Tag: Walmart

Goodbye Saigon, pt II

Another friend flew out for Thanksgiving.

There is no such a thing here in Saigon: oven-roasted turkey, croton and mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce , yam and apple pie.

Mouth-watering!  children running around and old folks reminiscing the good old days.

Yes, his destination has a few hallmarks of the American Dream.

Here in old Saigon, the only thing that changes is new names on old streets and schools (no longer segregation, so it came with a shock as I rode pass the old all-girl Gia Long High to see the new mix of male and female students)

My friend likes the quote from T.S. Eliot (In my end, my beginning).

He knows the Earth is round, and that at the end of his short stay in Saigon is the beginning of his trans-continental journey to America and Europe.

Before meeting him, I carry water and chop wood.

After meeting him, I carry water and chop wood.

But he left a vacuum hard to fill. Just like our mutual friend, before him (see Goodbye Saigon).

They have sons and daughter to attend to, paper work to sign and friends to play catch up with.

None of us gives up on Saigon. We all think the place deserves a make-over, a second chance (as if it needed our help and opinion).

Rated as most competitive in the nation, Saigon is quite poised to soar and regain its former glory (Pearl of the Orient).

Skyline and sea harbor, street signs and shops, all compete for clientele. Back-packers have a hard time configuring  their Google-map routes. But everyone here knows or are supposed to know where they are going.

Young work force pour over the key board, while street vendors peddle their wares (walking Wal-Mart).

When my friend was here, we used to sit at one of the ronde’s, French round-about, to feel and feed on the energy of bustling traffic.

Afterwards, we would retire to his quiet alley just a few feet away to recuperate. It’s exhausting and exhilarating at the same time to live the night life in Saigon. More bikes take up the space a few moments ago reserved for buses.

Years ago, they stopped allowing tow-trucks to come through before mid-night. So on this Thanksgiving eve, there is no Black Friday here in Saigon. Only window shopping and online shopping. Tourists find it refreshing to stroll the old boulevard, to discover names like Majestic, Continental hotels etc…

Time seems to freeze-frame here. And we took advantage of this to “re-enter” our past (as if it’s ever possible).

American pop songs overheard from retail shops can lure you back to a time when you were first in love or discover love.

Don’t give up on us, baby.

On the other side of the trans-Pacific flight, my friend perhaps is checking out his luggage, going through custom, with the reflexive greeting “Welcome home, mr Ngo”. I like America. When being addressed by Mr so and so, you know it’s official and that you have paid your taxes and your due.

Consumer confidence is returning with rising home prices in the Bay Areas. I hope it spills over across the pond. After all, Fukushima tsunami waves got tossed all the way to San Francisco bay. Why not this time around, with rising economic waters from the West. When my friend returns, he’ll know once again, his next stay in Vietnam would just like T.S. Elliot puts it, “in my end, my beginning”. No way around the inter-dependence and inter-connectedness of our 21st-century living.

Out of the box

We are urged to “think out of the box“, be creative etc..

Easier said than done. Having a liberal arts background, and traveled the world, I find it easier just get out of the box, then think from there.

Every place has its own charms and setbacks. Every place gets good and bad people.

Don’t assume, from the propaganda, that your place is best, and theirs worst.

Maturity comes only after you have examined and experienced places and people for yourself.

Ivory-tower and Ivy League people often organize “insulated” academic travel tours to stimulate cross-cultural thinking (most of the time, it’s West-East, and not East-West, although more Chinese can now afford world travel).

Out of these excursions, maybe emerge one diplomat or global business person.

Most came back, feeling good about one’s self that he/she is living in a well-off society, where Wal-Mart rules.

Then at work, they urge us to think out of the box once again. You can’t legislate morality, nor can you squeeze creativity out of workers.

After all, isn’t it written in company’s policies that when X happens, Y is the answer!

Without pressures, we tend to lean back into the path of least resistance.

Peak performance, heroism, and valor come in the middle of heavy fire.

One’s life and achievement are highlighted in those critical moments of choice.

This way or that way. One positive strain then another. Keep paying forward.

Keep finding that road less travel. Approach it from another angle. From other’s point of view. What you see depends on where you stand Hence, to think out of the box, sometimes, but not necessary requires one to be out of the box altogether.

I am out of the box, geographically. I hope I can see things in new light, before I too get settled into daily routine, which eventually blind-sight me. My itching and aching heart by then, will hear the call of the wild. That’s what short-trips are for.

