyphenated Identity

Last month, during the height of the election campaign, I saw plenty of signage for local board seats. Many hybrid names (Vietnamese-American) which tell me two things: second-generation immigrants are now politically active, yet they still want to keep those last names, to serve as bridges to the old world.

Old World–New World.

I know both very well. I travel back and forth lately, observing, taking it all in.

The good, the bad and the ugly. Both sides now.

For example: here in the US, I drive by 24-hr Emergency Pet Clinic every day.

But I also know that a lot of people, not pets, are homeless (including the newly added Post-Sandy Tent City). The best piece on the American Dream went awry was already portrayed by Ben Kingsley in The House of Sand and Fog (Iranian big-shot bought an illegally repossessed house, just to end up losing his life along with it).

Meanwhile, in VN, everybody tries to move to the city centre, where there hardly are any space left unless a storm, almost as strong as Sandy, knocked down a few more trees.

The US got junk yards (industrial waste). Vietnam got grave yards (Agent Orange). Both got people “mooning” although for a very different reason.

Back to hybrid identity. So we came, we saw, and we campaign (not conquer).

Good for them.

John Nguyen, Joseph Cao etc…

May their descendants prosper in this land of milk and honey. When elected, don’t forget to put people above pet. I fear that by the time they drop those last names for let’s say Joseph Smith,  they will also have acquired a taste for fast cars and fast food.

And perhaps 24-hr gym, 24-hr Donut  Town and 24-hr Emergency Pet Clinic.

It all makes sense after living here for a while. But to any foreigner who has just arrived, America certainly is a peculiar place, worthy of year-long culture shock (this was verbatim from a Filippino immigrant whose lingerie line finally distributed by Target, making her a millionaire).

Before you know it, they pledge Allegiance to the Flag, and drop those hard-to-pronounce first names. Voila! We are all American. One Nation under God, withstand against all enemies, foreign or domestic (mostly foreign, so watch out. Adapt quickly and just say “to go” when asked: FOR HERE OR TO GO?).

Becoming yourself

Orhan Pamuk, Nobel Prize Winner, told a story (in the Black Book) about a writer

whose wife left him for no reason at all. Restless and sleepless (and perhaps facing writer’s block) he imagined living out his former single self ( the status he now found himself in ). After a while, the mind played trick and he got used to being single. Until one day, his wife returned to him for no particular reason at all. He again found himself in a situation precaire.  Would you once again imagine yourself  being married so you can get used to it?

I am not sure what the moral of the story is, except that we are not  content with who we are. I guess once we figured out our boundaries, our strengths and weaknesses (painful), we are on the way of becoming ourselves.

Not the kind of person our families wish us to be, nor who we thought we were.

Just is.

After millions of encounters, negotiating and coordinating, including navigating the Wild Wild West  (wow! they did that) and World Wide Web (wow! they are doing that?)  we are on the way to becoming.

With one new revelation, one turn of event, one special encounter, our lives take on a new shape and contour. Dramatic events tend to dominate and serve as bookends to our otherwise uneventful lives. But most lives are lived in “quiet desperation”.  Having said that, what looks like boring to us might be very peculiar and interesting to others (if not for people in other place and time). From future vantage point, our action and inaction during this Housing Bubble  make interesting historical studies (the same as we study the Dutch Tulip Bubble – now with hindsight, we can see it as bubble. But to them, at the time, not jumping in was akin to suicide. The same with the Chicago World Fair, and how for the first time, attendees saw electricity. They simply thought they were in Heaven).

I guess part of the fun in living is discovering. Not so much about places and people, but about how we give and take, turned on and off by a certain place or people. Then we learn about our chemistry as well as our social identity.

Orhan Pamuk moves back and forth on the East-West continuum, so he is more attuned on the subject of identity e.g. women who put on veil or unveiled in Snow, his other novel.

We too in some small way, assumed multiple identities every day. Even if we don’t want to, people still put us in a box, a number and a place in line. NEXT.

Now serving G24 at window number 9.

Please punch in your last 4 digits.

Don’t stand too close to the vehicle etc….

So many web sites, so many log on ID‘s.

Avatars and photos. Inner and outer circles.

No wonder at times, we feel neurotic.

Split identities. Being one thing online and another off-line.

And yet another when we are utterly alone, with a clock or a cross on the wall.

Who are you? Who am I? The color of my skin? The pronunciation of my name?

