Quan-Vu's Blog

The Perfect Husband.

2012-01-18T09:31:00.000-08:00

Gotcha!

I bet the blog's title caught your attention or at least made you curious about what the heck I am going to say, right?

Trust me, if any typical nowadays women going to read of what I've done for my wife so far, at least 99% of them would run like hell the other way from me, which is still nicer than stop by and gives me their nasty piece of advices :)

For our last 36+ years of marriage, I never give my wife (a) a birthday gift, nor (b) even an anniversary gift or on Mother Day event. On top of that, I didn't give her a (c) wedding ring until years later, when my older sister bought us a pair of gold rings, which we wear it only for couple years and didn't touch it again, unless when we traveled together in Asia (the reason I will explain later).

I also didn't buy her (d) a single travel ticket for any cruise or a romantic vacation in Europe - as many of our friends and relatives - often did. Then to top of it all - hey, listen the N.O.W. (National Organization for Women) chairwomen, I told her to chose between her career and the motherhood, when we have our first born. If she chose her career then she would have none of me. I rather face a tough decision early than more painfully facing the same problem that many couples would end up years later. Trust me, it wasn't an easy decision to make for both of us, but I've seen the pattern, not just from my childhood, but also - perhaps - from previous karma, which the New Testament summed it all up nicely - easy to remember - in just two commandments. BTW, isn't it crazy to mentioned the word "karma" and "New Testament" in the same sentence, eh? Actually, it isn't so for my guru, who passed away even before I was born, and he was perfectly understood God's love for us all, and Jesus is the answer for getting rid of all human's karma if we are truly know of what "Love" is.

Hey, before you think I am an arrogant "know it all" SOB, I didn't say that I am truly know of what "Love" is, I just perfectly content of what I know about the subject, and continue to learn about it as long as I am still alive and blogging :)

This blog is also not a debate between theology & belief, but to answer some of my friends and relatives, who often wondered why my wife can put up with a "nut case" like me for nearly 4 decades (and little that they know, she often half joking, half serious - told me that she wanted to be my wife in next karma too if there is one - and I often joking back that "hell no! I have to date another angel to see what they're like..." - which of course - she gave me a hard time for saying so.

How we met.

Before I dived into a deep subject and get lost, let me tell you first about how we met, which by the end, using the “nut & bolt” analogy, you’ll see that how each couple by fate – be together for either short or a long life.

It got to be fate that we end up meeting and finally become husband and wife. I lived in her home town for over a year but never met or know Kate – and it was the same for her. On the other hand, her younger sister knew me through a friend of mine, who has a bad tendency to woo and flirt with any young girl that he encountered, which she hated him so much that I became her victim by “association” rule. If Kate ever mentioned to her sister that I was her friend – just a friend – then I bet 1000:1, her sister would talk Kate out from getting to know me any further. It was just one of 1001 reasons that helped pull us together (or I could say 1001 reasons for us never met), which I can’t list all here, because it would require a whole long blog or even a book by itself. Briefly, I was Kate’s last hope, in the “Obi-Wan Kenobi” heroes role, because after a month staying in Saigon city and asked everybody that Kate knew, to help her with information and applying for the universities in Saigon and was not able to get any further, she finally and reluctantly remembered my offer at a H.S. graduation party that her friend inviting us – we were unknown to each other – that if she needed help with applying into college & university in Saigon, just stop by my house, which she did. For some strange reason, as I watched Kate walking out of my house on that day, my instinct told me that she was the one that I looking for, even though I didn’t have any intention having any girl friend back then, let alone to marry her.
Later that evening, I came to the hotel where Kate & her father stayed for searching a college for her, and I gave her a stack of application forms and brochures for almost every college & universities located within the Saigon city. Kate told me later that she was shocked and impressed with how fast I could pull a fast service like that. Little that she knew all I did was called my all of my friends, who were already in their Junior or Senior year of most college & univ. in Saigon, and told them if each brings me the document I wanted, they can have a free coffee drink at my family shop. They did, not just because of free drink, but they wanted to know how I was doing after “missing in action” for quite awhile.

The second time we met was couple months later - at a testing center, where we took a college examination. We didn’t talk to each other much, just a brief pleasantry exchange then we each went to our testing rooms. I didn’t think we would meet again after that, but it was fate that Kate came to my house one more time - a month or so later, to help her get through a tough huge crowd, where couple hundred freshman and returned college students, who were yelling, shouting and cramping shoulder to shoulder, as everybody trying to get into a bank’s cashier window to pay the tuition and fees – a totally chaos scene, because if they missed the deadline, they can’t get into the college. It was a second time that I pulled another “miracle”, this time right in front of her eyes, that quickly as I grasped the payment coupons from many restless college students as I could, told them to let me handle it, and wait for their name to be called and come in to pay the tuition. Within minutes, I cleared most of the crowd and able get to the cashier, put down the stack of payment coupons (with Kate’s paper on top of course!) in front of her and told her to just call the student name and they’ll come in to pay their tuition fees. The two “tricks” I did for her was not even compare to the next one – a mind reading event, which it was totally impressed her and later– helped me to convince her to believe me - on many major decisions that impacted our life as husband & wife, but also our own family.

I have to let you know one important thing that Kate wasn’t a naïve or a clueless girl. The fact that she was always one of the top 5 students in Physics, Math subject, studied and fluently speak French language in her H.S., a school was built and ran by French’s government for over hundred years, which its intention was to educate the future autocrats to run the country, thus in turn favor their own French government.
Anyway, one of the reasons that Kate later told that she fell in love with me was with me, she always feel safe and happy, plus she said it seem that I always knew what she needed and wanted before she even realized – and even though I just only older than her a couple years, but I was like a much older man than just a young man.

Am I a typical Asian male chauvinist ?

A male chauvinist ?
“a male who patronizes, disparages, or otherwise denigrates females in the belief that they are inferior to males and thus deserving of less than equal treatment or benefit. ”

Most Asian people we know, including my own brothers & sisters, as well as my in-laws – they all agreed 100% that, because the way I run my own family, I am “qualified”, well – overwhelming qualified - as a male-chauvinist man, especially in this 21th century AND in America, no if-nor-but-because nor anything that I can denied it. The only reply from me is: so what? The world history already has proof that plenty of benevolent dictators, queens and kings bring wealth and happiness to their own citizen for many years before the next dictator overthrown them and did the opposite way.

I am not using history to compare myself to be like any of the King or Emperor, but mentioned the past as an evidence that being a “dictator” is not a bad thing, because with true love at heart, the title itself doesn’t mean a thing. Just take a look at the American government (now or in the past), or any government that doesn’t have a strong and wise leadership, you will see how happy the life of their citizen.

Kate’s dad was also a “dictator” in his own domain, and in a way, he had helped trained and modeled Kate ready to be the wife that I was looking for. I also came from a family that unintentionally, my parent helped turn me into the “Ivan The terrible” dictatorship under the eyes of many friends and family, or perhaps – an experience from my previous karma?
The reason was so simple; my dad is a nice and loving husband. He loves my mom so much that he yield the “Head of Household” title to her and let her assumed the role of the “Enforcer”, not a good role model that goes against the motherhood images - that she just giving love, nurturing and care for her children. In fact, she has to do all of that and the pressure built up as she gave more birth that brought children into our family. The result was she constantly unhappy, constantly yelling at us – demanding we have to be better, better than what? I was often wondered. Since I am the oldest son and I am exactly a copycat image of my dad, later on I guessed that she was disappointed with my dad, and wanted me to be better than the man she married. If it wasn’t of her daily nagging, I wouldn’t run away from home and would never meet Kate as a result.

So you see, there was many reasons why Kate & I met, and how we instantly attracted to each other and still with each other after more than 36 years, even though I am the “Dictator” as many described - Kate renewed her love for me - as early as – 15 years ago – when she started to understand of who I am, and reason for my being exist in this earth. Many things that I told her in the past has already turn out as I said it would, and Kate is now sometime able to see the life pattern from others, the same philosophy and belief that helped guide me to see and live through this life.