To regain perspective, to see old things in new light. To feel refreshed. To love one’s place all over again. It’s not the place. It’s the people living in it, and how they make the most of its context. Can’t think out of the box when you have lived in it for so long.

Impending Incident

The North-East is once again bracing for a gathering storm.

Climate change and the prolonged cold front.

Satellite tracking has improved weather forecast substantially.

Other things in life seem less certain e.g. financial market and food/fuel prices.

The Queen of England was reported as saying “how come no one saw this coming?” (in the context of this past Recession).

Our 21st-century narrative should have bluntly shown the Elephant in the room.

And that was with all the predictions of Nobel-prize-winning economists.

After averting an avalanche, we now face a cliff.

All impending incidents. Everyone was aware of the Sequester. The budget cuts and the cancelled contracts.

700,000 jobs are to be eliminated, to bring the unemployed population to just about 13 million. Adam Smith got hand (invisible) but not heart.

To survive, one needs to be tough . This is a test of not manhood but nationhood.

There is a piece about Finding Love in Walmart (18 States). What about Walgreens?

Too convenient and high-priced?

Let’s face it. The Elephant has stood there in the room.

Much has been written about it, but it refuses to budge.

Still high unemployment, still high fuel prices.

The best brains simply surrender, while the top 1 percenter simp;y accumulate. That is an impending event (as of this edit, the DOW has just reached its all-time high since 2007, much of it came from institutional investors).

So we join a new spectator’s sports: space traveling (of course you have to be very rich to ride). Aristocracy in the age of Austerity. Our version of the dream has just been upgraded and most impossible to realize. Well, we can always rely on the weather man for better odds. With space stations, weather forecast, once a hard uncertainty, has now become a soft one at that.

P.S. The area did experience end-of-season snow blizzards, just as predicted.

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.

Super shoppers

Super computing power arms super shoppers on Super Saturday w/ price updates.

Retail outfits such as Best Buy might have to be renamed the age of Dollar Stores.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704694004576019691769574496.html?mod=WSJ_Tech_RightMostPopular

Tri Tang of Orange County was holding up his Smart Phone to do some comparison shopping in real-time. Faster chip speed (compressing more data into less space),  improved supply chain and lean manufacturing from world’s Super Factory in our post-recession era gave birth to Super Shoppers.

I went out to buy a car yesterday (I did my part). As a consumer, I found old media (classified ads for loss leaders and radio commercials) irrelevant. With Autocheck, Autotrader, Carfax and Carmax (super store), shoppers are now more informed than the sales person whose answer is “let me check and call you back”.

Super shoppers ask questions not to seek information. They ask for a confirmed response. Stores and “associates” will have to do some acrobatic like Cirque du Soleil‘s to survive.

Super shopping pits not only brick-and-mortar stores against each other (Target vs Wal-Mart), channel vs direct (Apple stores vs Apple web site) but also online vs online (Amazon vs Overstock.com).

No wonder Best Buy is under pricing pressure, which not long ago, took down Circuit City.

Female super shoppers, a majority of whom are now heads of household, shop for electronics and cars (once alpha males’ domain). Stores like Carmax milk these customers’ life time value by improving “impressive first impressions” and rely on economy of scale.

Disney staying power testifies to shopper’s early imprints. Randy in the Last Lecture referred to his childhood visit to Disney World in one of his chapters.

Super shoppers not only shop for price but also for convenience, quality and a positive shopping experience. The only thing left to worry about is “how to lug around an Ipad”. Tri Tang in our story didn’t carry an Ipad. He wielded around his smart phone inside the store, locating signal strength, looking for the best deal.

Truth in advertising has been around for a while. But the mechanism to enforce it has just arrived in the hand of the Super Shopper near you.

 

Love on aisle 13

Inside Wal-Mart, you can find towels, pillows and assorted bath items neatly displayed, aisle by aisle.

Almost all the essential and desirable are available in store and online, but you can not find love on aisle 13. You wish.

http://www.publicradio.org/columns/marketplace/business-news-briefs/2010/09/money_cant_buy_me_love_but_it.html

Love and happiness are quite alluding. The more one hunts for them, the further they seem to evade.

So we substitute the tangible for the intangible, towels in the tub for tales of the heart.

When asked,  nearly everyone says he/she was looking for happiness and/or love.

