Tag: Vietnamese language

Goodbye Saigon

Last night I said goodbye to a good friend. He was going back to California. We sat and listened to Louis Armstrong’s What a Wonderful World (Vietnamese singer but if you closed your eyes you would think the black legend was there in person). I recalled a scene from Good Morning Vietnam whose subjective shot of a chopper take off from the lush paddy field of Vietnam country side.

It’s hard enough to befriend then having to say goodbye.

Today a graduate from our school also had his goodbye at the airport.

Australia-bound. Health-care job. Brain-drain. Foreign currency gain. Such as fate of emerging countries whose citizens went abroad on guest-worker visas (Philippines and Thailand).

When I left the city for the first time – I thought it was for good.

No preparation. No Visa. Just take off.

I managed to stop and say goodbye to my best friend.

But that was it.

Seeing this young man with best friends at Departure Gate stirred up some envy (good emotion) in me.

After all there should be a proper way to bid farewell.

We are built with innate desire to connect.

To be torn apart from the land of birth and tossed into the wild unprepared is akin to suicide.

Yet it happened to the best of us .

Strange land (wheat vs rice) strange custom (football vs soccer), culture (fast food vs slow cooking) strange measurement (british vs metric) and strange socialization (the wave).

People might be overly friendly. But that was just customary. Beneath the facade lies an iron core: don’t get near me – stay away from me.

The loneliness of being a stranger in a strange land, of leaving the familiar (identity) for the unfamiliar (a Social Security number).

The rejection one gets when trying so hard to bend the new surrounding after one’s own image.

The abandonment after years of trying to integrate oneself into the mainstream (anglicized names, or first name first in reverse order of the old).

It could be exhausting. No wonder tourists found themselves on Saigon‘s Main Street (Dong Khoi) whose shops conveniently catered to their taste: beer – beef- and R&B (I even overheard California Dreaming last night at Bier Garden).

One cannot appreciate a place or a person until one experienced total loss. No one misses the well until it is dry up.

I love My Saigon on the double because I thought I had lost it.

Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained.

Despite the dust and noise I have experienced during my re-entry.

No lush green  field like in Good Morning Vietnam.

But I love it. For I had once thought I would never get to see it again.

Now I cherish the pavement and the monument.

Someday I hope to convey this lost/found sentiment to a wider audience.

But for now …I think to myself ……What a Wonderful World.

Start acting

After the trilogy: Start seeing, start hearing and start thinking, I am on the roll.

Behaviorists have debated whether action precedes attitude, or vice versa.

Nike commands: JUST DO IT.

Start acting.

Some guy somewhere mustered his courage to ask for a girl’s hand.

That girl after much deliberation, accepted.

Boom! Action. We are conceived out of love in action.

From conception to cremation, you and I are products of someone else’s action.

In between, it’s on us to act.

Quick assessment of the situation, weighing the options, pros and cons, Bang! Done it.

In case you are curious, I wasn’t born with silver spoon. Indeed, quite the contrary.

But I was schooled in French , then Vietnamese elite high school, then Penn State and Wheaton (private college).

In between school years, I raised my money to travel the world and do relief work.

Action.

A Newsweek article about Boat People dying at seas? Let’s go!

Action.

On the roof of an overcrowding prison-turned-refugee camp, there was space for worship?

Boom.

Let’s carry the amplifiers (heavy) and supplies to hold open church, open door.

People need to pass their time while awaiting resettlement to a third-country? Boom, let’s keep them busy with Present tense (English), and mostly Future tense (hope).

Action justifies everything: our existence, and out earning. While in action, we might face objection and obstacle. Bruce Lee said, “screw the obstacles, I create my own opportunities”.

Start acting. It’s scary at first. Like the first walk on our own, or the ride on the bike,  or that first stroke in the stream.

I don’t ask you to try extreme sports. Just to act on what you know needed action.

Please don’t wait for Superman.

Or like the invalid who lays around the healing pool, and missed out a total of 38 chances of getting healed.

Action also means positive: start carrying that tune in your head, energy burned is energy earned.

What’s your war chant?

Could you arouse people’s emotion and instill their confidence?

Start acting, and you may in the process, become what you are meant to be all along.

That guy who asked that girl for her hand, is not an unsolvable riddle. They are our parents in whose images we are shaped.

Saigon Tech Talent

It could have been a waiting scene at Acoustics, Saigon Rock Alley. Except for the instruments and the bands.