Within a narrow context of just two person – a husband and wife - in very few instances one person should be “inferior” to the other, for example : in strength, male is mostly stronger than female. In technical knowledge is another sample, of course Kate is vastly “inferior” to me, not because I am smarter to her, but because I am spending most of my life in this fields more than she ever did. I expected my employer to give me the equivalent treatment for the skills that I have, which I don’t expected Kate to love me more or less because of having or lacking of this knowledge & skills – nor I love & treat her with less respect just because of lacking this special knowledge either.

In the essence, or ultimately – even if I have the best technical skills and having more experience than any of my co-workers, but I treated them very badly, how long I would last with the company?
In the same way, if I am truly a bad dictator – or a male chauvinist, how long would I be in the same house with Kate for the last 36+ years?

Many of our friends often wished that their children would stay with them longer, but instead they moved out as soon as they over eighteen. In my family, often against Kate’s wish, I kicked my children out as soon as they finished college, and have a job – which I buy each a new car
when they graduated, and give them 20%-30% down payment for a condo or house after they have
a job for more than a year. If I am a truly bad dictator, they wouldn’t care or need a dime from me and run quickly out of the house, just as I ran away from home when I was young.

I wanted my sons out of the house - as soon as they have all the tools that we already provided : a loving mother (hey forget about me, I am a “dictator”, remember, eh?), a good education (private

school and college), and especially with a God-fearing character - because I came to this country with nothing, having less language skill than they are, and still able to have a good life, thusthey should be able to go on with their life, just let I & Kate to turn our effort to help the less fortunate for the rest of our life.

Now let me tell you a little more about the “benefit” of having a dictator in the house, and my philosophy from “performing” this role.

As an “dictator” in a house, nobody from either side of family wouldn’t dare to treat Kate badly for two reasons: (a) they think Kate is just a ”victim”, and (b) they’re more afraid of me, not because I will beat them up (which I would never do), but because they know I can tell the truth of what intheir mind, in their heart when they wish to do or say sometime bad about Kate – or me.

In Vietnam, the toughest mother-in-law is mostly from the North, then the Central, and the easiest
mother-in-law is mostly from South Vietnam. Kate’s mother was a southerner, and her father was from Central, thus her mother already learn how tough it was being a daughter-in-law for a mother from the Central area, and she often told Kate that try to avoid marry to a Northern guy like me, because her mother knew Kate is so sensitive, gentle, so naive and never could make her mother-in-law happy – especially and particularly my mother!

Since I knew my mother better than anyone else, I planned for a reversed psychology “warfare” even
before the day Kate come into my family as a daughter-in-law. Later on when we in the US, the first time my mother came to visit us for a week, a year after Kate gave birth to our first born. During that week, I treated Kate almost as worse as a “slave”, in fact enough to make my mother so shocked and she came to defense her young daughter-in-law. After she left, I told Kate about my true intention, which I keep doing the same thing whenever my mother was around. Everybody – including friends - thought since Kate has no authority in my house, she can’t be blame for many things, I am their target instead – which is fine with me :)

After more than 2 decades later, there is nobody in my family would ever appreciated, to show love and kindness to Kate more than my own mother, as she know it was Kate who raise her grandsons to grow up nicely, all finished college and each one is a productive citizen, and they made my mother proud of them. Another reasons for my mother appreciated Kate even more it’s because my parents has 8 children, I am the only one still married to a single person, the rest were divorced at least once, plus Kate gave my parent 4 young sons when all three of my brothers has only girls., a big plus (or minus) if you’re from Asia continental.

Last time we visited my parent in San Jose, even as my father’s memory is fading away fast, he said this to Kate that Kate is a best daughter-in-law that he lucky to have, and my dad thanks her for all she did.

I haven’t told you about by playing the “dictator” role, how I also protecting Kate even from her own family, especially her father. It’s a long story but the result is the same. This how I keep Kate’s sanity intact, being healthy and live longer for my very own self-fish reason, because she’s mine, God has chosen her especially for me.

What is considered to be a perfect husband?

In Vietnam, we often say that a man with virtue is just like a house with strong four walls: He’s not a womanizer, not an alcoholic, nor a gambler and definitely never be a drug addict. If a husband has any one of this bad habit, it’s like a house with one or more walls soon or later will be collapsed, no wise young women wanted to marry that man, regardless of how rich or handsome he is.

I don’t have any of those bad traits , except early 80s - when I was still attended the University of Utah, at SLC where just two hours drive to the border of Utah and Nevada, you can be in the casino heaven with all kinds of excitement and temptation. Whenever I needed money to pay for car insurance, books for next quarter or any emergency expenses, I waited until weekend when I filled up my car’s tank for an around trip to casino, and with $50 seed money in my pocket, I became a “professional” gambler – as my friends often tease us. I played only at Blackjack table and quited when I gain about $150-$250, enough to cover my need and I happily went home. I did it for over a year then after I graduated from college, I haven’t set my foot inside a casino for gambling ever since.

As for being an alcoholic, I still remembered it was one time when I was about 16 years old and it was during Tet event – a New Year celebration festival in Vietnam, when I was so boring and somehow consumed more than half a bottle of wine. Boy! For the next day and a half, I did the “toilet worshiping” act, then feel sick worse than a dog; thus out of this experience, I would never want to be that way again.

I would never use drugs either, because during my hippie years with partying, I have seen it destroyed many of my friends from H.S – rich and poor - which I think it just a wasting of money and precious life, and above all, it hide the fact that drug user is an ignorance – who didn’t want to find out what forced them from facing the truth, and make it worse than bury their head in the sand, pretending that their problem is not existed or will go away when they get high with drug or alcohol.

Kate already knew that I could be a womanizer too if I wanted, but perhaps I never would. Because she know even though some young girls and women already knew I am married, sometime they still like to flirt with me. One married women from ours friend circle, in one gathering party even dared to say to me that she’s better fit for me as my wife – in front of Kate! Which I just smile and said “There are several of young women said the same thing too, but having just one bolt with too many nuts trying to “fit”, I will worn out fast! thanks but no thanks!”, which made everybody laughing. A few years later, she divorced her husband and moved away from our state.

In American, with the slogan from the N.O.W, women is equal to man, thus husband and wife should be equal in everything. Man must now and share the household tasks with his wife, not just working full time and return home just to relax. I happened to know quite a few “perfect” husbands, who doesn’t have any of those bad habits, shares many of the household chores, “religiously” love their spouse. However, many of them - and the rest of mostly simple man, who may has some issues with one or two bad habits, even not seriously yet, but still end up in the divorce statistics anyway.

From a man, a husband point of view, plus according to statistics - women more likely divorce her husband than the other way around. Thus, maybe there is more than just being a good or a “perfect” husband to keep nowadays women happy so they won’t divorce their husband. Beside the karma or fate, I think it got to be one of the 3 reasons: (a) women must be thinking they’re more “perfect” than man, thus not many modern man can’t make them happy or at least content, (2) women don’t know what they wanted themselves, or (3) man is getting dumb and dumber?

Let me answer the last question first in reverse order.

(c) Is man today getting dumb and dumber?

Well, if any man think he’s smart and better than women, they have to read this article: - Have We Forgotten How to Raise Boys Into Men? from FoxNews. In as much as other people, who said I am a typical “male chauvinist”, which I neither accept nor denied, nor to be proud or ashamed – of it. Label doesn’t do anything, action did. I am not quite sure whether man nowadays is dumb & dumber, but one thing is clear: most of the great invention and courage showed in the newspaper, on Internet and TV daily news were credit to man more than women. But, you would now say – that was only minor, very few of them while the rest of man is still growing up, or by their action/behavior - some even refused and never wanted to grow up (knowingly or not).

