Tag: Victor Hugo

Money as Motivator

Money does something to us. It both elevates and debases us.

In War and Peace,  Pierre, as opposed to Prince Andrew, inherited a vast estate. Then things went south: duel, divorce and determination to “sanctify” himself by joining the Free Masonry Society.

When money is involved, motivators are involved, not all pure and noble.

We are shy to talk about it.

Great men and lowly men, are distracted and distraught by it.

Gone are the days of Bread’s Everything I Own (I would give everything I own, just to have you back again).

We live out Victor Hugo‘s script (Les Miserables as 99 percenters):

homeless and jobless drain on the system, interest rates eating up social security reserves.

Money man over Guitar man.

Pragmatic over Romantic.

Money rules and changes the rules.

Hire those who are hungry. They will stay with you, sing your praise and watch your back. (the lack of money) keeps them humble and loyal.

The poor gives us an opportunity to be God-like.

A tang of guilt is good for the noble soul.

When you do this to the least of these….

Not GM, nor IBM. The least of these.

Money is inherently a motivator, but not the motivator.

(this is a multi-part series on Motivator e.g. music, passion etc…)

If Money is the only thing, we should all be bankers and be bailed out.

If Money is the only thing, then what happened before Money? (Read The Ascent of Money).

I have run into people who genuinely believe Money is Miracle, not just Motivator.

When they seek Money as an End in itself, they instinctively know they cannot take it with them in death.

Here in Vietnam, at funeral and wedding, money is involved. Fake money for the former, and real one for the latter (which helps pay for the banquet).

Obviously, there are some truth to it: Money opens doors, even the gate of  Hades.

Pierre settled for a quick divorce with the splitting of his estate (money).

People marry in the name of love, and divorce in the name of money.

The practice of dowry and divvying up from a will show the importance of money.

Money talks.

If I had been told Capitalism means money and money, I would have understood the concept and philosophy immediately. Instead, I was given a run-around. Sold on a dream and not drawn from a bank account. Apparently, they also instinctively know that in hiring and selling, you must first lay out all the intangible values, then slap them last with the bottom line. By then, all the other motivators (safety, status etc..) have been weighed in to spin the and price justify.

Apparently even the money handlers know deep down, money is only a motivator, albeit an important one. In all seriousness, people in Vietnam and China burn artificial 100-dollar bills, fake I-pads and I-phones for dead ancestors to use. It’s a small price to carry out filial duty.

Halloween in Vietnam? A redundancy

Young people are out in drove, that is, if they were not already on bikes, racing like mad on weekend nights.

This time around, in costume. Halloween costume. In Vietnam, of all places.

First, the masks trickled in at tourist and expat hot spots. Then, wider adoption is made possible by cheaper goods from next door China . No stranger to superstition and spirits, Vietnam has always opened to trying new things, from Tango to Hip Hop, Vespa to Roll Royce.

Only this time, young people agree with their elder generation: the spirits world.

Their parents would burn incense on the 15th of July, Lunar calendar, and the younger generation dress in costume, Twilight style. Long held reverence for both the living or dead (animism and ancestral worship), Vietnamese are no strangers to para phenomena and cyclical lives. In contrast, to be consistent with their linear and industrial model, Westerners have tried to suppress witchcraft and superstitious belief which gained popularity in revolt of Darwin and the rise of science and technology.

That can’t explain away Twilight, the Blair Witch project and tons of Halloween  candies and candles flickered inside pumpkin shells on US front lawns.

But in Vietnam, year around, in any household, one finds incense burning at the family altar. Even in Catholic households.

In fact, Cao Dai ism accommodates all spiritual traditions under one roof (Victor Hugo was one of the saints).

Caodaists wear white, symbol of purity. Another striking contrast in how funerals are conducted. White robes in Vietnam, all Black for the West (this tradition is widely adopted by Vietnamese overseas who attend Chapel services in Rose Hills, a popular cemetery in Los Angeles, California. The Buddhist Vietnamese in the US struck a compromise when colliding with public ordinance and traditional mourning practices: they brought in the monks,

then the limousine people take over.

So, the children in Vietnam  got both Moon Cake last month, and Halloween candies this month.

Halloween allow both adults and children to take on an alter ego. Someone said aptly that “give me a mask, I will tell you the truth”.

Actors do that all the time, and get paid handsomely.

Halloween, it’s one day out of the year, when the bad and ugly feel accepted at the table, or a bar stool in Vietnam. Westerners are welcome to join in what had already been a built-in practice in this culture: a reverence for the non-living.