Tag: Vietnam

The Elder role in Vietnamese society

I often interact with nephews, one in particular is even older than I, but all call me Uncle. To them, I belong to the previous batch. Last of the line. In the old Vietnam, once you made past 50, you are moved up to the “elder” circle (“chieu tren”) when feasting.

I had an occasion to do just so last night. I sat with much older people whose names I couldn’t recall, and whose silver hair I can hardly match. Vietnamese would commemorate their ancestors, more so than celebrate birthdays of the living. Past-oriented culture.

When Intel decided to put another of its Asia manufacturing plants, it chose the outskirt of Saigon.

In doing so, the chip manufacturer put the spin on Vietnamese time line. It will go forward from that point on. Chip set and not chess set (whose final move is to expose the King).

King, Priest, Teacher, Parent (and a host of higher-ups like Uncles). I see dead people (Sixth Sense).

Because of my “role”, I find it hard to be on the level with my nephews. We see each other, even hang out.

But we could never be friends for some reason.

There is a gap between us. It was put there by the assigned roles in Vietnamese society.

Extended families structure color coded people’s seating (just like airline class service). It would be interesting to have a software which help trace the Vietnamese family tree, so each of us can see how intricate the connection is, just as we learned how Obama was related to Palin. Hanoi was able to trace its roots to 1010, hence last week’s 1000th anniversary celebration.

People might be dead, but their city isn’t.

I see living cities. When something survives that long, in today’s modern world, it deserves a second and hard look. Let’s say this year were 1900, I would already be dead ( average life expectancy was 47.)

Call me Uncle, and see if I care. As long as I am not dead.

A flood of love

Every year, flooding in SE Asia killed people and took away their livelihood.

And every year, people rush out to give materials and their time for reconstruction.

So the mishaps were occasions for the best in humanity, and turn a flood of misery into a flood of love.

Nobody wants to be on the receiving end, unless disaster struck.

And only some are willing to be on the giving end.

It’s more blessed to give than to receive.

But only a few step up to the challenge.

I read somewhere that the billionaire dream team (Gates-Buffett) went to China to drum up supports for their cause – giving back. Social activism is calling on the richest in Asia where fatalism rules. You are born into a cycle not of your own doing, thus, can do nothing to undo it. ( As of this edit, that circus did not turn out well on follow-up.)

Live out the rest of this miserable life without exit.

Accept one’s fate.  This view has prevailed among the bottom billion. Now it is challenged by modernity and global commerce.

The region has seen neck breaking change, and with it, pollution, regulation and corruption.

It remains to be seen that a decade from now, which view (fatalism or self-determinism) will hold water.

Even with a flood of talent in IT, Asia still needs commerce and customers on the global scale to, well, scale.

We don’t know when something reaches critical mass. Like rain itself, it has its own cycle and temperament.

Let’s hope we got the right kind of flooding to lift everyone’s boat. Opportunity likes to dance with those who are already on the floor.

seeing what’s been there

Adjust your lens or change it, then you will see all kinds of things.

Even the same things, but much clearer.

The power of reframing.

Organization or organism all need to self-examine at one time or another.

For instance, after taking your shirts back from the cleaners, you might notice that even though they are clean, but they no longer have the feel of new fabrics. There lies the difference between new and clean.

Take that up one more notch. Market that might be on the uptick today, will turn mature tomorrow (hence the need for product extension or reinvention).

Toyota took a page from Hyundai which has offered product warranty, to also give two-year free maintenance (on selected models).

We all need to work harder for the money.

It makes sense for Toyota to have customers come back to the dealership voluntarily instead of via forced recall.

We will either look at the same thing in new ways, or try to find new things.

There are things about ourselves we don’t even know. Doctors can always find out these things via all kinds of test (MRI scan).

Then at the culture level, we often learn more about our culture through the eyes of  foreign journalists and tourists (a journalist observes that daily traffic in Vietnam looks like people performing circus acts every day).

One example of this is Hanoi.

Many journalists camped out to give us modern pictures of the city.  Foreigners like Old town Hanoi.  The same way I enjoyed Old Town Alexandria near Mt Vernon.