Now, here is the next clue:
I know some very smart – some even consider as genius – man, could never be a “man” in a more meaningful definition. On the other hand, I know and heard quite a few “dumb” man (with little or uneducated, doing labor type of work, making less income, etc…), but they’re the “real” man, who raised a happy family, and successful children. This bring up a next puzzle: Why some genius, smart man couldn’t have a happy life while the lesser man can achieve something that other can’t? Thus, the issue is not whether because today man is dumb or dumber, which is the cause to more divorce and unhappy family. It got to be something else. Just ask our ancestors - who didn’t have the latest Iphone or Ipad – and compare how their family with the current hi-tech, know it all men.

(b) Women doesn't know what they wanted

Before any women declare the all out World War III with me, allow me to say my last word is that: with or without me, it will never change until God say so. When a man has no clue of what they wanted in life or in marriage (beside sex and foods), his wife didn’t help much but contribute even more confusion as she say “yes” when she actually means “no” .
Beside a typical women doesn’t know what she really wanted (until she’s much older and wiser) and as more often as she has less talent in giving direction, thus how she can give her man direction on how to get ahead or be a perfect man/husband (trust me, someday I don’t have to go to heaven and ask God why, perhaps God was already sorry that He created Eve!

I double dare who wanted to kill me over this blaspheme statement! Because they will help me

to join my 72-virgins (have to be blond and long legs if heaven still have any left) and live quite happy ever and ever. LOL!

(a) Some women must be thinking, they're more "perfect" than man.

In this statement, it already has a false logic in it, because if she’s a “perfect” women, then she should be able to pick a “perfect” man/husband herself. I know quite a few “perfect” women, who divorced more than once or twice, and still think she’s a perfect women as being a wife. Because as a “perfect” wife, nobody can afford to match her demand or perhaps, she wasn’t thought about and accept the price she must willing to pay when married a less “perfect” husband, or willing to “pay more” for a prefect man/husband.

Why people divorce their “perfect” spouse?

If during a wedding ceremony or during the honeymoon week, you asked the couple on what they think about their new partner, most if not all would tell you that their spouse is “perfectly” for them.

I happened to know quite a few “perfect” husbands, who doesn’t have any of those bad habits, why still many of their wives wanted to divorce them? There are many reasons. Perhaps - he didn’t make enough money to spend on her, to spend a cruise vacation, lavish gift on her birthday, Mother Day and Anniversary, to make her feel “equal” with her friends or relatives, share the chores at home, not listen to them enough; perhaps, they were intimidated by their successful wives, etc… The same true happened for the other side too, as many “perfect” women get divorce from their husband. All of this tells me one thing: modern man and women doesn’t know each other – or worse, they didn’t even know much more about themselves!

The Old Testament told us that, even under guidance of a prophet like Moses and with many given clues (miracles as sign from Heaven), it still took 40 years for the Jewish people to get to the Promised Land. May be the Bible tried to tell us that it’s a symbol of how human will get to the “promise land” after 4 decades of being a human and going through all of the suffering and hardship in order to understand what is meant to be living in a “promise happy family”.

Just more than 50 years ago, it’s rare to hear people getting divorce. Even in a country with strong family culture like in Asia, thanks to the World Trade Organization and advance technology that help bring people all over the world getting together, exchange commodities and cultures – which unfortunately carry along the good and bad to and from others; the rate of divorce in Asian countries nowadays is getting closer to their Western counterpart. Basically, it’s easier and quicker for human to learn the bad thing from one another than learning the good thing.

Normally, it’s already hard even for a person to know everything about his or her spouse – after they have been married for decades, let alone a single person wanting to know the other person, whom he or she is dating. Unless he or she is wise man/women, the main reasons for person to not see the other “negative” character(s) clearly is they were looking at a wrong thing, plus with the fact that the other hidden their “bad” character so well, or perhaps both. In term of spiritual, Hinduism & Buddhism both believed in past karma, which basically says that we reaped of what we sown, we deserved a spouse and for how long according to our love or a debt to each other in the past. In term of physical being, in Vietnam we have wisdom said “A buffalo is looking for another buffalo, a horse always wanting to be together with another horse”, which means just like animal tendency, we often yearning or preferred to socialize among our own kind.

I know a man, after a broken heart divorced from his first wife, who has some bad characters that eventually drive him nut and finally couldn’t handle it anymore and end up forcing him to divorce her. Few years later, he married another women then subsequently also divorced her shortly, and recently he is dating another young women – who I think she has the similar characters (or even worse) than his previous wives. What does it tell us about this man? I will make it short and simple: He doesn’t understand much about himself, so just like a person doesn’t know of what they wanted when they go shopping, they will buy something out of excitement, instant urge or being fool by the marketing’s ploy with images, sound or smell, then they bought it, take it home and few days later decided not a right one, so they went on to shopping for a next “better” one

I also know another close friend couple, who just recently divorced. We know them for nearly two decades as well, and from the beginning I already knew their marriage won’t last more than 10 years, which it turn out they end their relationship 14 years later. The reason that I know was simple. From what I know about his wife’s background, that after her father married a second wife and abandon her mother, left her and her mother with a misery life; thus as a young girl - she vowed that she would never let her future husband do it to her and her children. From that painful experience, she married a friend of us, and part of his fault – to let her became the “Dictator”, as she was in control everything – including his feeling, his emotion until he couldn’t stand anymore and called it quited.

A third couple that I know for decades, which the husband is came from upper class family, while his wife came from a lower class, and they met during attending a same college. After have been married for two decades, I saw there is a crack in their relationship, which a husband later told me that sometime he couldn’t stand his wife’s of lower class, it makes him feel ashamed of her ignorance when they interacted within a group gathering. This is a typical one of the reasons why many couples fell apart from each other when they feel their spouse turn out wasn’t the one they thought he/she would be when they first met. Because of our close friendship, I told him that his role or karma has been casted as a teacher, a guru and for her as a student,. a disciple, and whatever reason – she wanted to be with you in this life and to learn from him. I know she has a kindness and loving heart, but doesn’t have the level of her husband’s wisdom. It would break my heart if they can’t be together for the rest of their lives.

So from these three sample stories, what have we learn from their experiences?

First of all, I used to say win or lose is not important, but more important about what do we learn from it. Otherwise, if I win and don’t have a clue on why or how I win, then I was just darn lucky – nothing else. If I lose and also didn’t know why I lose, then for sure I will make the same mistake again and again. Essentially, these three couples could learn a lot about themselves before they can understand and having compassion for others.

The first divorced man didn’t learn much about himself, a typical grown-old-but-never-grown-up man, who refused to spend time to reflect and see himself was a major part which caused many problems in his life. There was time I once told a relative (who always complained, saying this person is bad, that person is lousy, and nobody is as good as him) - that if a person doesn’t matter anywhere he goes and still smell something like shit, it could be the shit was in fact on top of his nose, so just clean it up and he will truly smell the different. So far, I don’t think he get the message, thus here is another thought when this happened to us: We cannot tell an actor/actress to do or say something smart when he/she already casted to play a dumb character in a movie or play. We just have to have more compassion toward those still playing the role in this life, and hope that they’ll learn and be better in the next.

The second couple’s marriage was destined to fail from the beginning, because the husband didn’t realize the “garbage” that his wife carried all her life, and it’s even more sadden that she didn’t realize where her anger and controlling behavior was came from; and without knowing it, she’ll end up as a lonely old women. Her husband was a handsome man, and love to sweet talk with other female, which didn’t help to reduce his wife’s subconscious fear either. On top of it, during dating and in their early marriage, he thought that just being nice – not telling her about what behavior is acceptable and what is not – perhaps, he reasons that soon or later she would change. However, as women is getting older and their beauty and health is no longer remain forever young, the fear of losing her husband to younger girl or women is getting larger and larger as she’s aging, thus the behavior from her bad experienced can only get worse – and just like swimming against the current, finally the husband couldn’t fight back anymore and give up – he went to swim somewhere else. The funny thing is, after their nasty divorce, they both later having relationship with other people, but it doesn’t last long either.

