Also posted was a picture of three guys, who shared a table in the back of the class, all with bell-bottom pants and innocent looks (one of them later came back from the war zone with only one eye left). Ironically, it’s him who later created the web page, which also runs a personal ad looking for the other two.

On my first trip back to Vietnam after 25 years away, I managed to track down a friend who used to sit next to me (table next to last). He in turn helped connect the three in the picture I have just seen.

Those early day “postings” were our version of facebook. They bore imprints of innocence and longing for soon-to-be-lost youth , fours years after Tet 68 and one year before the Paris Accord, which was signed 40 years to date.

I still remember those diaries. They were passed around at the end of the school year, to record our impressions of each other and the time we had spent together (more than 140 characters for sure). During the year, we had produced our version of Wall Paper (the student version of White Paper), for the entire school to read.

We stayed up late, typing, designing and laying out. Back then, we used the school stencil (roneo) papers the night before deadline.

We named it “Uoc Vong” (Aspiration).

Since co-ed only introduced a few years after we had started and only for night school, we boys had to stick together all those hot afternoons. Extra-curricular actvities would include volley ball, soccer, ping-pong, Rock music practice, karate, fund-raising campaigns for refugees fleeing the war zones (the girl in the  picture) and a bit of home-grown journalism.

Those four years were incubating time.

We were pruned in school tradition with “flame” as our mascot and learned to emulate upper-classmen (Quoc Dung who wrote music at the age of 12, and got noteriety at 16). We participated in and campaigned for student representative posts. Even after getting elected to the Student Body, I still had to observe the pecking order (seniors got to pick the best all-girl schools to sell our Tet magazines to). Being junior, I ended up with a team who got sent to nearby “rough” co-ed schools (where other boys surely wouldn’t give us free rein on their campus to court “their female classmates”).

We also learned a very important lesson: friendship lasts forever!

After four decades of drifting apart (with one known dead, and two wounded) then stumbling upon that picture of the tallest boys in the class (they were naturally seated in the back row), with Lobo‘s hair and bell-bottom pants, facing the black/white camera, I felt a lump in my throat. If they had only known.

Had I only  known.

Yet even then, I sensed that the  strong current of events would sweep us along, wanting it or not.

I wrote  on our Wall Paper ” around the bend, further ahead, where we have yet seen, but with a good chance of turning out not as thought.. in whatever shape or form we found ourselves then, let’s meet and greet as if time had stood still and that we will remain friends despite of it all”.

That turned out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. The one-eyed red-beret is currently visiting Vietnam. I showed up early on the third day of Tet at his door step to fetch him, and guided him across a busy street.

He used to be a black belt but has to wear black boots to straighten his crooked ankle (a one-eyed shaky hand and crooked leg man). “No matter what shape or form we found ourselves then, let’s meet and greet as if time had stood stil”.

In the US, Vietnam vets are calling attention to the plight of vet homelessness.

It’s the same everywhere: we are quick to forget, unless something triggered our memory and sparked our imagination. It’s not an unsolvable issue, but the “social” dimension needs to be personalized. When asked why a little girl tried to save a star fish on the beach full of them. She replied “it matters to that one”.

My teen boy’s dream has made a 360-degree turn on me; my personal Timeline has just sent a reminder to my inbox, urging me to click on a link to the past.  Around the bend, further up the road where things have yet revealed themselves to us, let’s make a commitment to stay friends despite of it all (war and its unintended consequences, for one). Dream, dream, dream.

Then manufacturing and some marketing. Research and customer care followed as logical extension of these cost-cutting measures.

Then we tout culture-building, crowd-sourcing etc…

The truth is, we did not care about our customers or the culture from within.

Culture reinforces brand. 

Weak corporate culture links to weak brand.

From Zippo to Zappos, we see that companies which care always win in the end. 

Apple is sitting on a mountain of cash ( near Mountain View) while the FED is predicting another 18 months to full recovery.

The economy has been divorced from life, as if mathematics could exist without math teachers.

Beginning students can tell you that far from it, economics is closely linked to real life (Valentine Day spending? Teacher’s Day bouquet).

We have focused on the transactions and not the people doing the buying and selling. 

Great companies know how to get the right mix of technology (efficiency) to free up its people for customer care (effectiveness).

Zappos deliberately designs its work space so people bump into co-workers on the way out, to foster collaboration and fun culture.

