rest in peace

Many years ago, I read a series of books that have changed my perspective in life (see to err is human, to forgive, divine) - actually, I would say it validated rather than changed as for some reason, I was already on that trajectory. One of the things in the book was that people are reading the book as they are ready for it - something akin to things happening for a reason. Having been raised Baptist, there was a lot of push of hell and damnation, which was one of the reasons why I turned away from organized religion (more complex than can be articulated in a blog). The series of books somehow amalgamated many concepts from various organized religions throughout the world and articulated them in such a way that there were no contradictions, and in its own way, made sense.

One of the concepts though is that there is no such thing as hell. Life on earth is the equivalent of the 'hell' as we are prone to use the term, but it's really a matter of life experiences that we choose to experience and continuous rebirths until we achieve some higher learning/experiences -- similar to the various heavens noted in Buddhism (see the road less traveled). Since then, my fear of dying has lessened and focus more on my experiences and living in the moment.

Ben Breedlove, in his young age, has impacted many through his witty relationship advice posts on YouTube through a couple of pseudonyms. But two simple posts with a different pseudonym that he created just for the occasion have touched millions. Many have interpreted his message differently, based on where they are in their lives. Although his life was snuffed out on Christmas, his legacy in itself is a Christmas miracle, as his family were able to view the YouTube posts, which he had uploaded a week before, the day after his death and find comfort. My take -- how wonderful would it be to have that constant smile and peace. His face glows with that smile as he covers that part as well. My hat is off to him for finally finding bliss.

me love you long time (part 7)

I recently heard the following that struck me in its simplicity in meaning yet complexity in execution:

I don't want you to give up your life. I just want you in mine.

I have always had a view that relationships that usually endure the test of time are those where individuals do not rely on the other for their happiness but oftentimes complement each other in their compatibility, respect and love for each other. Seems like a mouthful but having been in Vietnam for less than a year, the number of failed relationships (whether on paper or not) seem disproportionately high (see me love you long time (part 6) and china anniversary).

Before I left for the States for the holidays, I got into a conversation with a number of young staff. They were concerned that at the ages of 21-22, they were not married or had a boyfriend. After I gave them my perspective of learning more about themselves and what they want in life including exploring a number of relationships, the only male with us chimed in that it is not possible in Vietnam since it is the woman's fault that the culture is the way it is, given their propensity to want to find men to take care of them at any and all costs to their own self-respect. Interesting view to shift the blame as I think the phenomenom is due to both genders using the other for their own purposes (e.g., sugar daddy vs. trophy wife). No matter how it is spun, in the end, it boils down to the same formula with both sides at fault and wanting to shift the blame to the other party.

It reminds me of a relationship that my friend told me about one of her friends. The young lady dated her husband for about five years before marrying him less than a year ago. It does not seem as if he's changed or want to change since she started dating him, but for some reason, she thought that by marrying him, he would give up his addiction of gambling on cockfights so that they could save money to start a family. He blatantly told her that if he had to choose her or the cockfights, the cockfights would win hands down. However, his grandmother put up with it with his grandfather and his mother with his father so he could not see why she could not be like them. On the other hand, because either he was a very good liar and hid this from her or she somehow thought the ring on the finger would give her license to try to change him, any marriage stemming from either was doomed to fail. However, she is at a critical juncture in which she has to determine what to do. While they have been separated, she has made the rounds of fortune tellers with the hopes that they can tell her what to do. She is concerned that if she divorced him at the age of 25, nobody else would want her and she would be forever single. Seems like another selfish reason and two wrongs do not make a right.

It occurs to me that if people started relationships for more selfless reasons - basic love, trust and respect for each other, including themselves, there is a solid foundation to build on. However, many of both genders have a constant wont to change people into some theoretical 'perfect' person. People should want to change to become a better person on their own, lest they build up resentment or the change is temporary. Because I generally have a view about anything and everything or will point out double standards in people's behaviors, I have been accused of wanting to change people, which can't be further from the truth. It takes too much effort and is not my responsibility to do so. As I noted in what's your sign?, I have the tendency to observe how people treat strangers in evaluating the true nature of a person and have no desire for games, of which changing someone falls into that category. Besides, it takes just as much effort to put up a toilet seat as it does to put it down. Very trivial in the big scheme of things, don't you think?

los pechos de la chola

San Francisco was always one of those places where I have wanted to live. I have fond memories of a drive down the long winding Route 1 from San Francisco to Los Angeles during a post-college road trip. The last time I was supposed to go to San Francisco was on September 11, 2001 for a meeting with a client's attorneys, which ended up never happening (see carpe diem). The trip was to have a personal motive as well, as I was considering a possible relocation and wanted to explore whether my memories from college infatuation held true.

Market Street

Golden Gate Bridge

San Francisco skyline

On a whim, I took the opportunity to visit a friend on my way back for the holidays. After a late start, we just got in a car and went for a drive - well as aimlessly as one can with a GPS navigator in tow. We ended up at Twin Peaks right before sunset. Of course, the hill with the sunset view was also the windiest and chilliest, which I was not equipped for with my high heel boots and dress. The views were spectacular with practically a 360 degree view of the city in all its glory. For a brief moment (until my digits started to get numb), the hues, the fresh air, the sound of the wind, and nature juxtaposed with concrete jungle seemed so...peaceful.