They were CEO’, CTO and Venture Capitalist. Not Bar Camp, nor Web Wednesday. It’s Mobile Monday, held on Thursday night.

The cool, the calm and the co-ed. They were all there. Web to Mobile and back to Web (the mother of all).

Bruce Lee clip was shown: “to hell with obstacles, I create my own opportunities.”

So they created, collaborated and commented.

The eagerness and hunger was there, for the next big thing, even in BioTech.

When I was looking that good, I wasn’t into tech. Now another young guy, by the same first name, sat there and told us to “build an ecosystem” etc….

Back then, all I knew was sound system and we were all hair.

Features phones vs smart phones had not even been in the horizon.

Yes, Vietnam is facing an e-payment problem; its e-commerce is consequently slow to take off. But what about those who come to Vietnam from an ecosystem that doesn’t have that problem? Should we make them walk around, pay by cash? How about  Tech Support…..

So the arguments tail-spinned in a different direction.

But the thought flow and thought form were there, punctuated by occassional nods of agreement.

Tech talent got it.

They just need a jump-start, like the eagle that needs a push.

Jump, said Jesus, to the invalid who complained that every time he tried (to get himself healed) , someone else had already jumped into the pool first.

Instead of getting to the water, Bruce Lee’s advice for us  to become water.

“Water in a cup becomes the cup….”

Saigon Tech talent will need to morph and move through window in between mobility and mortality.

It was good to see 160 show up after only a few days of SMS and flash mop.  Unlike at Acoustics, I went home hungry, but not drunk.

I still remember some if not all the challenges, comments and consolation.

It’s good to have attended Mobile Monday, in T-shirt and jeans.

Celebrating Love in Saigon

Consumer confidence is up. Spending is up. Cards, chocolate and crocodile (over beer).

I thought it must be Christmas or Tet all over again.

Hunting down a ticket for A House in the Alley took me to two theaters, with the only available seats at 11:20PM.

Way pass my bedtime.

Oh well, I tried.

Supporting Vietnamese arts has its price.

From comments I overheard – on the elevator down- the audience covered their eyes, hence missing out on what they had originally come for.

Vietnamese cover their mouths when laughing, and their eyes when scared.

Live a little.

In English classes, I encouraged folks to over pronounce their consonants,  to compensate for cultural conformity and held-backs.

The Girl With The Dragon Tatoo won’t be shown here due to some skin scenes.

What is suppressed in one area will find release in another.

It’s stressful to live in a collective culture: “why don’t you find your other half?”….

Glad strangers care.

Just don’t walk by like they did in China when a kid got run over twice in public.

Back to love in the Alley.

From the look of it, Dan and his crew probably have scored.

What’s more important is they packaged horror genre with date nights.

Keep it coming.

I know tomorrow night, the theater will be back to its norm: full of empty seats.

But love goes on, and finds its outlet in sidewalk cafes, river-front beer stalls and karaoke halls.

In restless dream I walk alone…

But the idea of love will forever endure.

Or else, 80% of music and movies will go to waste. And humanity will see its sorriest day.

I will celebrate, with one more hour left of my Valentine in Vietnam.

First, learn respect!

After transitioning from a French elementary school to a Vietnamese middle-school, on my first day of school,  I saw “First learn respect, then learn literature”.

My brother’s generation at the same school had been from the same mold (his classmates are still staying in touch).

No wonder they showed up at my Mom’s funeral in a cold winter day in Virginia , out of respect.

To see the sight of my brother’s classmates, my upperclassmen (most of whom accomplished MD’s and Pharmacists)  bowing with incense in hand, stirred something up in me .

Inside those “tough” shells were hearts of gold.

It is repeating today with my classmates.

A “party” (memorial) fund for our dear musician friend who had just passed away.

Since he was cremated in a private ceremony, we rally to chip in for his kids, to turn grieving into giving.

Coordination takes place across the Pacific, with the free help of technology (yahoo group).

First, learn respect.

I don’t know how much we will eventually collect, but I know my friend’s kids will grow up knowing that daddy’s friends care.

I know Long’s kids will take on some of his musical legacy.

Someday, if I survive to hear one of them perform, I will once again be reminded that there is no such a thing as “the day the music dies”.

(John Lennon’s kid is now playing, George Harrison‘s kid, the same).

I remember listening to “Your Song” during siesta long ago.

But it’s just a radio.

Now, it’s Spotify.

You can take away the stereo, the juke box and the boombox, but you can’t take away music in man’s heart.

The going might get rough, but then, there is music to soothe the soul (ole time Rock and Roll).