In-and-Out Burger championed a work ethic second to none (mouth-watering double-double).

Customers are intelligent creatures who can sense that they are mistreated or well-treated. 

As we outsource, automate and streamline our workload, let’s keep it in-house the customer care department. 

Customers are not kids to be sent to day care. They call because they have some concerns that need immediate resolution. 

When done right, these are our evangelists and enthusiasts. Millions of these transactions will turn complaints into compliments.

Want to ride the wave to the mountain (of cash)? Love the ones you have. They are still the ones who are easier to keep than acquire.

It’s the living and intriguing that really matter.

Old-time friends met yesterday.

We mentioned briefly the passing away of our friend’s brother: nerdy, good old boy and ATM machine service man and family man. In short, the least likely candidate to die young. Yet, he had been long gone (by now 3 years).

Earth, Wind and Fire used to have a song out called “Time is on your side”.

I don’t think so.

One can conjure up various scenarios for end-of-life, but it will end regardless, without credits roll (perhaps we should start a digital acknowledgement page for our lives).

Feature-length movies, by convention, last one hour and a half (same way Twitter limits a tweet at 140 characters).

Except for Costner’s and Cameron’s (Dancing with Wolves and Titanic).

Life happens while we are busy planning it (John Lennon).

It came concurrently and not sequentially:  a brief sunset, a nagging child, a teacher’s stern look.

Happiness is time and place independent.

One can find happiness in confinement (Life is Beautiful) or at the last moment (Mozart’s Requiem).

It’s not over until it is truly over for you.

I once saw neighbors carry out a dead man (I was 4 or 5 years old at that time).

He had lived alone in a house in the alley.

I did not know his name. Only learned later that he had died without any relative around him.

By all measures, he died unhappily.

Now, having passed some time of my own, I realized that it’s not quantity, but  quality that matters.

Biotech has extended our “feature-length” narrative, from one-hour-and-a-half life story to that of Titanic’s and Dancing with Wolves’.

What are we going to do with all those extra hours? Amusing ourselves to death while waiting for it? (there hasn’t been a playbook for seniors – Paterno for instance has just passed away at 85 after getting sacked by the BOD at my school).

In Silicon Valley where Steve Jobs started out, the motto was “trust no one above 30″.

Yet, Sculley and other investment banking CEO’s pocketed huge severance despite their poor performance.

Time is on whose side?

Of course not on the side of the poor or the pure of hearts (keep the faith).

Even with director’s cut, a feature-length film still needs to be trimmed down using time-lapse, cut aways etc…

As creatures of selective memories, we often edit out undesirable incidents in our own biography and to convince ourselves that best days are still ahead (our own version of self-campaigning 2012). Speaking of 2012.

The Year of the Dragon has finally arrived. It roars, dances and puffs out fire.

We invent myths and materials that turn around to define who we are (he is a Lexus owner, she is a LV zealot).

Vietnamese people  once known as descendants of Dragon and Angel. To understand Vietnam, you need to understand its literary life.

Vietnamese  honors duty above death, sacrifice above love. These tales of heroism are the baseline. “Time is on whose side” is an irrelevant question. Happiness defined as personal fulfillment is also out of the question. People here see themselves in transit, with Earth another station along the way. Home is where dead people are waiting, provided you had fulfilled your filial obligation and honored them by courageous living. Try to work that in the State of the Union address, and see its impact on American society? (You lied!). On the CEO’s on Wall Street. On the armed men who preyed on the vulnerable on US campuses.

America needs Vietnam as much as Vietnam needs America, since time is on neither side.

Heroes of Destiny.

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

Boy meets girl, boy almost loses girl, boy reunited with girl!

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

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

Blood-thirsting regime will only know one solution: more blood shed to solidify power (the East was used to “Chu Di Tam Toc” i.e. kill off the enemy’s descendants down to the third generation.)

We got some humor and most importantly, 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 production costs are no longer prohibitive.

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 movie premiers at Rex cinema before it turned to be hotel and now shopping mall.

The actors all lined up to greet guests on 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 at the time. By the time it matures, technology has moved on to home theatre and small screens.

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

I admire the efforts by a new wave of French filmmakers such as the upcoming Norwegian Wood.

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

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

There is a Matrix and X-men special effects throughout his work.

But definitely, you know it’s a Vietnamese story (Nguyen Trai‘s sole surviving descendant) who seeked revenge and cleared the family’s name.