Or the size of my bank account? If it makes you happy, why the hell are you so sad (sings Cheryl Crow). I hope tonight I don’t have to wish I were my former self. It had its own set of problems back then. Just as now. So just live out the present self. I like it. I like my becoming self. Who else can put up with me besides myself? Wife comes and goes, for no reason at all. It’s me who has to negotiate with my restless self (and muscles) to get some sleep. In restless dream I walk alone,..

Bleed purple!

Red States Blue States United. Bleed purple.

Gotta to reach across the aisles.

Gotta to overcome complacency and condescending.

The time it takes to come up with a retort could be spent for constructive use.

Nobody has the right to the last word.

History is dynamic and constantly being re-written.

(If you read Church History you get one version, and in Howard Zinn‘s, you get a different one).

Your ex’s might say nasty things about you, but your kids might not.

Some high school buddies remember me for appearing on TV as part of the school’s dance group (incidentally, my daughter has been in the US number 1 hip hop team as well).

Back to Bleed Purple.

The nation and the world have waited.

For action, not talks.

For remedy, not diagnose.

We are all grown-ups caught in dire circumstance. Tonight, as I was leaving the gym, I saw a homeless man pushing a shopping cart full of garbage bags, all black, except for a guitar on top. He was pushing it up hill, but to nowhere in particular. Just keep moving.

Einstein says life is like riding a bicycle. You just have to keep pedaling.

When I jog in the park, I keep one foot in front of the other. And before I knew it, I was jogging.

I don’t understand bureaucracy, red tape and the politics of politics.

(Heard somewhere that it costs about a couple of hundred thousands for the government to create one job).

That money could raise a whole child in the US, put him/her through college and become an active participant in society (virtuous cycle).

Think purple.

Back to basics.

I heard the re-elected President recap on what made America great.

Among the core values was tolerance.

Bleed purple.

No more campaign after the election.

Now is the time to carry out those promises, those cheap sound bites wrapped in expensive ads.

Now is the time to reach out across the aisle and make those compromises.

Start early, like Walmart shoppers, if you want something badly.

The only time I saw the spirit of America was in the darkness of  morning (we call it Black Friday), yet the place was ransacked, with nothing left to buy except for Halloween candies (post season) and school supplies (also off-season).

Wonder if by the time politics is set aside there will be anything worthwhile to discuss or carry out. Or people simply got fed up, and dropped out altogether. Bleed purple. The sum of our strength is stronger than our personal weakness. Red or Blue, we got your Achille’s heels covered. No easy day.

All to the payload

Nothing goes to waste. Neither a minute nor an experience, good or bad.

This is not pre-destination. It is how our brain stores and evolves. Millions of calculation, prediction, reflection and reinvention.

Like technology which evolves, so do we. We made a mistake. We did it again. Then we learned. Both David Brooks and Jeremy Rifkin talked about Empathic Civilization and how men have come to relate emotionally.

We (men) were taught at an early age to hunt, to conquer and move on.

e.g. the All-terrain man (NYT Magazine March 20-2013)

If we failed, shake it off with whiskey and move on.

Tough guys don’t dance, or buy-in to empathy, emotional intelligence or group therapy.

Yet studies like the Grant Study found that men do learn from mistakes and adjust in due course.

Partly because the nature of warfare has changed (from hard to software), partly because of women have moved further in the workplace (which gave birth to a bunch of stay-at-home dads).

Whatever the reasons, we do see a generation of sensitive men emerge (or titles like “The End of Men”.

Men who use I-pod, I-phone and I-pad.

Men who drive electric cars (which Tom Wolfe calls the Elf, in his latest Back-to-Blood novel). Men who could be President (Clinton) or just be big-dog supporter of our currently re-elected President.

Not much ego there. Just collaboration across the aisle and across the ocean.

We are living in interesting times: Outgoing Chinese President, and incumbent US  President.

We wouldn’t hear comments as back in Watergate days “I would run over my grandmother for the job” (Chuck Colson).

Now, it’s 2012. The world is tweeting, sharing, Liking, posting, commenting and crowdsourcing.

Utopia? Not quite.

But much better. More empathic a civilization. The late stage of evolution. Grown men do drink milk. Wear tight pants, and do yoga. Yes, I know how you feel. Nothing goes to waste. Those hours of watching and feeding the kids.