So, in Hanoi they celebrate, while in DC, people are puzzled about Vietnam Memorial structural integrity (which had a crack).

During this recession, many of us are forced to reframe, and reposition our career.

Not all can self-reinvent to get into health care, education or environment.

Meanwhile, IT companies like Dell decided to invest billion of dollars overseas where future demands are.

Welcome to a  global world where India and China consumers dictate  brand extension.

In the US the only chain that seemed to grow was Dollar stores where you can buy last year’s Christmas gift wrap on the cheap. They would rather have you store their merchandise at home, then in their stores.  A new kind of inventory outsourcing, a new way of clearing the deck. Old dog, but new tricks.

 

Deer facing headlights

WSJ most read article is “Why people can’t make decision” (see my other blog, “buy-in behaviors”).

I also found another article that reinforces this period of indecision: companies are saving the money they borrowed at bank’s low rates, thus fail to spur the economy.

Why would people borrow money at low rates, then sit on them? Companies need leadership (i.e. doing the right thing as opposed to “doing the thing right”). They forgot a biblical story about stewardship.

The post- WW generation are now in leadership position. Ambivalence is the norm (don’t blame them, after Vietnam and Watergate).

Right now, both parties are blaming each other for the ailing and failing economy.

And we in turn blame ourselves.

Self-recrimination paralyzes us, resulting in indecision. In short, deer facing approaching headlights.

Charlie Rose series on how the brain works, shows the frontal part of the brain, when damaged, causes moral lapses.

Our economic system got injured and is now in recovery (not as desired, but to be expected).

Any movement helps.

As long as the deer starts moving, and wakes up from its trance.

The stats indicated that it was a 18-month long recession. But it feels like decades.

The last recession, coincided with the dot.com burst, gave rise to Web 2.0 (whose contributors had a lot of time in their hand for Wikipedia and YouTube).

This time,  it shouldn’t be an exception. Something good will come out.

If you saw the recent front page story of the San Francisco Chronicle, you would have read about a female humpback whale who had become entangled in a spider web of crab traps and lines.

With help from emergency crew (near SF), she was cut loose, and immediately swam in circle to show gratitude and joy. Very moving story of giving and receiving.

We can learn a lesson from the animal kingdom to enhance our humanity. We should wake up sooner than a deer facing oncoming traffic! Go against our natural reflex to survive and thrive. Keep moving. Let not gravity and inertia win the day.

 

last leaf

Skyline of West VA presents quite a scene and makes a case for Fall foliage. We used to play King of the Hill on top of a heap of dead leaves.

Reminds me of the Last Leaf, a story about a terminally ill patient looking out the window and said “when those leaves all fell away, I too would take my last breath”.

Our hero in the story waited till night fall to climb and paint an autumn leaf on the wall outside the window. “See, there is still hope. That last leaf still hangs in there, so can you”.

The patient eventually recovered. Without delivering the last lecture, he had the last laugh thanks to that last leaf.

The wheel of commerce has got stuck for quite some time. No capital for our capital-driven society, like a deer caught in an incoming headlight.

Terminally ill but still hopeful.

People already coined a new phrase,  “the post-consumerism society” (are we going to recycle old clothes, old styles – 70’s? ).

Like the terminally ill patient,  we as a society needs to hone our will to survive.

If I were the last leaf, I would dance with the wind, even defy gravity to buy me some time. And I refuse to go out with that institutional fluorescent overhead light (by default, it’s our last view while alive).  I would smile, and thank all the kind faces that have smiled at me during my entire life.

I often visited a cousin outside of HCMC. She was said to have visited me when I was born. I must have remembered it well, because I have returned the favor many times over.

In between stimulus and response, there is a pause. That pause of a millisecond could be for good or ill (The Vietnamese revolutionist once said to the French executioner at the gullotine, “let me die looking up so I can see how sharp your blade is”.)

In between Empty and the actual stopping of a car, there is always a reserve.

We have that reserve of good will, resilience, adaptability and untapped resources.

