Tag: Vietnamese language

Brunch w/ a bunch (of jamers)

It’s my first time at  Van’s Cafe, 46 Pham Ngoc Thach, District 1 Saigon on Sunday morning. And I found myself walking into the door with 2 musicians I know: Mr Hai, on base guitar, and Quoc Dat (blind but extremely gifted jazz pianist, and a student of my now deceased friend.).

Before I knew it, people with guitars, chains in their jeans, rings in their ears, started to fill the room.

It’s a very rare place, if not, the only place where everybody knows your name (Saigon version of Cheers) . But you have to shout over their perfectly set acoustic.

Two sweetest Singaporeans, twice my size, recommended “banh mi bo kho”on the menu (that was before the owner, Khac Trieu, also multi-talented: drummer, vocalist, guitarist, clarinetist and keyboardist, ordered beef wasabi, Van’s Cafe new item).

The lead vocalist is named Rex, from the Philippines. He sings in English, Korean and Vietnamese (or trying).

My fear of  being new at Sunday jamming was dissipated, when Quoc Dat, with my help to get to the piano, started his jazz numbers.

World-renown photographer showed up, with Vietnamese wife and his daughter (who I had eye contact with to help me jump-start my Beatles‘ Imagine number). Other expats followed suit.

You can never guess what would happen at Sunday Jamming, or at night on the 2nd floor with scheduled Rockers, French singers (BTW, Christophe is in town here in Saigon this weekend), DJ at half time and open-mike jammers at midnight.

That’s when I met our regular clubbers-turned-friends like Willie and Warren, Danny and Bill.

And of all people, my friend from childhood also showed up. Apparently all roads lead to Rome for music lovers.

So come, for the food and the fun, the music and musicians. You won’t be disappointed as I have found out.

But don’t come too early. Live music starts at 9:30PM 7 nights a week. With Sunday morning, we can call it 8 days a week at Van’s Cafe here in HCMC. See you one of these beautiful sundays or, if you want to dance too, then after 9:30PM 7 days a week.

“You may say that I am a dreamer. But I am not the only one. We hope someday you’ll join us…..”

We can handle the truth

We here are people who fled Vietnam in various waves (pre-1975, 1975, and post-1975) and have settled in Little Saigon, Orange County, CA.

I have seen the strip transformed, from a few stores to be what it is today: patch work of mini plazas interlacing with mobile home parks, often times, reflections of the boom and bust times.

First was a State Farm rep office, with a pharmacy. Then a Mall. Then all that followed e.g. foot massage parlors (Chinese money) condo complex and French bakeries. Businesses traditionally catered to mainstream tastes e.g. 7/11, Burger King, Ralphs supermarkets were all closed. In their places are Pho (at a discount, like cigarettes), iced coffee, tea (Tastea) and trade-up Vietnamese restaurants.

It was conceived to be a hub for second migration (the first was engineered by the US Government, to prevent Little Havana type of cluster).

Little do we know (the same blind spot that the US Army underestimated the strength of the collective enemy), climate and community acted as push and pull forces for second migration.

We still can’t handle the truth (that policy makers don’t see beyond the immediate).

Now market forces are taking over after the housing boom and burst. High-margin businesses survive side by side with some flavors of urban America: the Vietnamese homeless (stateless to begin with).

On the other hand, we got talk show hosts, weekly pundits and Vietnamese Film Festival featuring up to 69 entries.

We can handle the truth. (I attended a showing last night at UC Irvine. The producer personifies self-reinvention: Silicon Valley engineer, Loan Officer, and now ethnic film producer that might eventually go main stream).

There is a torch-passing process although one cannot see the definite hand-off. The legacy and language, the tug of war between the generations and the acculturation rate (new comers would use Little Saigon as jump point, the same way ChinaTown has served this role for centuries).

Money doesn’t flow one way. It has started to flow the other way (up to 3.5 million Vietnamese tourists from Vietnam are now allowed to travel Westward, a one-to-one match up (and catching up) with those who have resettled.

More monks, more students and concerned parents visiting US campuses, more business and marriage brokerage eager to close deals.

By the end of this month, those who first came in their 30’s will have reached their 70’s. I walked by the Senior citizen center, once bustling with activities e.g. chess match, English classes, Tai chi. Now, the membership are dwindling, funds dried out.

We can still handle the truth.

If I were community planner, I would pay attention to the unmet needs of the touchscreen generation. How do we yank them away from the I-pad screens? What lesson in Vietnamese language and culture would attract them, and what value could we offer?

Meanwhile, tourism to America has reached its low point. Can Little Saigon be a small magnet on the way to Las Vegas and Disney Land.

What other business proposition we can offer to attract reverse money flow? How do we keep those brain power who are now educated on tourist/student visa? I guess it all boils down to quality of life. California has been hard at work to push for air quality.