I know my friend would be smiling, displaying his square jaws, when I blog this.

He would have joined in if he could.

Testing, and one, and two.

Every other form of learning is preceded by Respect.

It’s hard to find, as a line by Neil Young “I’ve been to Redwood, I’ve been to Hollywood…looking for a heart of gold, and I’m getting old”.

Hold on to it when you have it.

Have it when you see it.

I wouldn’t think of this blog had I not seen it in action, at my Mom’s funeral, and heard it today from my yahoo group.

I love them dearly, but first, respect.

Watching Victor Vu’s film

The Coke, (pop) corn and cinema.

Heroes of Destiny.

Boom, bang! karate kid! Justified violence (revenge).

Boy meets girl, boy almost loses girl, boy gets girl in the end. Happy Ending.

When the bewitched Empress released her grip, she broke the chain of self-perpetuated violence.

It’s like cutting the credit card when you  are a shopaholic.

Blood-thirsting regime shed more blood to solidify power (the East was used to “Chu Di Tam Toc” i.e. wipe out the enemy’s descendants down to the third generation.)

We got some humor and and we got the resolution (breaking the chain).

As Vietnam‘s m0vie-going is improved, so has its film industry.

More investors and actors take a plunge, as barriers to entry are much lower than in Hollywood.

Valentine should see another date movie (the horror genre): House in the Alley.

My cousin used to work in Vietnam’s film industry. We used to get invited to premiers at Rex cinema.

Back then, actors all lined up to greet guests on the red carpet.

We had our own version of Brigitte Bardot (without Jean Paul Belmondo) in Tham Thuy Hang, and many generations of comedian. Still, the industry was in its infancy. By the time it matured, technology has moved on to home theatres and small screens.

It’s an act of love and faith to plunge deep into movie making in Vietnam.

I admire the efforts such as Norwegian Wood.

You can’t get a flatter world than that: Beatles’ title, Japanese novel, Vietnamese mis-en-scene talent.

Victor Vu started out with horror genre, then moved on to action flicks.

He used Matrix and X-men special effects throughout his work.

But definitely, you know it’s a Vietnamese story: Nguyen Trai‘s sole surviving descendant seeking revenge and restoration to the family’s name.

Part philosophy, part action (but not mindless); settling then stirring.

It’s entertaining, but not surprising.

What surprised me was the setting (Parkson) and the friendly greeting when we exited the premise. In the States, you are lucky if they show you out to the right exit.

I hope producers and directors find strong materials and backing to ride the waves of change (low barriers of entry, yet declining ticket sales). I know we have yet told stories like the Fall of Saigon, Last Men Out, and A Day in the life (of successful Vietnamese immigrants). Before you know it, the digital generation is taking over, with fuzzy memories of how they have come to be who they are, with Ipad and Iphone.

No wonder why Steve Jobs commissioned his biography, “so my kids understand what I was doing”. Il’etait une fois……Once upon a time…..Everybody loves a good bed-time story, well-crafted and well- told. Victor Vu’s that I saw today luckily did not put me to sleep.

Mom’s Ao Dai

When I saw a Vietnamese woman on motor bike with helmet, mask, sunglasses, messenger pouch, gloves and Ao-Dai steering scooter while holding a baby on her way to the sitter, it brought back memories of Mom’s dress.

She was a school teacher, deeply committed to her multiple roles: mother, teacher, wife, daughter-in-law and friend (to other teachers who had graduated from the same French Lycee, which in her time, was a big brag!).

Having spent her semi-orphan childhood in dormitory, she made sure we have what she had not: a loving home with home-cooked meals.

Not a good cook, she tried most times, without even taking off the Ao Dai she had on from work. By design or default, she had a good assistant: me. Here, hold the live chicken legs while I slit its throat (all the while, she would pray for its soul).

Then she would place the boiled chicken on the altar – an offering to our ancestors on the day leading up to the New Year (Tet).

I learned by observing and via osmosis (run to the market and get me ginger) and by cleaning.

And clean I did, on the cusp of New Year. Mom would put on her Ao Dai right before mid-night, light up three joss sticks and pray to the four corners of the Earth. There was something very sacred at New Year countdown: inspirational enough to my parents who often competed to compose and read aloud a stanza or two to each other (both were well-versed in French …Lamartine, Chopin and Flaubert etc..).

I meanwhile tried to finish up the last rinse for the floor in anticipation of throng of visitors.