The third man also didn’t realize, that by fate or karma, as long as his wife still worshiped and loving him with all her heart, then it’s his karma as her teacher, and as a teacher – no matter where or what school of life he’s teaching, there will be smart and not so smart student, all he should do is just share with them the best knowledge or wisdom that he has, whether the student can absorb just a little or a lot is not for him to judge , or to abandon his wife because of her ignorance. Besides, we can never teach calculus to a first grader and expect them to understand. As soon as we know a person’s limitation (or their karma in this life), we should teach or share with them something that they can understand and slowly build them up to the next level – which may be in this life or even in the next karma. A college professor tried to teach an Elementary pupil the college level class and yell at them as stupid, not understand, then we know who is even be more stupid, right?

Whenever Kate didn’t get mad with me, she often “threaten” me that she still wanted to be my wife in next life, which I always jokingly reply that “Hell no! one life is enough, next time around I wanted a blond hair and long leg, not a shorty like you…” LOL.

Before I concluded this long blog, I would like to share one last story - The dancing couple – so you can see that sometime, when we unable to know why we started an event - and more often than not, we don’t know when or where it to end, and that is another way to help ending an marriage.

Once upon a time, a couple after has been married for more than 5 years and without any children yet, they get bored, and one day the wife has an idea, that she loves to dance, especially ballroom dance and it would be good for them too, since it also a good way to exercise. Fair enough, the husband said, so they both sign up for the dance lessons.

Let skip to the end of the story, that after more than couple years of study and dancing with each other, the couple started to move up into dancing contest (thanks to the Dancing With Stars TV shows), then travel for dance competition against the other region’s winners. Along the way, they spent more money into the so call hobby, to pay for specially lessons, expensive dance fashion clothes, jewelries, travel expense, etc… then the husband can’t take day off to go with his wife for competition or to dance so often, because more bills to pay. The couple started growing apart from each other, and by with dancing with other male partners and close physical contact during practices, soon the wife started having affair, then the end is the divorce.

Conclusion:

There is no “perfect” man or women ever existed in this world, it’s already next to impossible just to bring ourselves to a “perfect” level, let alone expecting someone else to be perfectly for us. On the other hand, if we honestly keep trying to improve ourselves, and loving others – then with that, we might be able to help others try to be “perfectly” themselves.

There are not many young man or women would like to think that someday when they’re getting married, they will become a “perfect” spouse, but perhaps more as waiting for a “dream girl/man” to come along. I don’t know that if you ever notice about the phrase “dream girl” vs “dream man”, not a “dream boy” (yeah, I know there is in some sick mind), which I reasoned that man always love to have a wife with innocent, sometime naive and pure at heart like a young girl, but women most likely preferred a man rather than a “mama boy” ! and I also noticed that most husband never wanted his wife to change, just the way she was when he met, but women always wanted her man to change, to become much different (not always better) than the man she married. This is one of the major issues that induces a crack in many marriage foundation.

If I wanted to have a long lasting happy family life, then I am a foundation for everything to be built within a house, or even a high tower, as long as the foundation is strong enough to support it. When a man doesn’t think or prepare himself going to be a foundation of all happiness in his life, he’s just like a poor quality mixed cement, poor craftsmanship, poor material, etc…not even good enough to build a good foundation. Therefore, he should not expect anything except a few cardboard that makes up a temporary shelter; and like having a poor built, weak foundation, just a few small misfortune events would easily blow away the wall - his children; the roof - his wife, everything that he built up and trying to keep over the years.

Many of us - if not all – will never knew or can define what is a “perfect” spouse, only until we’ve been almost through with this life. Even then, it’s not warranty that we know it better. I would never think myself as a “perfect” husband either, only “perfectly” knowing of what I wanted, and there is no young girl in this world was or is instantly to be my “perfect” spouse without any understanding of who am I , who they’re and what they wanted in life.

Most of us unknowingly think that after we married, our spouse will “instantly” fit the model spouse we already have in mind. Similar, it’s a silly idea when we thought a chunk of dirty clay dig up from the ground instantly become a beautiful and intricate flower vase. In other word, it has to go through many tribulation, trial & error - along with suffering, before it could turn into a priceless piece of art.

As I looking back and reflected, either I was “lucky” or may be I already prepared for it since my previous karma. I chose my parent as a “school” to experience and learn it from them; to know how I wanted to be a husband, a father and what type of a wife I wanted to marry – and modeling my spouse according to my will. This doesn’t mean that Kate doesn’t have any will by her own. She can choose to walk out of my life at anytime when she doesn’t like the way I treated her or my way of living.

It seems like we were a match from heaven, but it wasn’t easy during our first 15-20 years or even now.
It took time for Kate to understand more about me and what I wanted to do in this life, and the main ingredient that keeps us together is – of course – love, and next to that is ours respectful to each other, without it – even love will wander away and slowly disappear until someday it might be too late to get it back.

There are quite a few people among our relatives, friends and acquaintances – who said Kate has a “good catch”, but quite a few also on the opposite and they even said they would never want to marry a guy like me. Those who said I am a good catch reason that it’s hard to find a husband who can cook, can sew, baking cakes, taking good care of children, working hard, a handyman with many talents and can make a wife laugh, making enough money and financial secure so she doesn’t has to work for a living, no problem with her in-law or even with her teenager children, etc…

Those who don’t like me, they said just because I am not a “romantic type, I am too bossy, a dictator, an arrogant, a self-serve man, etc…and a main theme that all of them often repeat that I don’t know how to enjoy life.

There are different ways of love, and each is not always work in all condition. The normal love between parent and their children is second to a love between teacher and to their students when is involved in learning and discipline. The teacher needed to maintain a discipline, otherwise their student can’t be at their best when they grown up. I have seen so many parents love their children so foolish way that spoiled rotten them. It’s also apply to adult as well. If we can’t discipline ourselves, then let other – our spouse do it for us. I’ve seen many couples like those poor naive parents, they turn into spoiling their spouse then someday one can’t bear anymore of other bad behavior and called it quit.

Finally, from Day-One, I already let Kate know what kind of family that I wanted and let her to choose.
She can still make her own decision to walk away at anytime that she wanted. Of course, the longer we been married it will be as long as it would hurt if we someday end up divorce. I’ve thought about that long time ago, and I have learn one thing: there is for sure no perfect and everlasting love between human being, it’s only existed between God and mankind. I chose to bet on God’s love, because it will always be a perfect love that I know will never change, never give up on me – for better or for worse, the love between marriage whether it last long or not is secondary to it. This is the reason why I keep reminding Kate that please don’t love me too much, but share that love with others, those who are less unfortunate than us, because just like any financial advisers, they will tell us one common theme: never put all of our eggs in one basket, unless it’s God’s basket.

With this, I hope you all will find a true & everlasting love in your life.

Christmas 2011

Young Body, Old Spirit

2011-07-07T17:44:00.000-07:00

I should have write this blog at least a couple years ago, but-because-however, blah, blah, blah...until last weekend, while Kat & I took our friend on their stop over for a cruise to Alaska, to Seattle water front for a sightseeing trip, we bumped into a young couple with two little boys, it was so weird that we didn't recognize the parent but we instantly recognize the older boy, who is just almost 3 years old. The reaction from my friends has prompt me to write this story - that I have in mind for almost 3 years now, as they watched Kat's face glowing when she saw the boy that she used to babysit him when he was just about 4 months old.

In 2008, three years taking a break from long working hour after we sold our restaurant that we ran for almost nine years, Kat took a job working at a Day care center to keep her busy and a chance of getting out of the house. I've told Kat couple years before we sold our business that working with kids, especially baby - would bring more joy for her than any other type of work, so when a friend asking her about possible working part-time (only 3 hours a day) at the Day Care center, to provide a relief for other teachers to take turn for an hour lunch break.