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

It’s entertaining, but not surprising.

What surprised me was the setting (Parkson) and the friendly greeting when we exited the theatre. 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). If not now, then when, if not them, then who? 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 become 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 was one of those.

He was with hair and glasses, short shorts and 60′s-looking.

He later was married with kids before got  sent to re-education camp.

While he was away, his wife had an affair and made him feel ashamed upon his return and reintegration.

Those external stresses at first glance drove him to suicide.

My hostess cousin overheard my conversation, rushed out of the kitchen where she was cutting the sticky bean cake by straw strings and said “ cousin T was gay!”

“He had been pressured to maintaining a modeled family.”

Mystery unveiled for me after all these years.

The stigma (of being gay at a time and in a place where it was unacceptable) was followed by shame (even his “modeled” family couldn’t hold waters).

The agony of shame and stigma must have eaten up the man from the inside.

If memory served me right, I , up until yesterday, couldn’t conceive his family as  cover-up conspirators.

His father showed my mom where to find housing and apply for a teaching job.

My birth certificate still bears witness to their kindness to relatives fleeing Southward during the partition (North-South).

In all appearances, with his father also a teacher, which used to be ranked first (Si, Nong, Cong, Thuong – Mandarin, Farmer, Factory worker, Merchant), and rest of family high achievers until the last shoe dropped.

I felt for cousin T.

Perhaps taking his own life was the only way to resolve his inner conflicts.

If he had lived in this time, or emigrated to a certain State in the US, or EU,

he could have carried on happily not to mention found social acceptability.

He ended life to stay true to his nature.

When Francoise Sagan released her bombshell publication  “Bonjour Tristesse“, a lot of young people committed suicide in France. Existential loneliness.

Our own Nguyen Anh Chin also composed his “Buon oi, ta xin chao mi” (Bonjour Tristesse) after a time living in France.

Every society finds ways to explain outliers and outcasts.

We put much spotlight on how many lives Bill Gates has saved (good for him), but we have yet done inventory of what’s in our closet. Instead, we ignore what we can’t explain, or doesn’t fit into the mold: a handicapped child, a gay cousin, an interracial nephew or an unmarried niece.

Society is judged by how well it protects its weakest link, yet it often labeled it as “dysfunctional”.

With 7 Billion and counting gene pools, the chance of outliers and outcasts will only increase. Consequently, the burden is  on us to overcome fear, to be a good Samaritan. When you do to the least of these, you have done unto me.

Where is  the “Bill Gates” in each of us? The good Samaritan who stands up to shame and social stigma? The funny thing about Social Proof (they all do it) is it changes just as quickly if given the right catalyst and back wind. Be that force of change. He ain’t heavy, he is my brother.

R.I.P. cousin T.

Senator McCain and Lieberman are also here on their SEA trip.

But many years ago, the confined senator probably heard the sound of firecrackers and lion dance. Tonight, there won’t be firecrackers, but everything should happen just as it has for centuries: visit ancestor’s graves or ash stored next to a church or a temple), wash one’s scooter, do one’s  hair and nail, clean the house, and set up the household altar (the Jews could relate to this since they observe Pass Over just as strictly).

Retail stores even gave their mannequins a change of clothes.

Supermarkets cleared out inventories and flower vendors are rushing at the moment to rid of all their stocks.

If I can turn back the clock, I would be the one shining the bronze set for the altar, get the confiture tray within reach of guests and of course, the watermelon seeds.

Red (lucky) envelopes are also stuffed with brand new money.

A friend of my mother, also a teacher, made an indelible impression which has stayed with me for years. Instead of gifting me big denomination paper money, she had me hold out my hands to receive two-handfuls of shiny coins. The act of giving is more important than the gift itself.

Great Uncle, always seen with a beret, would be the first to show up on New Year’s day. His name was Mai, which was the same as our flower of choice.

My brother, a few days before, tried to get a date with his eventual first wife. Two couples and a young boy (me) packed into a Simcar, the automobile which we got rid of before jumping on the barge for my life long journey.

But at that Flower Festival, we got separated. I immediately with red balloon, found my way back then stood on top of the Simcar’s roof (for visibility).

Needless to say, we are now drifted apart by choice, more than by default. I found Yesterday’s Tet just as warm and full of humanity as it is now.