Back then, you could hear occasional boom and bang (Chinese enclave was known to spend a fortune on firecrackers e.g. shades of pink and red – color of fortune, evident in spent shells which carpeted their lawn, our version of ticker tape parade).

The whole region threw a big New Year party that makes even the dead want to join.

Years later, Ao Dai evolved in style (Madame Nhu), hence rid of the collar.

But not for my mom.

She stayed on in that teacher’s style all the way to America, where once again, she trekked snowy roads to the Temple on New Year’s Day. I knew then and even now, she had prayed for me, her youngest who has never traveled traditional safe path.

In contrast, the Road Less Traveled took me far from the proverbial tree. The first few feet were the hardest, seeing her wave from my rearview mirror.

This made it hard the whole way to Chicago, to grad school and to an uprooted life.

Her picture has been on my altar. I wonder what gift I should buy to make it worthy a Tet offering (bean bun, bouquet and beer?) Banh chung, bong cuc va bia?

Perhaps the best way to honor and keep her memory is to be the best son/student.

I don’t want to see in the rearview mirror shadow of regrets. I realize the only way she could have let me go was for furthering education. Of any one in my family, she would be the one who understood it best.

When seeing a younger version of herself in scooter, mask, glasses and helmet, but still in Ao Dai, holding a baby on her way to the seaside babysitter, I was reminded of her: sacrificial and selfless, a role model with near spot free existence. Her contribution made my and our human family all the richer.

Si tu n’existais pas, I wouldn’t be here. As keeper of fine and fond memories.

Mom’s Ao Dai.

Team building

I invited a new classmate to join our volleyball team. Thought I kill two birds with one stone: we could use a tall guy, and I couldn’t bear seeing him unfriended during recess. Turned out he couldn’t play well, but we got to be friends for life.

We pitched in to buy a professional ball. Took it out for a test-drive.

Before I even got my chance at that spanking new white ball, it bounced to the street, ran over by a car, and voila! Memory of shared disappointment.

But Team!

Then we went out and had some lunch. The neighborhood gangs there just walked up and started to punch each of us to the ground. Back then, one of our oldest classmates had a brother in the army. He went home and took out an M-16 to scare away the hoodlums. Team!

Later in life, I have always been a team player: my brother got married, OK.

I would take care of mom, heck with my broadcasting career! Team.

The Boat People died at seas? I stood up and joined two other graduates. Together, we rolled up our sleeves, and spent our summer in hot, crowded and often times, violent (due to cramp living) prison-turned-refugee camps.

Team!

When it was my turn to lead, a joint Chinese and Vietnamese team (historically at war as nations) I made sure we spent a lot of time around food,

sharing meals and sharing deals. Team.

Families broke down because they forgot that Team came first.

Great teams just don’t happen by accident.

It needs everyone to commit to a common goal, and yes, it needs to define clearly who it is competing against (Apple vs IBM, MCI vs ATT or Samsung vs Sony).

Team needs various personalities to achieve optimal results.

But personality conflicts cause headaches.

Team leaders should embrace diversity of opinion, temperament and  ( emotional and social) intelligence.

Let conflict boil to the surface. Team’s fiber could withstand some strains and be made stronger as a result.

You know your team is fully functional when it moves as a unit: each knows his/her SWOT. Team leaders are not always right. They just know how to draw out the best in each member.

Team has its learning curve and maturity as well.

Even the best team can’t stay together forever. When you get teary at goodbye, you know you had a good team experience.

I would trade a B teammate over a A lone wolf any day.

No wonder Southwest Airlines consistently outperform its nearest competitor.

People who work there seem to and do have fun. They sing to, they smile at and they serve you as if each flight were their last. Because of this, we have yet seen SW last flight since their opening day.

We did not choose our families. But team does pick you as much as you let yourself be changed by it. Nothing worthwhile is accomplished without great teams. And no rewards greater than that of a team bringing home the first prize. Esprit de corps. That’s what it is all about. The high-fives or the tap on your shoulder when you are down and out (World Cup Final).  Come on! Focus! Next play!

Ask my tall classmate whose first handshake ends up lasting a life time.

Adventure in my homeland

One of my earliest  collections was the Adventure of Tin-Tin.

It was a roadmap for my adventure later in life, which took me to ten countries and roughly fifty cities in North America. But nothing had prepared me for an adventure in my homeland. Certain familiar elements still exist: Chemin de Fer, Ben Thanh Market and the noodle stand in my old neighborhood. But new elements have emerged as well: I-Pho T-shirts, I-Center and Steve Jobs biography in Vietnamese.