On the first day at work, the Day Care manager gave Kat a tour around the facility, where they have several rooms - from new born to up to a year old, another room with babies just learn to walk and up to 2 years old, then from 2 to 4 years old, etc...up to the oldest is the toddler near the preschool age. The reason Kat picked the room with full of 7-10 babies, because she fell in love with a cute 4 months old boy with blue eyes, who's parents put him there just a couple days before. From then on, every day she went home, Kat would go on and on talking about this little boy on every little act that he did during those short but joyful hours.

Anyway, Kat wasn't feeling healthy back then, but after three years on non-working and travel with me (it was my "secret" method to rebuild her spirit, which will in turn creating a positive effect on her physical body), she started to slowly recover her strength and she was concerned about whether she can handle this babysitting job or not.
Well, I know this hidden "secret" from the Bible :) - that with Love, we can do anything, plus to me all babies are angels from God - and if we truly love them at heart then they'll bring more joy and happiness to us than we can count. I love those cute little faces with tiny fingers, hand, feet, especially their pure spirit that even without any knowledge or wisdom, they can "see" or perhaps feel who is really love them or not. This subject alone could take me weeks or month to write about it, but for now, I can tell you what was happened to Kat and the little boy we called him Tim.

According to Kat, Tim was about 4 months old when his parents - both are full time working in their professional field - sent him to this Day Care, and coincidentally about the same time that Kat took this job. On Kat first day at work, she noticed that while she was taking care of other cranky & crying babies, Tim was just quietly in his rocking type car seat, watching the event surround him, patiently waiting for other teacher-aid/babysitters take turn to feed him or changing diaper. Tim's patient, gentle and endurance attitude growing as Kat started to feel close to him. It was rarely to see him cried or throwing tantrum, but the opposite.

click on image for larger size

Because of Kat keep telling me every day all little thing about Tim do this, Tim done that..... I told her why not bring a small camera so every time she has a moment, take a snapshot of Tim and his activities so I can see that little cute face. Eventually, we collected many of Tim's pictures - of course with the approval from the Day care manager and Tim's parents, which Tim's dad was so surprised when Kat gives him Tim's picture - as a gift from us - during holiday season. At the first glance, Tim's dad thought it looked like a picture of a lovely baby model from a magazine, but after Kat told him that it was his son picture, he looked at the picture again and exclaim: "Whoa! is this my little Tim?". Three months later, when Tim was able to sit and learn to stand up inside a baby walker. Kat also took several snapshot of Tim, even during Tim just recovered from a cold with running nose, aching, etc... Tim didn't showed any crankiness that any typical sick baby often displayed, to show their discomfort happened within their little body.

Tim at 7 months

The head teacher for this baby room we called Nancy, an old lady at almost 70, has been working here several years, and she had to admit that she hasn't seen any baby easy to take than this baby boy, because even when he was sick, thirsty, hungry or dirty...he was very patiently waiting for the babysitters to take care of other crying babies first, then more often than not - he was the last baby that until Kat was able to get free and taking care of him. Tim even getting himself to sleep with a blanket when the rest of the babies always needs someone to cuddle and help them to sleep. Then the next event few weeks later happened, which explained why we instantly love this boy very much.

One day getting home from work, Kat fascinatingly told this story that made me wondered about the re-incarnation belief that many Christian couldn't ever fathom or willing to accepted, but to me the belief explain clearly what God's love is.

When Tim was able to learn how to get himself standing up, they let him to roam free in the room and let the other baby to use the walker like Tim was using in the picture above. On that day, one of the baby boys older than Tim just over a month was putting in there and he was angry, wanting attention. When Tim saw this boy in hysterical crying, he crawled over then help himself to stand up, leaning on the walker - perhaps wondered why this boy was crying so much, then Tim get down to the floor and pickup a pacify belong to the boy then put in the boy's mouth, as if he was able to reason that the pacify will help to comfort and console the other boy just it has helping him. At first, the other boy was quiet and content with a pacify, but only for a brief moment, then he throw away the pacify and start crying again. Still standing next to him, Tim leaned over and pick up the pacify and give it to the crying boy. The same event happened three times, and on the third time perhaps the other boy was so mad that nobody paying attention to him, he throw the pacify far away. Tim looked at the pacify he might thinking that it was a long way to get it, so without any thought, Tim took his pacify and gave it to the other boy. This very act alone that touch my heart and let me stronger believed that some spirits are old, and even when they are re-born again, like this wonder boy, their new body may be young, but their spirit could be older than we may outwardly seen. Because, logically speaking, it's only the experienced spirit/soul could learn from the past experience and translate it into action, and only happen when we are at older age, not like this young 6-7 months boy like Tim, unless the experience was carrying from the past karma, so strongly that he knew instantly what he has to do in this case.

Now, back to this boy name Tim. Kat said that Tim not just required less demand attention from teachers, he taking care of himself whenever he's able and also often help calm down the other babies by just his close by present or interact with them. Months and a year later, after Tim's "graduated" from Kat's room and move on to another room, gradually other teachers they all admitted the same thing that we already knew. They're all love - if not crazy about him and respected Tim - like we did.

Sometime when Kat came to other room to help the teachers, which happened that Tim was in the same class. One time, when the rest of other children were gathered to sing or to play a game, Kat saw Tim wandered in the room by himself looking for something to play or to enjoy like reading book, Kat tried to bring in back with the group, but the teacher just quietly told Kat to leave him alone, because the group activity may bored him, and Tim always well behave - plus having a very strong will - as if he knows what he wanted, but also could obey if the teachers insisted. Imagine that to a teenager, let alone little boy who was just less than 2 years old.

Even many of his classmates aware of Kat's tenderness for Tim, because whenever she has a break, Kat often come into his room looking for Tim, and when other kids saw Kat showed up, they knew right away as few of his close buddies come and let Tim know or tell her where Tim was without Kat even ask.

Tim at one year old.

I could go on and on talking about Tim - like teachers didn't have to yell or order him to do, except learning a new lesson or activity, because he finished his snack and lunch, washing hand by himself without even being asked - nor standing up or running around, throwing foods like the other kids did, always be the first in line waiting to go outside or be prompt, ready to go inside when his teacher calling. Never fight with other kids, even to those who sometime took his toys. Tim even get himself into bed and quietly go to sleep, wake up and put away his blanket before the rest of class get out of bed, etc...

As writer Rita Rubin wondered "Little kids, big voices: How can some girls sing like adults?" like Jackie Evancho, a little 10 years old who became the world's darling with her angel voice; similarly many years ago I often asked myself why some kids - like Tim - already knows what they wanted; acts like they already "been there, done that" before, behaves like adult while some adult only growing older, not wiser?

Long ago I had asked the same question to God's fairness, about why somebody became genius like Einstein, Beethoven, Newton, or even famous and rich like Bill Gates, etc... when billion other couldn't not solve a simple equation, sing a short verse of music, or couldn't never make enough - during entire life - for living compare to a few minutes of money that Bill Gates can make from his investment, let alone his business. Then after I have to repeat study the same classes for 3 times, when my last classmates often said I must be a genius, which always made me laugh - because how could I know something even before my teacher finished a sentence. Little they knew that I had been there before - twice - and the third time was so easy for me as the reason.

Even now and then, sometime I don't know when or why I instantly know what I know, even though I never experienced or encountered it in this life, I just know it. There are many books that authors already arrived into the same conclusion: past karma. If Christian could use the same principle and in a broader context, they have to admit that because Jesus aware of his past "karma", he knows he's the Son of God, thus has act accordingly. Even though Jesus's fate might has been pre-determined, but he still has to decide whether to follow his will or GOD's will. GOD never forced His only Son or all of us to follow His Will, as GOD respected our will. It's just us that we know nothing, a complete ignorance fool, thinking our will better than GOD's will, and worse - forcing others to go against their wills, thus create more pain & suffering in this fleeting short life.

I love all children because of their characters & beautiful, cute faces like angel, and more deeply so since I know soon or later, they'll have to go through all of the tribulations that we all must endure since Adam & Eve. With that thought in mind, I wished and prayed that Tim will grow up with happiness, and always be like an angel for others people that he meet on his path.