It’s an occasion to make concessions, to reconcile and to move forward.

New Year’s Eve doesn’t just usher in another calendar year. In fact, the year gets renamed and rebranded (Year of the Dragon).

By the time the next cycle comes around in twelve years, I hope we are all still here, looking back to this one as Yesterday’s Tet.

We will still be laughing, and crying at the same time, for some of us won’t probably be around. Yet Tet goes on, like a line in Reflections of my Life “the changing, of moon light, to sun light, reflections of my life”.

That song was played while Senator McCain was in Hanoi Hilton.

It is no longer known among the next generation of music lovers.

But to those who paid a dear price during the time when Vietnam was synonymous to war, the line between life and death was undeniably thin.

I hope the Senator find a new Vietnam, full of noise, except for firecrackers and firearms. It’s more peaceful now, and just as joyous as ever.

With Tet, I don’t have to exercise selective memory that much. It is happening again, just like a long-lost friend, showing up predictably with set habits and hobbies. Yesterday’s Tet or tomorrow’s: same.

Years ago, this neighborhood was a hang-out place for privileged kids who attended nearby French lycee. Today, at least in this den-like corner, privileged kids shifted their interests to Punk and Hard Rock: we got graced with expat singers’ numbers mixing with local rockers.

At Independence Palace, the rehearsed dance filled the large stage with flags and poles, movement and au parleur, lighting and majestic surrounding.

At Acoustic, it’s the sound, the up-close vibe and all hair.

Collectivity vs Individuality, co-exist and share the same space.

Groupies, bartenders, and some expats who I.D. themselves as being from Portland, OR.

Our mean-looking Black rapper singer turned out to be the mushiest of all with his “Tears in Heaven” number.

Then, of course, “I hate myself for loving you“.

I on the other hand did not hate myself for being there.

I enjoyed it as much as I did years ago, on or off stage.

I am glad the spirit and essence of Rock has found new expressions and entertainers.

Still against the wind, without flag, but gotta to have hair.

I missed my dying friend who belonged with Saigon Rock generation 1.0.

He would agree with me it’s time for a new wave to emerge, even with glowing bass-guitar strings. Those Portlanders kept shouting “One more” because the booze must be accompanied by the band. I bet for a moment however short, they immersed themselves in the company of young and eager music fan, forgetting where one was from, and heck, even where one was going!

This year-end here in Vietnam, I saw just that and more…incense, flowers and fruit.

People are either already home or on the way. They cook, clean and cater to many needs, among them, lighting neighbor’s graves.

A girl still in helmet, with parked scooter by her side, spent a silent moment praying, Then she would visit nearby lots, perhaps people she used to know from her village church.

In life and in death. You are not forgotten. A form of social immortality.

I heard about recent modern-day Titanic replay, except for the escaped-from-duty captain and his crew.

Would you want to ever step on one of those “luxury” cruises?

Living in style, dying solo.

I tried to nap today when neighbor knocked on my door to see if I were OK

(perhaps he was “xin” – beer + heat exhaustion). Then the Lion dance team went around the entire block reminding us this is their year, the year of the Dragon.

Flower Festival proudly displays mighty Dragon in all shapes and sizes, Vietnam’s version of Rose Parade.

Young girls pose for photo-ops, maybe later seen on Facebook or scrap-book.

The Earth seems to rumble.

People chat up with “natives”, knowing that whoever is left in Saigon, is from there (as opposed to workers, students and relatives who have gone home to their respective villages in the countryside).

City folks or country folks, everyone is gearing up to give and receive.

The gift baskets, the flower bouquets and the sticky “banh chung” (rice cake) have been delivered. Water melon (whose inside is red, signifying good luck) are sold alongside with blooming Hoa Mai (yellow on red and green) on sidewalks, with owners willing to take dime-on-dollar deals.

Vietnamese talk about “khong khi Tet” – the taste, texture and ambience of Tet.

A sense of utter confidence that Heaven and Earth are in alignment and agreement to bless the pure of heart.

I can’t find no further evidence than someone who stood silently at an isolated grave, then lighted up incense for neighbor’s graves. Candles or incense, US or VN, we all long to live the rest of our lives the best way we know how and periodically to celebrate it the best way we can. Here, this way, is  familiar to most, but somehow, vaguely strange to me, having drifted away in Titanic-like journey for decades overseas. I, however, found one constant: ABBA‘s Happy New Year got another round here with the Year of the Dragon. Tung Cheng! Tung Cheng! Tung Cheng!