At rush hour, thousands of helmets compete for pavement and sidewalk. Call it “Helmet Nation”. But at night, when the heat subsides, tables and chairs sprout up on the very sidewalks commuters had just fought for the right of way earlier.

People are getting married (young demographic), are into fashion and style and going to school at ALL hours of the day ALL WEEK LONG.

I heard that Koreans work  the longest hours (55) and the French shortest (35).

Maybe Vietnam should be ranked at the top for classroom hours vs free time.

(This study load perhaps did not scare off the only Korean student enrolled in Vietnam University to study MBA out of a few thousand foreign students in Vietnam, most taking Vietnamese lessons).

During my “re-entry” I could pass as a “pure” native, until  my slightly red-hue hair gave me away

“Good morning Sir, would you like to see the menu?” one vendor approached me at Ben Thanh Market.

And before I knew it, I purchased a Steve Jobs biography by TIME’s former Editor (in Vietnamese, by Alpha Book) instead.

After all, Steve was born Syrian. And his idea of “think different” would fit here where “Sorrows of War” copies are sold along with I-Pho T-shrits.

On my way home, I stopped by the I-Center in District 3 to see how closely this “reseller” reflects Steve’s original and obsessive control of  every Retail  detail (inadvertently, I acted as an unsolicited mystery shopper).

The rep asked “what would you like to buy”?

In the States, his counterparts would have left me alone to play with the I-products, until I became so engaged and enthralled that I wouldn’t need to be asked (puppy-dog sales).

The strangest feeling was to walk out of Mission Impossible (which took the audience to the Kremlin, Dubai and Mumbai) and emerged into the sunlight of my old neighborhood in District 3. For a moment, life seemed to be  a continuous loop, from Adventure of Tin Tin, to Tom Cruise, to Tommy (me), as one  writer put it, ” return to the same place, and see it for the first time”.

I finally understood the expression “the eyes of one’s heart”. Perhaps we will reach the Empathic Civilization sooner than thought: understand others and be understood. Full circle. Adventure that started at my doorstep ended there as you may have guessed. Ecole L’Aurore. District 3.

How can I tell her

Lobo was hot in Vietnam during the 70’s.

Decades later, on an American stage, his Vietnamese fans even invited him to perform live for music video.

Just a simple man.

“I love you too much to ever start liking you, so let’s just let the story kind an end…”

The contradiction and dialectic – friend and lover.

How can I  tell people about Vietnam.

Its soul, its sentiment, its sorrow (of war).

People on both sides don’t talk about it.

Nobody wants to talk about it.

In Matterhorn,  we got a glimpse of what it was like back then by a Yale scholar. It took him more than 30 years to pen his experience.

In Bao Ninh‘s Sorrows of War, it took him less time, but painful nevertheless.

It eats you up from the inside.

You can’t forget it.

Everyone was affected by it.

The younger generation only heard about it.

The older buried it.

But it grows inside, like a cancer.

Sudden loss, separation and interruption.

One cannot swim in the same river twice.

Maybe you can go back in place, but not in time.

First cut is the deepest.

Now you hear only sentimental songs whose lyricst barely scratch the surface.

Who will speak for them?

Who can understand them?

Betrayal and bewilderment.

How can I tell her about you.

I am just a simple man.

I love you too much to ever start liking you.

So Lobo incidentally touched the nerves (top of the chart in US as well).

Just you and me and the dog named Boo.

Rhyme and rhythm.

Chorus and replay.

It gets right under your skin.

And stays there.

The artist has moved on.

But his fans are still lingering.

Like the smell of napalm.

The taste of Pall Mall, among other PX supplies: peanut butter and jelly,

cheese and fruit cake.

Go go girls in leather boots and mini-skirts.

Bob Hope and the choppers’ drops.

When I saw you standing there, I felt the blood goes to my feet.

Baby, I love you to want me.

Unassuming, unpretentious.

Pure longing and pure loss.

Fleeting flirt and life-time sorrow.

On top of the sorrows of war.

On top of post-war reconstruction.

There is still a glimpse of hope, of finding love once again.

Maybe this time, it’s different.

Maybe, when I saw you standing there, I once again, felt the blood goes to my feet.

Nobody cares if Lobo no longer stays at the top of the chart.

To the Vietnamese heart which he once conquered, Lobo occupied a well-deserving spot. I once felt ashamed that I had liked him. Now I no longer want to please what’s trendy. Just stay there, my simple man, because “everything seems right, whenever I am with you”……..