Now the same zeal is needed to support and upgrade its ethnic base. After all, it’s the end of the West before Hawaii. And it needs to live up to that reputation, once known as California Dreaming. I am sure the Vietnamese homeless guys are doing just that in front of the Food To Go.

We can handle the truth., Mr Stockman.

http://thechairmansblog.gallup.com/2013/04/americans-cant-handle-truth.html

Simplicity and humility

I saw on the  news that the new Pope inspires a group of high school students to reenact “feet washing“. Now, that’s refreshing (no punt intended!) to find news (besides kids shooting other kids, bullying them, DUI, Springfield groper etc…) with some positive twists.

I have read about the Jesuits, Alexandre de Rhodes in particular, who worked from a Portuguese-Vietnamese dictionary to invent modern-day Vietnamese written language (or else I still am blogging in Chinese characters). The unintended consequence of evangelization has been the speeding up of literacy adoption among the Vietnamese, away from the more complicated Chinese characters (besides the will to be independent from this imposing neighbor).

Now we learn about the Pope of the people, who lives simply and humbly.

You can’t have the cake and eat it too. Not when you want to be a role model, the embodiment of that simple Cross. On this important Sunday, though not Catholic, I feel like we are witnessing change. I hope the heavenly light would spill over and push away those dark clouds. Already we saw some positive signs in the economy, in spite of the adjusted price tag for the two wars (they have fumbled on the numbers since McNamara).

Earth in the balance. People on the move (mobile phones). And elections are held quite often (Africa, S America).

Well, not in North Korea, where our young man is not joining Christian Association to sing “YMCA.”

The Jesuits. I know my life has been indirectly influenced by them. They live selfless, simple and humble lives. For others. It’s like the three musketeers without the swords, only plowshares.

Being multi-lingual they inspire many on the path of life-long learning. When you deal with suffering (there are plenty around this side of the Recession) you are humble by it.  And in humility, you can then be an instrument and channel of common grace. No time for DUI or BMW. You take the bus, and cook your own meal. You move into Motel 6 and not the Four Seasons. There, you don’t just rest, but you continue to serve (feet washing). They will leave the lights on for you, always.

Hope that light continue to shine and illuminate pockets of illiteracy, ignorance and illegitimacy.

Human spirit as Motivator

Papillon is a real-life recount of  an undefeated spirit. Viktor Frankl talks about “they can take my body but not the spirit that is in me”.

In war, down the trenches, with bullets zipping by, what causes a man to stay put?

No greater love than a man who lays down his life for a friend. Comradeship.

Mike Murphy, a SEAL, a Penn Stater, went out in the clear for better wireless signals, knowingly sacrificed his life to save his troop.

Human spirits.

Higher purpose.

Maslow perhaps touched on this by naming it “self-actualization“.

In War and Peace, we read about the Russian army defended Motherland after Napoleon had burned down Moscow.

Wounded bodies, but not spirits.

United Flight 93 passengers decided in split seconds to go down in style.

In 300, the movie, their leader retorts that (when aides brought up bad news that the enemies’ arrows would rain down and cover the sky) “good, we will fight in the shade then”.

Human spirits.

Each man’s history tends to condense in those few decisive turns.

Shun not the confluence of events.

In crisis, show confidence and judgement. When it’s 50-50 split, throw in the human spirit. The tie-breaker.

The quant could never factor this quality on their spread sheets.

They aren’t trained to identify much less put a dollar value on it.

But since time began, we know it exists. One more (aerobic) step, one more cold call (Colonel Sanders), one more pregnancy unaborted.

The Vietnamese eat from a common rice pot. There is always one extra bowl and a pair of chopsticks just in case.

I was at RockStorm last night (stadium concert). The other numbers were OK.

But when Noi Vong Tay Lon (Let’s join hands) was up, I heard a loud chorus “the wild is calling us to rejoin disparaged shores”. Old wine in new skins. The spirit of unity expressed in new genre (rock was first associated with individuality and independence).

In Hotel California, we hear that “we haven’t had that spirit since 1969”.

Human spirit.

Tell me it did not exist, too intangible, hard to pin down.

I will tell you history is made of exactly that, whether or not historians could pin it down. That which is unseen is stronger than that which is seen.

Feminism Vietnamese way

I have seen them in Ao Dai, on scooters.

I have seen them in Ao Dai, holding child, on scooters (perhaps on the way to childcare) before work.

I have seen them with child canvassing the street selling lottery tickets.

Perhaps I used to be that very child my teacher mom in Ao Dai used to carry.

I remember we had to get help. Live-in maids. Four working adults in a family were not available for one child.

Existential loneliness. Thay, nhay, chup (stand on the table, toss the ball, jump in mid air, and catch it while falling).