We ended the night with drinks at a local bar and a great meal in the historical Castro district at the bottom of the hills. I love when a local feels strongly enough about a place that he stops by two strangers staring at a menu to recommend the lasagna. Turns out that the restaurant had its own history, being family owned for 40+ years. Besides, a place called the Sausage Factory in the middle of a gay neighborhood has to live up to its name. To the gentleman who swore up and down on the lasagna...he was right, it was scrumptious.

Sometimes it is interesting where life takes us, and many times, it is all about the timing. I remain infatuated and can now add the "Breasts of the Indian Maiden" to my fond memories of the Bay Area!

lights, cameras, action!

While Christmas is not a national holiday, the Western influence and marketing of retailers have hit Vietnam in preparation of Christmas and Tet. During the hot season, there have been a number of blackouts and rolling brownouts but this has not deterred such businesses from decking out their facilities with tons of Christmas lights. The last few weeks in District 1 has been quite claustrophobic with all the crowds, regardless of weekends or weekdays, coming into town to take family pictures with all the Christmas lights.

Children are dressed up in cute red Santa outfits that are sold all over the street stalls. Motorbikes just stop in the middle of the road as people wait for family members to take pictures with the lights and displays. Sidewalks are packed with families from all walks of life - young/old, city/country dwellers, couples/families, etc. With the Southeast Asian lack of courtesy when it comes to personal space, people are practically on top of each other to get a decent picture with the displays without strangers encroaching in the frame. Perhaps this is why it seems more crowded compared to the large number of tourists that I'm used to in NYC during the Christmas season.

Christmas is one of my favorite holidays, and I generally love the lights and decorations, including spending the hours to put up the decorations in my home in the US for the few days of enjoyment while I'm usually in town. It does strike me as ironic that so many are out and about to enjoy the festivities, yet know little, if anything at all, regarding the purpose of the season. I also realize that many in the States have also lost sight of the reason for the season. 

fashion faux pas

Jean tights, crocs heels, and combovers are a few fashion faux pas that usually have me questioning the decision making skills of the person sporting such fashion. Yet, as silly as socks with sandals (unfortunately, my mother sports this look at times...ugh!) or hose with open-toe shoes look, the local fashion of the big-toe sock with flip flops just drive me batty!

Many wear these socks to protect their feet from a suntan. Some wear them to keep their feet warm. In either case, perhaps they should not be wearing flip flops in the first place.

santarchy

Three years ago, one of the expats decided to start his own tradition - Santarchy. While Santarchy was a way for expats to get together to go on a pub crawl around Ho Chi Minh City, it has become a showstopper for the locals. There are a number of Catholics in the country; however, a majority are Buddhists so Christmas is not a national holiday. While it wasn't the original purpose, it was a pleasant unintended consequence to bring some Christmas cheer to the local night life.

As with any expat event, there is always some theme attached, which in this case includes everyone dressed up in Santa outfits. A bicycle is souped up with a lit rudolph head affixed to a car battery and ipod tunes, with a cooler carrying roadies for all. During the pub crawl, traffic stops as locals take family pictures with the Santas. Even the billiard/bar girls stopped work for a bit to watch the festivities.

Note to self: flip flops are more conducive to pub crawls with uneven sidewalks than heels.

all-purpose tool

One day while in an elevator, I pointed out to an expat that Vietnamese will generally keep their hairy moles, especially on their face, and not trim the facial hair as it somehow represents luck. He then asked if that was why the men had long point fingernails, primarily the pinky. Yeah, ummmm....no. The man next to me on the ferry today happen to have all his fingers long and pointy. Some have argued that it is similar to Asian women's desire to be white - i.e., a sign of wealth as people with long nails are less likely to do a lot of manual labor (see quest for snow white). While that may have been the case many centuries ago or perhaps an urban legend to make it seem a status symbol of sorts, the reality is that it is for more practical reasons - picking noses and cleaning out ear wax.

That sure makes one think twice before shaking someone's hand when noticing the long pinky nail, or better yet, when that person is making the sandwich that was ordered at Subway.

a minority of minorities

I read an article today: Some Asians' College Strategy: Don't Check 'Asian'. While I understand the merits of collecting individuals' data such as gender and race, I have always been against the usage of such data though to make decisions such as quotas, etc. Many decades or centuries ago, that may have been a necessary evil to level the playing field but it should be a secondary factor, after other merits have been accomplished rather than a primary.

Growing up, the push in the American Vietnamese community was always for every kid to be a doctor. It did not matter which type, it was just important for parents to boast that their kid got into the medical profession, and if they could not get into one field, they would keep taking their MCATs and applying to various schools until they got in somewhere. It became disheartening to see the impacts to the children and how they were judged later in life: even though the person may have wanted to be a veterinarian because of his/her love for animals, it was presumed that the person got into that field because he/she could not get into a real medical school. I never liked the scene and the environment it created for the next generation (see me love you long time (part 3) and code of silence (#sue, #secretsociety123)). It drove me away from the field of medicine entirely although I always excelled at science and math and would have been a great forensic scientist (picture CSI).