It’s well worth it. The bonding at bed-time reading. We have become role-models. For me, I hope my generational “curse” stops here. (unlike the final scene in Exorcist where the young priest, tormented so much he had to take his own life to end the never-ending downward spiral).

I hope for my girls a much better life than mine.

Nothing goes to waste. We transmit those DNA strands and a few variables of our own. It happens to be the first stage of empathic men, last stage of Alpha male.

God bless Aimy and Maily.

Least resistance

Organizations and people in them tend to take this path.

Status quo. Business as usual. The comfort of routine. The predictable, mechanical rhythm. Makes the world go round. Until we drop out. One person at a time. Dust comes to dust. But the morgue still sends the bills. Please pay by a certain date, or else, interests will be applied. Routine red tape again.

Beyond death, even our own, the system goes on, to claim its next subject (victim), from birth to burial, from cradle to the grave. Have you noticed that we all got wrapped in those institutional blankets when we first arrived, and the same when we exit. They may even wrap a wrist band around us for ID. Try to enjoy sunshine, because the beginning and the end, are all lighted by fluorescent lights.

Path of least resistance. Fight not against the system. Especially Health care.

When you need its services, you are not in a bargaining position. We saw the shake up of the banking system over the last few years. Those shiny lobbies and marble floors, silk ties and slick suits. They jut paid the fine, and moved on . Now, it’s business as usual.

Shake not the system. Follow the path of least resistance. Start here, end there.

We have always done it this way. Get back to the bottom of the totem pole.

Shake not the pole.  We just pay lip services like “the more the merrier”, but the reality is Earth’s 7 billion are not welcome. We are not resource-rich enough to welcome all (you would think with the vast expanse we call the United States, people would do away with Up Stairs Down Stairs, as in crowded Britain. Yet, still “no room in the inn”, and the map got divided into Red States and Blue States. Geography of the mind, more than of the map.) Tighten the border and the security. Status quo reigns. Until death claims one at a time. Just read the NYT‘s obituary page. You’ll see. When faced with the fork along the way, take the road less travel, not the path of least resistance.

People, Problems and Politics

In that order.

You just need to navigate the permutation and potential.

Great things are accomplished by and through people.

Yet at the same time, it’s people who drive us crazy.

When a big group with more EGO than ECO, we have faction and division.

Cliques and classes.

In India, an “untouchable” family finally had it. Their daughter got raped by the village powerful. And it did not stop there. They even bragged about it. Words got around back to the father.  Shamed and humiliated, the mother took it to court. Twice the shame, in hope of one right.

Now, that’s people, problems and politics.

At work, we don’t have such an extreme (not at the magnitude of Penn State).

But part of the process is to let leadership rise. People can be taught to collaborate by example.

The power of someone in the organization acting for the common good (without any one watching, or claiming credits).

At some point in our lives, we learn to trust ourselves. That no matter how bad, we only have one life to live, sharing it with the people not of our own choosing (family and co-workers – especially during the Recession). Hence, make the best of it.

Bigger picture. One Earth . One ozone layer above and one oil resource underneath. Be “earthful” i.e. mindful of late-stage Earth. We have been on steroid. We have been “Lances”. Now is the time to take stocks. Get rid of the water bottles. Start using hand-wash towels. String out a clothes line (solar energy instead of machine dryer). Maybe even hand wash our sneakers.

Come one. Park the car at the other end of the parking lot and start walking to the gym.

Brain storm on the refrigerator’s door to see how many ways our families can save by conservation (I saw a kid pick up soda cans tonight, with parental participation. Outta  girl!).

Of all the holidays, Halloween is such a waste (costume worn once).

Fourth of July as well. We keep shooting up and burning our hard-earned money for a politics we don’t even support (I know this is harsh and unsubstantiated. But look, the way the country is heading, we might as well be partitioned in two).

People, problems and politics. Can’t do with them, can’t do without them. Before 1984 (Personal Computer), we had spent most of our time talking and working with people. After 1984, we sit in front of the screen (all sizes), and interact with a machine. “It says here, you are not in the system” (what system? the clerk did not even input a ticket I have tried three times to pay for).

Not sure we have sacrificed people skills for computer skills. But society hasn’t progressed for the better as a result of faster data processing. We still have homeless people (perhaps more with high foreclosure rates), our educational standing has slipped, and we are not even up there in Competitive and Happy Index as a Super Power should. Go figure. Google it for yourself.