I repeated that drill so many times, it now stuck in my memory.

Then, luckily, I got a hold of my brother’s guitar.

So, from then on, me and the strings.

Back to feminism in Vietnam as I experienced it.

Vietnamese female went professional such as accountant (my sister), teacher (my mom) , pharmacist (my sister-in-law) and dentist (my niece), during the 60’s and war time.

They put in long hours, performed up to par.

Then came home. Another round of expectations: that of a housekeeper, to have home-cooked meals on the table and clean sheets in the bed (Vietnamese female version of Papa – “keep those shoes on my feet”).

Fast forward to the here and now.

Some took a short cut (yahoo news features a mug shot of a supposedly $2500 per night call girl). Others migrate overseas under pretense and pretext of marrying to foreigners.

I only know how my mom lived her life.

From morning to mid-night.

I refer to her in another blog (Mom’s Ao Dai).

But I cannot help mentioning her again since I saw another mom-type, holding baby in arm, while riding the scooter, in Ao Dai (receptionist uniform at a Vung Tau resort).

Good luck to all the children without a helmet. Good luck to all those moms who struggle to raise a family in a very hot, flat and crowded city.

Good luck to young and emerging female type who has to juggle between tradition vs modernity without tossing the baby out with bath water.

Everyone I spoke to agreed that here in Vietnam ,

it’s the women who actually run the show: power, money and happiness/well-being of their children.

Betty Friedman would have been proud: here, they practice feminism without labeling it as so. Just do it. Lean-In. Thanks Mom.

Son Tinh Thuy Tinh

According to Vietnamese legend, the Mountain God showed up early to ask for the Princess’ hand.  The Sea God was half a step late.  Hence, anger turned tsunami, Katrina, Fukushima etc….

Vietnam Central region always stands in the way of major storms.

To endure and overcome natural disasters, people fabricated tales to assuage their own pain.

Kids, show up early. Life consists of 90 per cent perspiration, 10 per cent inspiration.

I have had a chance to be down in Houston right after Katrina. To donate calling cards.

To see and visit serial refugees (North-South Vietnam,  S Vietnam – New Orleans, N Orleans Houston).

Di Ha, as known around town, is the owner of Hong Kong Mall, Vietnamese enclave in Bellaire.

Her mall and food court instantly turned relief and refugee center.

I saw younger faces, Red-Cross types. Activists and community workers.

The future of America is in good hands.

All Son Tinh: showing up early right at the crest of disaster.

I read somewhere that on the Last Day, same bed might see one taken up in the air, while the other left behind.

50-50 odd.

Natural selection.

A set of twin might not even turn out the same.

Something about nature and nurture.

Hard to put a finger on.

I just know I need to try harder: one more push-up, another minute earlier, straighten up that strand of hair.

The moral of the story: early to bed, early to rise. Luckily, the older we get, the less sleep we need.

In today’s 24/7 always-on digital world, we need to be vigilant against insomnia.

(Ariana Huffington of Huffington Post is known as Sleep Evangelist).

Technology itself is a double-edged sword. For good and evil.

I like seeing people’s comments right after an article or an advertisement.

Keep them honest and challenged. Two-way communication. Many to many.

Try smarter and harder.

Be Son Tinh, and not Thuy Tinh.

And be a cheerful loser, if late.

People might come around and give you a second chance.

Thuy Tinh could have reacted nicer, with grace in defeat.

Good for Vietnam Central Region.

Good for humanity, natural or man made, Fukushima  vs Hiroshima.

More on Vietnamese tales and take-aways on our next bed time.

Unlikely place

Ugliness and evil exist in unlikely places.

So are beauty and goodness. A vulnerable butterfly dancing in rush-hour traffic, an innocent child on the way home from periodic check-ups.

Life offers us not an a-la-cart menu, but a buffet.

Fill up not with french fries and jello.

Yet at the same time, eat not in full the dry roast beef.

Instead, try to sprinkle some ground beacons and top everything with raisins and sunflower seeds.

Who knows.

The beauty is in the combo.

Your combined choices make up life tapestry.

Mine has certainly been an interesting one: like a bouncing billiard ball, I went from boy-to-man, from being a Vietnamese college freshman, to an US graduate, then back to living and working in Vietnam.

I have built and burned bridges, and I have seen both beauty and beast.

Ugliness and evil co-exist with beauty and goodness.

Life buffet.

Choose wisely.

And make your combination a great one, uniquely yours.

Life is so boring with a bunch of automatons, all cut from the same cloth.

Campbell soup cans.

15-minutes of fame.

Go for it. Live a little and slow to die.

Assert, charge and fire (then aim).