Most would say for sure it’s happiness (love means different  to different people) or the pursuit of it.

Yet we see evidence to the contrary i.e. hate speech, threat of Quran burning, and pastor who plays surveillance against his local strip joint patronage (who finally got enough, and gave him a dose of his own medicine). Welcome to America, land of the free. Welcome to Wal-Mart, shop more save more (not sure about the “live better” part).

Will we find love in our life time? Or its resemblance? Even a glimpse into that castle is good enough. One cannot get the right combination to crack that code i.e. when you are young, you have the energy, and time, but not money. Later, you got some money, energy, but not enough time. And at late stage of life, lots of time, little energy, and the money part is questionable (average life expectancy is now 70, and the age of Social Security entitlement extends to 67. What are you going to do in those last three years? Shop at Wal-Mart and look for romance on aisle 13 as some were purportedly doing).

Happy are those who want, for they shall inherit the Earth. Let’s hope so. Attention Wal-Mart shoppers, we have Roll Back items on aisle 13. Heart-shaped and everything. It symbolizes love, made in China. Call it “golden year specials”.  And you can scan the item yourself, wipe the cart handle yourself, etc…. Thanks for shopping. Did you find everything you need? Love and happiness?  Since you don’t seem to have found it (smaller than a lottery chance), we wish you a good day.

Even for lottery winners, studies show that they file for bankruptcy within a few years. Wealth doesn’t equate with happiness. And certainly not love, which involves another human being of free will. That will freely chooses wealth over want, liberty over loyalty, Tiffany over Target.

OK Miss Hepburn, let’s do breakfast (at Tiffany) before our daily shopping for love on aisle 13.

Vietnamize the franchise

Carl Jr, Starbucks, Hard Rock Cafe, KFC, BK, MacDonald, Circle K, Domino, Pizza Hut.

The age of franchise bull run.

When I said I had been to 40+ cities in N America, I actually meant, I have been to only one. The one with MacDonald, Starbucks, Walmart, Target etc…

You got the idea.

The funny thing was, per my  job, I had to zero in Chinese and Vietnamese niche markets in those cities.

And within these niches, I ran into Lee Sandwiches, Tung Ki noodles, Pho Hoa,  Hoa Phat Money Transfer, Le money transfer etc…

Can’t seem to find the authentically local flavor (maybe in New Orleans and Biloxi).

HCMC and Hanoi will soon be filled with similar landmarks, once the invasion of franchise outlets saturated those two engines of growth.

For now, it’s novelty to sit in a new establishment, place your order and self-serve your drinks (the age of prosumerism).

I ordered an iced coffee milk this morning at a local MacDonald. What I got was iced milk. And the cookie I ordered, I had to pay three times for it

(because the system doesn’t allow for customer to buy just one).

So, welcome to supply chain, branding and upselling.

And good luck with getting customer service at those places.

Indeed, one can go through life, at least here in the States, for a month without ever getting any help at all, over the phone or the counter.

See my other blog on “machine and me”.

It gets to be lonely. Hence the blog.

I hope Vietnam doesn’t get that way, at least, not yet until I can find a Carl Jr at every corner, right next to the Starbucks.

Don’t dream, it’s over

The Maytag man finally wakes up from a long nap!

Pent-up demand pushes consumers to go out and spend on big-ticket items such as refrigerators, washers and dryers.

Walmart got a law suit for paying men more than women for the same job.

Our calendar is very consumer-friendly i.e. plenty of  shopping events, from Mothers Day to Memorial Day…

Past President(s) signed into law certain holiday, to fall on Mondays hence long shopping weekends by design.

We saw the testimonies of “what is synthetic CDO?” etc…

But by the time the witnesses were sworn in, it’s already yesterday’s news.

People have moved on. Can’t live on Main Street in the ghosting shadow of Wall Street.

Kids need shoes.

Jeans need washer and dryer.

Maytag man, wake up.

As the refrain by Crowded House, ” Hey now, hey now, don’t dream it’s over”.

I am glad it’s only just begun, this time, living in real-time and in reality.

Call it what you’d like, but it ain’t that version of the American Dream we used to know i.e. A Chevy in the drive way,

and a chicken in the pot (with apple pie for deserts).  The America today has apple pie and McNuggets, with ketchup upon request only. For Here or To Go (we prefer you take it “to go”).

Don’t dream, it’s over.