I never understood the appeal of doctors to the community. It was always doctors, but if you couldn't do it, lawyers were also acceptable. Why? Where did this idea come from? At some point, I thought it was because those professions were very wealthy in Vietnam. However, during my family's first trip to Vietnam in the late 1990s, it was very obvious that doctors were poor and worked hard - they had to have chosen the profession for the pure desire to help others rather than for financial gain. Lawyers are practically non-existent in a country with a lack of an established court system that isn't mired in corruption. As for the push for education, kids were taken out of schools to do odd jobs to support the family and even married off so that the family didn't have to support the daughter anymore (see it takes a village (part 2)). Families who have connections actually push children to specialize in some field where they can obtain government jobs since it is well known that the financial gain is not in the salary but in the briberies - even to the point that people pay officials to get the position in the first place. Families with money, which is usually because of a tie to the government, would send their children abroad to study, and usually the children would return at some point, to take on a government position.

So the push was not because of the culture that they came from, it was the opportunity that they saw in the country they now adopted. Doctors and lawyers were viewed as the affluent individuals in America. While they wanted for their children to be successful and have the wealth that they struggled to have as immigrant parents, the pressures and competition have done a different type of harm to the first generation of immigrant children. Asians had to excel more just to get a fighting chance to get into the same universities as their Caucasian peers simply because the people they were competing against were not the Caucasians or other ethnicities, it was their own kind. The bar had been raised, and that's when the statistics that these universities collected and used to fill the Asian quota clearly disregarded that the population that met the primary metrics was significantly larger.

My entire life I was treated as a minority in a small town in Texas. Yet when it was time to apply for universities, I no longer qualified as a 'minority' on minority scholarships. Native Americans who have been in the country the longest qualified yet Asians, one of the more recent ethnic groups to the US, were not. This was another form of discrimination in that some people in their infinite wisdom did not view that Asians had hardships when it came to education. Just because my parents instilled in me to 'keep studying' even when I finished homework does not justify that I did not go through some form of hardship. So not only did I not qualify for a minority scholarship which I sorely needed given my immigrant family's financial situation, I was also discriminated in that Asians in most schools still had to meet a quota, regardless of the fact that significantly more were vying for the few slots allotted to the ethnic group.

For those reasons, I banned the University of Texas from my short list. Both my siblings went there, and my mother even cut off my education funds until I transferred back to there. Yet, on principle, I refused to go to a college where I would be treated as a minority but not be able to benefit as a minority in the same fashion as the other minorities. The double discrimination was debilitating. To this day, I also do not check certain boxes - while the company says that a people survey is anonymous, if in checking the boxes, it is clear that I am the only Asian female partner in a particular function in a particular office, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that the anonymity has just got thrown out the window. Even in Vietnam, while Asian may not be a factor, it is pretty easy to figure someone out in a small office based on the numerous statistical questions, which eventually would discourage honest feedback. The fear of retaliation is another debilitating factor to counter the power of anonymity.

in a blink of an eye

I have been to a handful of weddings already. In some cases, I've been invited to a number where I barely or did not even know the bride or groom. Actually it is just the reception that most people are invited to. The ceremony itself is usually in front of a small gathering of family and close friends whereby the groom's family goes to the bride's family's house (since women usually still live at home until they are married) in order to bring her to her new home. A small ceremony in front of an alter of incense and dead family members is performed to receive ancestral blessings. In the US, many Vietnamese have some form of this ceremony and in many cases, modified with a church wedding or similar ceremony.

However, the one thing that still amazes me is what I call the "eat and run" behavior. Vietnamese usually give money rather than gifts. This in many cases, turn out to be a huge money-maker for the bride and groom. As there are given protocols for the sum that is gifted, many couples would pick venues or times that are more cost effective to maximize the profits. More so in the North than the South, this may also entail holding receptions during lunch or afternoon of a weekday, causing people to take off of work in order to attend since restaurants are usually cheaper then. The couple is busy greeting each table to toast and collect the money envelopes. Courses are usually timed to give the couple enough time to make the rounds, but as soon as the last course is served, which is usually fruit (no wedding cake, as that is usually made of cardboard for pictures), people start leaving. At this last wedding I went to which had approximately 40 tables (or 400 people), an individual had stopped by to say hi and bye to a friend and me. By the time the 10-minute conversation was over, we were the only ones still seated at any table. The room had literally cleared out in a blink of an eye.

Another tradition that baffles me, especially after my exposure to American weddings, is the number of those wearing white. Despite this picture, the bride does wear white...well, she wears anywhere from 3-5 different outfits, all rented of course. When it came to the bouquet toss, which is an adopted tradition as it wasn't at the other receptions I attended, swarms of young ladies in white showed up. In fact, they were all in white. It occurred to me that this may have been their way to notify men as to who were available. Needless to say, I was not in white.