WHAT GOD HAS TO DO WITH THE TSUNAMI IN SOUTH EAST ASIA?

2011-03-20T14:34:00.000-07:00

The 9.0 earthquake that followed with a terrible Tsunami on 03/11/2011 on East coast of Japan, which so far killed at least 5,000 lives and may be 3 or times number of missing are still unaccounted for. It reminded me the similar "nature disaster" happened just over 5 years ago in Thailand that prompted me to wrote a blog which I am now wanted to share it again. I hope you will find peace and love from reading it.

I wrote down these thought after discussed with friends & relatives, while we were in Orange County, California - watching the news about the Tsunami event occurred in South East Asia during New Year 2005. Many had lamented for those suffering people and some even expressed that why God allowed such thing to happen.

This is the same question when we often complained "Why me?" when bad thing happened to us, as if why bad things happened only not just to us but should be everybody too

Being born and raise in the war torn country, I've seen many tragedies that touch my heart and beyond of what I've seen here in the USA. People all over the world and through out generations, often complained about why God allowed calamities like earthquake, hurricane, tornado, drought, diseases, tsunami, etc... happened to people & living things on earth. Little they know that if the earth was closer to the Sun only a couple hundred miles (out of billion miles far away), ice from both poles will melt, plants will die because of the heat, oceans soon will be dry and that's the end of the earth. Or one of the poles was tilt to the Sun just few degrees, half of the earth will be like desert and the other half won't last long either because of the extreme cold weather. Or the Moon was only closer to the earth a hundred miles, then each cycle of tide, a wave could be as high as tsunami’s wave, will devastate the coast land, destroyed many boats & ships - as well as lives, hindered transportation & civilization. We all know that 4/5th of the earth is covered by water, if it’s less than that, there won’t be enough vaporization to form the atmosphere to protect the earth & all living things, or if there is not enough salt in the ocean’s water, then the water will vaporized too much, which build up a much thicker layers of clouds – which in turn blocking the Sun and of course, create many problem for all living thing on earth. In other word, the earth was perfectly designed and put in a perfect motion & place within universe.

We also all know that the river & ocean’s tide, beside God’s designed it to clean the beach, the shore, it also carry the soil, sediments and nutrition from one place to another, to nourish the area has been damaged and also to replace the soil, land has been lost.

We concentrated & built many tall, heaviest building on one area, we dig giant holes (like the Hoover dam, the current Yangtze River dam project, which it will be the world largest dam and can be seen from the Space station with an naked eyes, as it finished in 2009, not counting after we empty the oil fields beneath the ocean floor, which created plenty of gigantic air pockets that could be collapsed in the distant future), we removed billion tons of rock & dirt from one place to another, we diverted many rivers to concentrate million cubic ton of water into one place. Of course, God's law for nature using by either using rain & water, or sometime earthquake, volcano, land slide, etc... to move land/dirt to another place to balance the earth's axis. From the first nuclear bomb exploded during the 1940s, there were hundred or even thousand nuclear explosions under the ground ever since, which changed the geo-structure of it, and perhaps because during the last 15 years, hundred more of explosion like these were created by India & Pakistan, event like Tsunami happened last week was perhaps, the end result.

In other word, if an ignorance neighbor, who dig a giant hole very next to your house, to build his swimming pool, without any plan to prevent the corrosion of your house’s foundation, which in turn makes your house collapsed. Would you going to condemn & sue your neighbor or just simply blame it was God’s work?

So the question is not whether God is fair, but were we fair to treat all of His creation, including our body?

Someone asked me whether does past sins has anything to do with the Tsunami in South East Asia on Dec 29, 2004? This is a very interesting question for many Christian and Muslim, as well as non-Christian, like Hindu and Buddhism, whom believe any current event/action is always related to our past karma.

If you’re believe or at least somewhat agree to the previous argument about “God is fair” (or God

has nothing to do with the Tsunami event), then you’re indeed subscribed to the “we reaped of 
what we sowed” philosophy.  However, let push a little bit further: If all of the Tsunami 
victims’ collectible past sins were so great that such enormous disaster should happened to 
them, then what did all the innocent victims & children had done to be deserved a same 
punishment like that? It’s the same, when a nuclear bomb was dropped on a city, where both 
the guilty or innocent victim, will share the same fate.

Another similar situation is the story of  the Titanic,  which not all of the approx. 1500 perished 
souls were sinful enough to end up in such tragedy,  and speaking of the Titanic’s tragedy, 
unless you can get far way from the sinking ship, otherwise you should know that, no matter 
how strong or how good a swimmer you’re, a huge sucking power from the vortex of water will 
drag you into and down to the bottom of ocean along with the ship and all the passengers.

The same analogy can also be applied to our karma. Sometime innocent people, such as 
children, may share the same fate with others, as the combined past deeds were created such 
a force that nothing could prevent it from happened to the bystanders. You’re now might ask the 
following question:  How the “unseen” of past sins of a mass can transformed & induced such 
terrible event that impact everyone, innocent or not ?

For this question, it reminded me the story of the lost city of Atlantic, the Vesuvius’s volcano 
eruption, which buried the city of Pompeii and Herculaneum in 79 AD, as well as many, many 
similar historical gigantic calamities. Were these people so wicked, so sinful to deserve the 
same fate?

Of course, not all should be perished in such tragic death, and even so, it’s not just because 
of their current or past “sins”, but because of their ignorance, and/or attached too much to the 
place that they think they can’t live without. For example, people in California, who live on top 
or near  the San Andreas fault line (or the Japanese who live on top of the earthquake ring 
on Pacific ocean), either that they don’t know or refuse to move else where, even though 
they’re aware that they are on top of it, and could be in serious situation when an earthquake 
occurred.

Even with an early warning, not all of the Tsunami’s victims can escape from the tragic death 
because either they don’t know how serious it was or just ignored it.

Same story with the Pompeii and Herculaneum’s disaster. Many were able to escape but came 
back few days later and die when the volcano erupted again few times after that.

Therefore, ignorance and/or attachment – not the “sins” - to a place that we know it’s dangerous 
to us often are the reasons for a tragedy such as events above. Finally, I hope this will conclude 
the subject of why calamities, like the recent Tsunami event happened in South East Asia, land 
slide at La Conchita of California (01/11/2005), as well as many other in the past, present and 
future, as tragedies will come to our life, so at least it may give us  inner peace and go on with 
our life, when we have to face one of these events again.

When you go to a jungle, you will encounter wild animals, because “it came with territory”.  If you 
move and live in California, chance are you’ll  experience with a major earthquake. Similarly, 
you might have to face the tornados in Kansas, or the hurricanes in Florida, because “it came 
with territory”. When you go to work, if you’re lucky to have a good & understanding manager, 
or a bad one that could make your life miserable, and soon or later you will have to deal with 
office politic, because “it came with territory”.  When we married, we have to face all the 
tribulation of being a married couple, then some more from having children if any, because 
“it came with territory”.

Thus, in this earth, all of the nature events (not disasters, because itself alone, there is no moral 
or judgment in it)  will happen, same true as a human being: we will grow up, go school, go to 
work, marry then may be divorce, getting old, get sick and we all eventually die, because “all of 
it came with territory” when we arrived into this world.

Remembered, at least once in your life, you encountered a terrible situation and could not 
escape then suddenly you’re awaked, and were you feel so glad that it was just a nightmare?

This is why the Hindu, Buddha often tell us that this life is just like a dream, it’s a God’s drama 
where we volunteered to be an actor/actress and participated in it. All those gurus and saints 
also tell us that we should not be attached to anything in this earth, treat it as we’re on vacation 
on earth for a short while.