While at it, don’t forget to notice the dancing butterfly in traffic, free of worry and free of self-sabotage. If  human, you and I, cannot live as free as those lower-species, then why bother at all. I learn this in the most unlikely place: while crossing Saigon traffic. Call me lunatic, call me poetic and romantic. Whatever you can label me with, just try it out for yourself: start flapping your wings. P.S. a friend mentioned that while jumping to their deaths, some 9/11 jumpers tried to fight gravity even for a few last seconds. This graphic scene wells up tears in me as I am sure it will in yours. I believe I can fly.

Brain Fiber

My cholesterol test result was just in. The coast is clear!

Two eggs please.

I have eaten oatmeal for five years.

Fiber here, fiber there. Can’t go near real food, like Soul Food (fried chicken and french fries).

Here at UVT, culinary students serve their practiced meals: ordering, preparing, serving and collecting the cash.

Long way from the days when we were kids, playing “restaurant” using made-in-china toys.

I stumbled upon a kid picture.

And I wonder how many passages it takes to go from boy2man.

Sounds like a rap group.

A boy in a hot seat.

All future, no past.

Now all past, not much future (if I feel pessimistic it was because I have just lost a sample of my blood this morning).

I recall a lonely childhood.

But seeing other students with eagerness to learn and anticipation to study abroad, my heart warms up to them, in full empathy.

Will they be lost in a larger but impersonal society?

Will they be wise enough to sift through options while retaining core values.

Will they keep that sense of humor and optimism ?

Will they come up with and cook Soul Foods?

I have barely tried the lunch here at work twice.

Now that my cholesterol level is in check, I think I might order my 3rd meal here. After all, the Vietnamese has a saying “an cay nao, rao cay nay”.

Charity begins at home.

I might as well play customer to our first-year Culinary students who in their own rights have graduated from Play House and Kitchen games, to be in the pro game. That innocent looking kid in the pic above has been tossed and turned by war, disasters (personal and circumstantial). I wish someone had told me then to take my time.

Two eggs please. While at it, please toss in some Brain Fiber to help me think, breathe and love.

Stress and songs

The audience sang along, occasionally to the shared mike.

We will we will rock you.

Tonight gonna be a good good night.

Even Top of the World which was a relic from the 70’s.

A night at Acoustic, Saigon.

A night to release the stress.

A night to see Rock rules in a whole new generation.

The warm-up band was from Australia. “Don’t cry, don’t cry”…

Then the Filipino band who without fail stepped on the stool to elevate themselves (Britney, Gaga numbers).

Last but not least was the House band, mainstay.

I will always love you….

Wonderful tonight (in Vietnamese, can you believe, with ” I give her the car key“, not scooter’s).

We had joy, we had fun last night.

Wholesome and healthy. My young sidekick did not even touch a beer.

He ordered milk.

Young people are health-conscious, environmentally aware (can you put out the cigarette?).

No problem.

So we together decompressed, sang along, shouted along. Soared throat.

Soaring spirit.

That’s what it’s all about.

Partying.

Live a little.

Then come back to work harder.

To get more stress and strain.

I am ready.

Try me.

Hit me.

One more time.

One more song.

One more day in Saigon.

Full of stress, but then, if you know where to look, full of strength.

Strength in unexpected places, in a corner there at the end of the alley.

At Acoustic.

Strong in broken places

I see strength in broken places every day. In people peddling lottery tickets, in pedicab drivers, in xe-om and  conical-hat ladies.

They move about under the shadow of high rises here in Saigon.

Broken limb and broken dream.

Yet I see strength in their struggle.

I see resilience where there should have none.

Death is in no special hurry, writes Hemingway.

A farewell to arms. An invitation to plowshares.

Cultivate and enculturate, learn and love.

I see students pairing up and partnering up.

I see students strive for and take ownership of their future, here and abroad.

Even an eagle needs a push.

Raise the standard (academic) and quality.

Raise the bar and the price. No pain no gain.

Like their African-American counterparts in the US, young Vietnamese are discovering their USP (Unique Selling point): Vietnam Got Talent, soccer,

and fashion (design).

In between 2000 and 2012, I have seen gradual changes: from bicycles to motorbikes, from motorbikes to Vespas, from Vespas to V6 .

Upward mobile.

Skyscrapers that reach out to the heaven.

Soar.

Touch the face of God.

Show and prove to the world that you exist and make a difference.

Wipe those tears from the children’s eyes. Lift your face to the rising sun and pray that God would have mercy .

Reincarnate or resurrected, active voice or passive voice, just find your voice.

Colonial days and imperial days are over. After darkness comes day light.

The storm that swept through Saigon last week was more than symbolic.

It cleansed the city of impurity and inertia. Now, with a cleaner slate to start over, I expect to see the next phase of growth, of optimism and confidence.

After all, I live here now. My city. When it does well, it rubs off on me as well.

Strong in broken places. Even death is in no special hurry. So why should I.