Put it to use now. Make it contagious. Practice leadership skills (Mongolian Khan got out of prison because his wife sold herself to the silk traders to bail him out. We know  the rest of history).

That’s Khan. That’s his-story. Now, it’s our-story. Last leaf or last laugh?

 

Get fat, get fit

I was crunching, when the PA system announced “free pizza at Planet Fitness, 1st Monday of the month”.

Might as well. Indulge.  After all, it says “No judgment zone.”  Get fat, get fit.

Carrot and then Stick.

In a blog I recently subscribed to, I found : ” the extent that we help fulfill other people’s dream,we fulfill ours.”.

We know that life is not without paradox.

Past choices limit future options.

(We did not then have the benefits of hindsight).

Pleasure and pain intersect right there on the exercise mat: one more crunch, reverse crunch etc.. just to build up a better appetite (which gets us right back to the beginning).

Who among us lives without self-conflict, let him cast the first stone.

We want the oil, but also a  clean beach.

We dress up to see Les Miserables, at Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, but hurry up across the street when a homeless guy approaches.

And we can’t wait to tell others ” I told you so” when the chips are all down.

Pundits, politicians and pollsters, were in denial about the “black swan” of the Financial system, which gave us all a “black eye”.

A suicide here, and a robbery there. Not sure how the consequences will play out. Wall Street watches Main Street. Main Street waits on Wall Street. All one-way streets (as of this edit, unemployment in Greece still at 26.9 per cent).

There have been more migration to the dust bowl, where not too long ago, Dorothy couldn’t wait to leave home on a Greyhound bus. These states now seem attractive with tax incentives, and rural broadband connection.

And a story that we all missed: Vietnam was at the top of Emerging Countries chart 3 years in the row (2007-2010) even when they have yet exploited the wheels of industrialization. Just cheap and surplus of labor. But everyone seems to be fit, not by going to the gym, but by default (no “free pizza” every first Monday of the month.)

Here is our last paradox, in the absence of plenty, everything tastes sweeter. You should see how aggressive people were with Moon Cakes during the weeks that lead up to the Festival. It’s not the mix of flour and sugar. It’s flour and sugar that have been denied for years, and only recently made available and affordable to all. Free Moon Cake for every sign-up at Planet Fit.

 

From BRIC to VIC

http://www.ukti.gov.uk/de_de/uktihome/pressRelease/117708.html?null

Among the top findings from an UK investment survey (Economist Survey Unit – above), Vietnam, India and China (VIC) are the top three to watch. Other findings by HSBC came up with CIVETs (remember BRIC?): Columbia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey and S Africa as stable political markets (as of this edit, you can take out Egypt).

Vietnam itself has held top spot three years in the row (ending in 2010).  It’s GDP growth has teetered above 6 percent, despite the Global Recession we all know too well.

While developed countries move toward a post-consumerism stage, Vietnam barely starts shopping (the size of its supermarket shopping carts says it all – half the size of the likes in Walmart and Costco).

76% over 23%  of  surveyed companies say they plan to adjust (localizing) their product offerings to domestic market as opposed to just offshoring for cost-saving .

IT outsourcing stands just below construction, tourism and retail growth in Vietnam. Thus, HP took notice (it is obtaining a license to invest 18 million dollars in a Quang Trung software park company). Samsung in Bac Ninh just passed its $1 B mark of handset manufacturing and exporting to other countries. Hon Hai also chipped in another $ 5 Billion.

http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewiStockNews/articleid/4515280

Meanwhile, after years of savings, Chinese are on a buying spree for London properties, the same way the Japanese did in Los Angeles back in the 80’s (remember Michael Douglas in Rising Sun?).

Nikita, the TV show, now casts a Vietnamese-Euro actress with sharp shooting precision (to make a case for Euro-Asian mash).

Apple I- phones are selling well in Vietnam.

It has been obvious that China and India are doing well, manufacturing and service respectively.

Vietnam tries to fit the bill as a CI+1 destination, a low-wage labor market despite its own infrastructure problem.