Of course, while we’re on vacation or camping trip, the hotel or the tent won’t have all the warm 
and convenient like we get used to at home, and after a long trip like that, we all yearned for the 
“home sweet home” feeling. Christian’s bible preaches the same thing, as Jesus said: 
“Whatever belongs to Caesar return to Caesar, whatever belongs to God, return to God”, and 
the parable of the Prodigal son, where a son - after spending all of his inheritance and face a 
miserable life – he decided to go back home and was warmly & happily welcome by the father. 
God trying to tell all of us that we should live this life just like a camping trip. Have fun, make 
friend and enjoy with one another. When all has been said and done, we should go back to 
him and regret nothing of this life on earth. Otherwise, by  keep on going back (reincarnation), 
we should except all the facts of life, of this world, because “they all came with territory”. 
Otherwise, we’ll like those ghosts, who still wandering on the beaches, and didn’t want to 
come home yet.

Finally, if someone talking about God’s punishment for sin committed by people who died in the Tsunami, earthquake or any other disaster, I can only tell them this – even as a lowly and sinful as I am, if I could forgive all people’s sin and let them all into Heaven, I would in a heart beat, do they think that God has less compassion and love than I am?

I Am Back...

2010-12-23T05:13:00.000-08:00

It has been a while, perhaps a long while since last time I wrote my last blog since July, when I left Siemens and tried another sting at the same company I worked for back in 2002-2003. This time, I quit after only 2 months, because the company kept me busy - very busy since the first week after I joined them. Well, too much work that sometime I spent 16-20 hours a day! Yes, I made a lot of money as contractor, but losing a lot of sleep as well. The reason that I left that company - again - after just 2 months, because I am not the "Superman" that they think their money can buy. Then a friend of mine - a former DBA at WAMU called me one day, asked whether I wanted to take over his position at a large health care insurance company, because he got a full-time position at another company. His phone call was like my prayer's answer from God, because I already started looking after I realized that I am not going to get any help soon, even though I already told my Director one month into the job that I won't be here more than two months if he didn't hire at least one more person to help me.

The building where I spent 2 "relaxing" months as compared to previous one.

Anyway, after a couple phone interviews, I got the job, which I replaced my friend at the insurance company. Unfortunately, two months into the contract, one Friday afternoon, I was surprised to hear that my manager has been let go and left the building without a good-bye word, which I knew soon or later, the project I am supported will be cut as well. Sure enough, one week after that I was back on "vacation" again. Oh well, quickly I booked for a trip to Houston, Texas for relax and scouting for a possible place that we'll moving eventually in the near future, as Kathy and I had planned for this trip early this year, and this event provided us a chance to get away.

We landed in Houston, Texas on a sunny day and a toasting temperature at 87F, compared to a wet and cold weather with 40s degree in Seattle. We stayed at my sister's house in Woodland area, a new town just created only a couple years ago and it was the reason why my Garmin GPS didn't recognize the address, so my brother-in-law told me just go to the Woodlands Mall nearby and I followed him home.

Woodlands Mall's water tax,which for $5 ticket, you can have a ride along the water
way for a sightseeing around the new town.

I had been in Texas before, it was back in 2006 when I attended a week long conference in Dallas, but since it was a work related, I didn't have a chance to go out much during the day, only at night - so I didn't realize how big Texas is, up until this time. How big was it? Well, from one town to another is almost an hour drive each way - compares to 30-40 min in Washington state. We went out for dinner at the Woodland Mall restaurant, looking out a small public park with family and children gather, playing around. The atmosphere reminded me the peaceful area of the 1975-76 when we lived in Salt Lake city, Utah. The Texans also very polite and straight talk with their no-nonsense principle. It's a culture with principle that I was looking for. Recently, the governor of Washington state "declined to sign an agreement that would allow the fingerprints of every person booked into local jails to be checked against a national immigration database." That and the latest news about the Governor also agreed to pay 85% of the medical insurance for state workers, given me more reason to get out of WA state, because I know for sure, by not sharing the illegal immigrant, who committed crimes, information to the Federal agency, this state will become a magnet for other illegal immigrants from all other states to come here, and continuing give-in to the powerful Union boss, the tax payers in this state will pay for it for decades to come and I don't want to be a part of it.

Every Election cycle, one particular party always bring out the slogan "The gap between rich and poor getting wider and wider" as their battle cry to stir up angry among the Have-not in order to get their votes. It reminded me of the game I played on my younger brothers when we were kid. As a oldest than two other brothers, I had a task to cut and divide a large piece of watermelon between three of us, which normally I cut myself a bigger slice, then cut in half the remain for my younger brothers. Anyway, one brother complained about why his piece smaller than the other, which I was gladly to be the "fair" judge by cut a thin slide of the others' portion (and I ate it) so to make my other brother happy. Well, this time the one that had a "bigger" slide just a moment ago now whined about his piece seems smaller than his younger brother! I did the same routine, which I ate the portion I cut off from my youngest brother to make the other happy. It didn't take long for my younger brothers to realize that I was the one benefit from their complain, and I didn't bring any justice whatsoever to them, but only rob them their foods.
Well, the political parties use the same "technique" that I "invented" long ago without paying any royalty! LOL.
They used the gap between rich and poor ploy to fool the naive, who didn't even know the elephant /government is getting bigger and bigger, stand in between. If one just Google or search the information on how big and how fast the government sector has been growing since 1990s, they shouldn't be surprised to see the rate between few hundred percent to thousand or more percent. The rich and filthy rich will continuing making and keep more money, thanks to their wise investment and savings (or worse, benefit from the crook politician that they bought with their money). The poor are easy being con by the "middle-man", blaming the rich for all of their problem, not realize that the big elephant in between slowly eating away, ruin their country.

Anyway, after more than 4 months without writing any new blog, I am just glad that I have a few moment to post a new one so family & friends - except for the part about I lost my job since mid-November and the funny stories about Job Interview process that I just went through, but that will be the next blog, which I hope if any hiring manager should read, and basically it's one "never" can perfectly prepare for a a interview, regardless how good we are, sometime just 5% of luck will decide the whole thing.

Have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, May God bless you all with love & wisdom till the end.

Cheers,
Sam

The Slackers That I Missed

2010-07-24T20:03:00.000-07:00

Satire Warning!

I was bored after 5 months "out of action" (well, actually only 3 months, not counting 2 months I was out on vacation), so when a friend of mine emailed and asked whether I wanted to take over a short-term contract job, supporting the same company that let me go just few months ago. Of course, I jumped in with both feet and thanking my friend for that.

Little that I knew, instead of telecommute, working from my comfort pajama at home, spend only few hours, no stress and well paying... you know, a dream job. I end up having to drive 27-28 miles each way, working in a fortress Data Center with no window but security cameras was every where (in other word, no place to hide to scratch my itching butt, except in the restroom - but even then, who knows there might be a tiny camera lens hidden somewhere), and worse - sharing the same work space with a bunch of crazy IT guys with a fancy title like "System Admin", "Network Engineer", "Backup Specialist", to name a few. Honestly, before this, I thought these IT people was actually a virtual person, invented by IBM, NOVEL, or Microsoft, etc... who running around in the background fixing and working on user's request then goes back to sleep inside a database until the next request...Well, I was wrong, but not very wrong, because in life, they don't look like a typical professional DBA (Do Blame Anybody) like me...because they talking to each other with many weird and strange acronym terms like: ARC, SST, "triage", "scream test" (which I thought they used a pin to poke on someone - users, developers, application owners - to see whether they're still alive or not, etc...even their work schedule is weird too! for one guy, a Thursday is his Friday, when Tues is another Monday, etc...

Heh!Heh!Heh!
Except for the first paragraph, everything else was my wild imagination , weird "creativity", and sense of humor. After my first day at work, my impression with this group was like in the "Band of Brothers" movie. The first guy greeted me and took me into their "dungeon" was Bob, which I fondly called him "uncle Bob", because his joyfully, easy going and willing to help attitude. Then "Fin", a very, very cautious guy in everything he does - and a funny guy too. I don't know how many years these guys know Fin, but he often bring up the phrase "my wife is going to kill me!" that often made us laugh. I once told him that "Hey, you've just been married only 14-15 years; look at me - I have been marrying for 35+ years and still alive! women are pretty smart...they wouldn't want to kill a "golden goose" like us!". The third person that I met on my first day was our group leader, Rick - which I am always respected and care for him. I often compared and teased him as our Sergeant - whom with plenty of technical experience and courage to lead and protect his band of brothers - so to speak. Later I was told that just less than a decade ago, he was an electrician and now a leader of a group of IT geek, a pretty smart & fast learner, eh?