With help of steady cam, we are invited across the river into his mansion of many rooms.

This should give a feel for the place and Gastby’s desire to revenge by showing-off.

We too ,with IT 3.0-enabled, can take our “Monte Christo” acts online.

For years, we were passive recipients of others’ content via radio, Morse code, newspapers, magazines, text books, letters, phone calls, television, record players, juke box and boombox, car radio, CB radio, telegram and fax , overhead projectors and film projectors. The list is long and crowding out the museum of invention, just like copies of content fill our home library as well as public ones.

Unless you are into retro and antiques, then be content with whatever current devices you are using.

But the narrative has shifted. We are to reinvent ourselves online, with new tools (mobile) and technologies (social media).

Any change will directly impact a few people at first, then the majority.

The laggards in this case are our parent’s generation, who this time, will experience both culture and digital divide.

Don Tapscott has kept tap on this topic with his decade-long research.

Digital generation definitely are multi-taskers who live a double-life, that of on and off-line.

Lecturers will have to double-check their notes to make sure they are up to date.

Their values no longer stay in the realm of information transmission.

Instead, the best contribution a trainer can do is to zoom-out, to show historical trend, and to help bridge

the analog-digital divide and technology-society divide. Leaders no longer are curators or gate keepers.

They are called to be Chief Knowledge/Culture decoder (at Apple, ironically, it’s the iCEO that did just that).

We no longer live in data-deprived age.  We live in the state of emergency against data deluge.

No firewalls can stop data to hop from node to node. No network can claim exclusivity and monopoly of domain.

What we won’t find in life can now be found on-line e.g. self-reinvention, self-branding, self-fulfillment.

Gastby had failed the first time to impress his lover. So he came back, in 3-D, right across the lake.

Whatever was missed in the first version will be self-healing, self-correcting (e.g.Google translation).

As long as we “Don’t give up on us” like David Soul sings. I know one thing, I am analog, but what you are reading is digital.

And you might be reading this in 2050 and beyond. Go figure, try to decode that!

Apple chose North Carolina as a site to store music, video and the rest of its customers’ files. The FCC recently allowed the roll-out of White Space, wi-fi on steroid, also in NC.

Who needs the on/off switch! It had some utilitarian legacy (activate and deactivate) but without say, legacy of the industrial age when hardware ruled the day.

Now, software eats your lunch.

Of BMW’s  thousand components, a large portion are software-controlled. From Buggy to Beamer, the engineers have made a giant leap.

Jobs was quoted as saying (this was counter-intuitive and anti-academic):

“if Ford had asked the customers what they wanted, they would have said,

faster buggies”.  In short, it’s categorically different with revolutionaries.

Think different!

No on/off switch.

Just the dial.

Circular motion.

The experience economy.

Control the product from end-to-end to make every touchpoint with the customer an iSee! (Disneyland).

Progress , like time, waits for no man.

If you keep standing on the track, you will get run over.

Not a single word in Jobs biography states directly that he was a  futurist. Yet he could intuitively sense what was coming – his biography itself was well orchestrated (momenti mori) and ironically open-sourced (counter-culture life style, but proprietary business model, until his body and life was dissected).

In fact, religious zealots did take a shot at him for his views.

I wonder if those people secretly borrow an I-pad from friends to touch and feel (where is the on/off switch?).

I wonder what their legacies are as opposed to Jobs’?

And their destination : paradise or purgatory?

Jobs took his son to a business meeting (antennaeGate) mostly for I-phone IV damage control PR . “It would be a two-year worth of Business School  education” said he.

His biography, which offers more than a two-year worth of B-school, is a must-read for technologists, marketers and culture critics who want to understand the Valley ethos and egos.

When arts (music in this case) found new venue (I-pod) and revenue (I-Tunes), it is unchained melody for the mass (unbundled as singles not albums).

Be spoiled with IT 3.0 (cloud and social media) but also be thankful sitting on giants’ shoulders

An image evokes in my mind was that of Cinema Paradiso, where the kid got a ride home on the bike’s frame, wearing his mentor’s hat and chatting up as a fee for the ride. However long, enjoy the ride. That’s our reward . As Southwest Airlines would say, please collect your items to ensure faster turn-around at the gate.