(a taxi stuck head down in a city pot hole during a recent storm).  Sure, Vietnam has an undeniably long history (1000 years Hanoi), but only one future: it will have to move quickly to reverse brain drain, and beef up its infrastructure to accommodate growth. The higher the FDI inflow, the higher the expectations.

Due to easy loan, Shanghai office buildings faced low occupancy rates.  With increased urbanization comes other consequences.

London urban influx in the 19th century taught us a lot (plague and crime). And the new UK investors’ survey tells cautionary tales about a new century, a new market without improving on old business practices (opium anyone). If so, the top ten on the list will have to fight like gladiators, while the King enjoys his grapes and wine.

I am with sword in hand, ready. Gotta to follow the money.

daring swim

I was privy to not once or twice, but thrice, work  in non-profit capacity with displaced Vietnamese.

My first time was at IndiantownGap, Pennsylvania as a Child Welfare interpreter.

Later, in Hong Kong as a relief worker. And latest was in 1983, in the Philippines, where Cambodian and Vietnamese awaited their flights to the US.

One story stuck in my mind.

A 9-year-old boy.

No shirt.

Floated in a basket.

Ended up in a makeshift prison-turned-camp in Hong kong .

He could hardly speak Vietnamese , much less British English, spoken where he would finally be resettled.

I gave him some money, earned from my volunteer stipend.

The camp police caught him with dollars in hand, and took him to question.

So I had to bail him out, and wished him a nice life.

I often wonder how he would eventually turn out.

Will he be working in a Chinese restaurant in London.

Or is he back in Cho Lon, Chinese-enclave of Vietnam, as a successful Viet Kieu.

It has been 32 years to date. He must be in his 40. May even have a big family.

Then those boys I helped place in foster homes.

I am sure they do well, raised and schooled in the hills of Pennsylvania.

They are cheering for the Nittany Lions, same way I do.

But how they got here was slightly different from my journey, which had begun on a barge.

They got here unaccompanied, in the case of that boy, sole survivor on the merciless (pirates robbed and raped many of them) China Seas.

Before there were shows like Survivors on American TV, I had already met some real survivors who challenged my assumption about perseverance and persistence.

We only know something ironically in its absence.  Take comfort, love and companionship for instance. Or, if the AC is off this summer, we moan and groan for lack of cool air.

Love , I refuse to comment. And companionship: my friend is now a widow. I am sure she can comment on this better than I do.

The point is that most of us live within the confine of a bell curve. But many of us will have to face adversity and challenge at some point in our life time.

For me, I take lessons from those barge people and boat people. For some reason, they are endowed with much more than I could ever have e.g. adaptability. And they did not stop there: they put the past behind and move on to success.

The young monk once asked his master “why did you carry the woman – supposedly inhibited and inappropriate – across the river? The master replied “I crossed the river already, why are you still lingering about what happened on the other side?”

Unintended consequences of war and displacement depicted by a daring swim in a basket. No thanks. I will take barge over basket. And the song that stuck in my mind during that period was “We’ve Only Just Begun“.

This gotta to stop!

Yesterday, I saw Monique Truong on the Poets-and-Writers cover.

The author of “the Book of Salt” was launching another title : “Bitter in the mouth”.

Meanwhile, I still am awaiting the shipment of “East eats West” by Andrew Lam.

What’s going on here? A Renaissance in publishing by Vietnamese-American authors?

Top of my head, I counted Hung Nguyen, co-author of Software Testing, Vu Pham, Impressive Impressions,

then Nam Le with The Boat, the Unwanted by Kien Nguyen, and Andrew Lam and Monique Truong. Not bad for first-generation immigrants.

Monique Truong & Andrew Lam Book Signing/Reading at VAALA Center, Santa Ana, Tue 9/21. Q&A moderated by Mariam Lam and Ky-Phong Tran. Books will be available for purchase at the event. Come get the autographs! : )

http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/main/two-gifted-vietnamese-american/

I admire their tenacity ( I am sure each has to fight within his/her families about this ethnically unpopular career choice).

I look forward to someday reading the equivalent of Marguerite Duras’ L’Amant set in Sa Dec

or  Graham Green’s A Quiet American  set in Cho Lon.