 

On self-repackaging

The age of frozen self has finally arrived i.e. you either update your web presence, or remain “frozen” in cyber space.

Years from now, people remotely connected to you will Google you  and mine all the intimate data about you or written by you. Personal digital archive.

At the turn of our century, Command-and-Control model dominated management practices. Now, with better algorithm, faster broadband and only a few degrees of separation, suddenly we all “footloose” like Kevin Bacon (who is purportedly connected to everyone in Hollywood by one film or another).

Mass media gave ways to niche media. And we start hearing voices from the fringe. It only takes a camera and an upload.

News personalities are not making nearly enough money as once thought. It’s an age of “do-it-yourself journalism” or Pro-Am.

People point, shoot, upload and save. Gone are the photographers, photo shops, post office and stationery stores.

With Wal-Mart moving in, we are just about to see a complete overhaul of small town America. The Age of Nextville.

No wonder the trend now is to move to North Dakota and the likes. As long as there is broadband connection, a heater and a Wal-Mart.

Online, it doesn’t matter where you live. Or that you are a dog, as they say.

As long as you can repackage yourself, brush up your web presence and leave behind well-orchestrated digital footprint.

It’s a new world. It’s a beautiful world i.e. a hybrid world of on and off-line, virtual and organic relationships. Charlie Chaplin was only partially correct. We are not just an extension of the Machine. It’s the Machine that has become us, shaped and repackaged according to our narcissistic image. I am beautiful. So are you. As long as there is still Photoshop. .

 

Monk in Wal-Mart

God, guns and country.

Then, a monk, not outside of Wal-Mart soliciting for donation, but inside, at the cashier line, waiting to pay.

It’s a common sight today.

But by turning the clock back a few decades, you wouldn’t expect both (Monk and Wal-Mart) to coexist.

At least, it’s not quite as contrast a sight as a Monk in Rodeo Drive  or Worth Avenue.

With the growing  Asian American population , there is an increasing need for “homegrown” spiritual nourishment.

Back then, young Americans would have to be so “rad” before “turning East” (that is, if they did not go North to evade the draft) That tide had been stamped out or overshadowed by the theocratic Moral Majority until the 90’s when the South Asian and Asian American population

(second generation) started to gain traction, and their parents could afford to upscale their kids to Ivy-league schools.

Studies show bi-lingual bi-cultural kids excel in school. Where else can they go to hone their first-turned-second language besides the Mosque, Pagoda and Churches.

The monks started to come (no more burning monk – an event which I eye-witnessed, and which Madam Nhu said if they wished, they could just “barbecue” themselves, since they had done it to themselves).

I have high respect for people who before green is cool, already subscribed to the tenet that we brought nothing to this Earth, thus try not to harm it. And that the path to Enlightenment is NOT to want things. With this backdrop in mind, it is quite a cognitive-dissonance to see a monk in Wal-Mart .Monks are taught to consume only if/when necessary, while Wal-Mart is a hotbed of consumerism in bulk. “Save more, live better”.

Recent numbers are showing that chains like TJ Maxx are doing well, unlike Macy and JC Penney.

Near where I live, in West Palm Beach, the JC Penney mall has turned ghost mall during the downturn of the economy.

Meanwhile, residents in the area feel like they are singled out to live in a ghost town . Incidentally there is a Hummer dealership nearby, which makes it worse if it ends up being own by the Chinese. All we need is a Haier,

a Hummer and a Huawei store to make this a nouveaux Chinatown, complete with spiritual tending by a Buddhist temple nearby. The Mormons and the Monks can stake out their turfs in this new world order, a sort of  World Cup for religious ideas.

What we need is public education on the environment, ethics, and economics. We have experienced enough devastation to appreciate their importance. And when the Earth cries out for attention like Katrina, Fukushima or Haiyan; when greed got the better of everyone (the Ponzification of America) we then start embracing Wal-Mart over Wall Street. The monk was probably too busy tending to his expanding flock to notice the difference. We prefer to roll back the Yuppies decade, trading up at Starbucks’ and while at it, throwing in a Bob Dylan CD (with T Shirt box set). That in itself is an irony (icon of protest now peddles his merchandise co-opting with yuppies, not hippies). When you see Starbucks come back, you know the economy has recovered.  For now, I will stick to instant coffee, while wholesale supplies last, at Wal-Mart. I am right behind the monk, in Wal-Mart.