Vietnam as a setting for historical romance should sell. After all, it dominated the news for more than a decade during its hey day,

and three and a half decades of post-war revisionism.

Vietnamese American writers offer unique perspectives i.e. passionate, feisty and observant (euphemism for bench sitting).

In Monique’s words ” I was forced to be different – when I grew up (in Vietnam),  everyone around me looked like me. There, in North Carolina, I was defined by my outward appearance etc….” She went on to Yale and Columbia – flirting  with a career in Law, just to settle down as a writer, and a good one (Nam Le took a similar turn).

When American culture looks back to this period, it will recognize what’s been buried among Wall Street post-mortem publications (Too Big to Fail),

or Terrorist war reportage (The Looming Tower).  Something has germinated in American soil, migrated en mass from overseas and found its footing just in time for e-release and e- commerce.

If I didn’t know better, I would say, “This gotta to stop. Nobody will buy or read your books”. But then, I sneaked up behind the cover in “surprise me” link on Amazon, and surprised I was. The quality was good, intriguing and en par. In other words, it passed muster and was quite palatable.

Products of  American free thinking and free enterprise (wasn’t this what Viet Education Fund and Fulbright scholarship are trying to promote?).

The Alphabet belongs to no one, and everyone.

We pay lip service to diversity and Lady of Liberty.

Now that they came, stayed and published, shouldn’t we celebrate that very thing called Americanism. Ironically, it’s the new comers that seem to discover it anew (5000 newly sworn-in citizens at Fenway Park on Sept 15th). Wait until you see the young filmmakers in action (Norwegian Wood).

This is to show that not all are model minorities i.e. majoring in math and engineering. Can risk takers (see Daring Swim) who risked their lives just to bring up children who play safe? Percentage wise, there will be some “rebels” among the pool. And their delayed version of counter-culture (against their primary cultural norm) fits the American entrepreneurs bill – whether it’s in law or arts. I am sure the publishers did their due diligence before releasing these titles.

Years ago, I browsed Asian-American literature and found only Chinese-American authors. Vietnamese-language magazines were sold along with Chinese cabbage and herbs.  I am proud to say that you now have more choices of AM books for research or pleasure reading. And third-generation Vietnamese American will be proud of their heritage when “googling” their ancestors’ pilgrimage in America, still land of the free the last time I checked.

Vietnam still loves reading

Huffington Post picks up a piece from Vietnam news, featuring used book shops in present day HCMC.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/13/used-bookstores-vietnam_n_714522.html

If you don’t know, you would think the city was on wheels. But in some quiet corners, you still find students and researchers actually reading and browsing

just as you would find at a B&N here.

The piece did not mention the rise of e-books, which is very similar to the rise of wikipedia when it overtook Britannica  i.e. used book shops will soon follow the way of Tower Records or note pad when I pad overtook it.

In the piece, we learn that used bookshop owners know their stocks. They serve as knowledge curators.  A prisoner wrote and asked for a list of books to self-reform.

Or some Vietnamese, before resettling abroad, sell all their books to these shops.

The stacks sit there, waiting to be discovered, to come alive.

The joy of reading will never be overtaken by web surfing or DVD watching.

One reads in order not to be alone.

Linearity triggers other parts of the brain, perhaps makes all sorts of connection and link.

Fragments of information finally joined in and mashed up to help one connect the dots.

The same way wiki contributors are helping to shape world’s evolving knowledge.

So used book stores in Saigon stood the test of time: war, post-war, and pre-industrialization.

All sorts of novels translated directly from Japanese, German, East European languages and of course, French.

They are there, dusted everyday, like ancient swords awaiting  for our heroes/warriors.

In this case, peace time has turned swords into plowshares.

It’s time to read, learn, and self-cultivate.

It’s time to build knowledge, to catch up with ROW (rest of the world).

I love old book shops. I happened to be born just a block away from them.

But now the journey for me to get to those shops takes  24 hours.

Still I know they are there, awaiting my next visit.

That’s the thing about books: wisdom that stood the test of time. A loyal friend.