Then there are Pat, the tape backup guy - who occupied his own little "dungeon" with hundred of tapes and disk drive stacks, and always he first person come in to work. In my 25 years of working, Pat was the only one show up earlier than me. Another interesting and funny person is Mike, a young dude - perhaps the youngest in our group, love to play soccer and could be one of the smartest geek. Mike 's cubicle is between Rick and mine, so each day I moved my divider panel a inch closer to his, and next day I came in early also to move Rick's divider panel extended over Mike's cubicle - just to see whether Mike noticed or not. On the 3rd day, Mike walked in and just a quick glance, he yelled "Hey, what the heck is going on?". I laugh, watching Mike pushed back the dividers.

On my first week at the dungeon called EDC2, we have 2 fire alarms happened during one morning. We gathered outside on a corner of the building. In the picture below (click on the image for a larger view), from left is Pat, Fin, uncle Bob, Patrick, Todd, Ryan, Mike (partially cover) and Rick.

Every now & then, we often perform the "check the weather" exercise, a term they used for taking a break by going outside for fresh air and get away for few minutes from a place with heavy magnetic field generated by thousand of servers, network racks and hundred miles of cables, electricity.

I always carry a small digital camera with me so when a situation arise, like in the picture below, Pat - the tape backup guy - has an exist interview with our boss. They went into an empty cubicle to go over the paper work, since Pat was kind of working for hours to finish his last assignment and tired of sitting, so he on his knees while talking to Mike. I could not resisted to take a snapshot, then used the Photoshop to edit and add special lighting effect, as if there was heavenly spot light on Pat's moment of confession, which it seems appropriate enough, because those remained will never know when we'll have another job offer that get us out of this "purgatory" place

Pat's last confession

Working hard or hardly working? hard to tell without being there...

Working on the Monster.com Research project.... :)

lunch at Benihana - Me, Fin and Patrick

Scott & Bob

Another "VIP" in the Data Center is Scott, the manager of the DC for Chase, who migrated from the Mid-West, and I didn't know how or when I impressed him but more than a month after I arrived, one day during our conversation, I told them that I couldn't hardly wait for my house to be sold, to get out of this "communist" state and move to Texas. Scott heard that and said to everybody "Hey! I like this guy more and more everyday!". It turn out that, like many people with some common sense and decency, Scott and I totally against the way of our country is currently governed. We - as a nation - slowly turn into a hand out society, and government will take care of everyone needs, along with no responsibilities for the future generations. A few days later, I also found out that he loves the Vietnamese's "combat sandwitches" , which Fin & I drive to downtown Seattle and pick up about 10 of those for lunch. Soon after that, he offered to drive with me, to buy the same BBQ sandwitches - in order to know where the store and perhaps, a place to order dinner to go for him while he stayed in the hotel. Another guy also get hook on Vietnamese's sandwitchesis Jim (which I called him "Jimmy The Greek", because of his dark & wit sense of humor, wise guy indeed). He also love to eat McDonald's foods, and buy it's breakfast almost every morning. I jokingly tell others that just what Jim eats, we can tell whether Mac's stock price will goes up or down every day...lol


Jimmy the Greek

Rick & Jared in text messaging contest...

When my job contract term was almost expired in three weeks, I posted my resume on Craigslist, just in case that Chase won't extend my contract. Fate happened that I got a job offer & accepted it (another contracting position) at a local company that I used to work for them almost 8 years ago, and later on the same day - during our staff meeting, Mike - our boss - received an email to confirm that they extended my job contract. The new job is closer to home and pay more (29% more), plus overtime for any extra hour. I was touched as when Mike gave me a thumbs up while we're in a conference call, and almost everybody seems happy for me, knowing this crazy "James Bond" would stay with them for a few more months, adding to the office madness. However, I know soon or later, we would be depart on many different directions, after Chase shutdown the data center on the West coast, and I hoped that some of us might be working together again someday.

lunch at a local Mexican restaurant.

On my last day, they took me out for my free "last meal" at a restaurant down in South Center area , Fin took the picture for us as Jared with a big smile, Bob is hiding in the corner, Ryan in the middle between Bob and Jimmy the Geek. In the picture Jim hold his hand as if he was praying for me :)

and now, below is one of the souvenir-crazy gifts from "uncle" Bob, I will use it to disguide my true identity at my new job:


James Bond in cover.

Farewell my friends and boss. Life is too short and even we only worked with each other just over 3 months, but I have too much fun and memories to carry with me for the rest of my life. I prayed and know that God will take cares of you, give you all more peace, health and happiness than I can ever could. We never know, that we might end up in a same 'cage' again in the future, and when that happened, we'll sing the "Happy Days" tune all over again. For now, good bye comrades... (you'll lose the title "comrade" only when the state of WA changed its "wealth distribution" policy or move to Texas like I will be - soon).

Cheers,

Sam

Wedding in Hue

2010-04-23T20:14:00.000-07:00

NOTE: After almost 3 weeks busy with my new job, this weekend I have sometime for a little writing and reminiscent about my recent trip to Viet-Nam, especially the last leg of our trip, which is we went to Hue for a special reason. I hope you'll enjoy it as much as I did.

Jan. 18^th, 2010

We arrived at Hue under a cloudy and heavy rain. It rained from Da-Nang (where we booked our bus tickets from Sinh Tourist a day before we left Hoi-An) all the way to Hue and still last for several days after we arrived. Usually, each time wecome to Hue for a few reasons, this time I represented my dad, my side of family to attend some meetings with the bride's family, whom will be my brother's in-law afer he married a girl from this lovely ancient city. Come to think of it, the time that he met and proposed to this girl was almost the same length that when I met Kathy and later married her. In military, they have a term for it "Thunderbolt Acquiring Target & Take Over", which was 'furiously" fast against our old Vietnamese's tradition and culture, only the Las Vegas's wedding speed can surpassing us! HAH!HAH!HAH!...

Anyway, before the BIG wedding day, Kathy, myself, our cousin and my brother went out to visit a famous place called "XQ Su-Quan", one of several Viet-Nam traditional hand embroidery exhibit centers (it also has similar centers in Ha-Noi, Da-Lat, Saigon, Hoi-AN, Nha-Trang and even in Texas, USA).

Perhaps, it was my brother (seen in the picture above) quiet moment for himself, looking at the silk arts displayed and reflecting on what future ahead of him. For Kathy & I, we didn't have that "luxury" moment, but chaos and anxiety - because it was almost 35 years ago, on April 24th, 1975, I had to make a hard decision on whether I should stay in Viet-Nam or convince Kathy to go with me to a foreign country in order to escape the rule of Communist government. Lucky for me, Kathy has made a wise decision and the rest was history.

I guessed it was a good omen for
my brother's wedding, that Hue has been under wet weather for sometime, may be on and off for weeks before we arrived, but on his wedding day, as I walk out on the street and took a snapshot of the area near our hotel, I was surprised to see the sky was clear and the pavement was dry - as you can see the row of xich-lo waiting around a 5-stars hotel to pick up tourists for an morning sightseeing around town.

Lou is my youngest brother in our family, and between us is 11 years apart, and it made us even further apart when I was a teenager, Lou was just a toddler - so we didn't have a chance to get close and know each other, then as we migrated to USA and I was married, living in a different state thousand miles away, we grew up even farther and farther apart as years goes by.

Now, as I already spent almost 2 months in Viet-Nam and Lou end up working for a company here, we went out for lunch, dinner and taking short trips together, talk to each other more than our past 20+ years combined. I came to know my brother and respected him more as I observed his business-like attitude when dealing with his potential employers and bosses. On his wedding day, Lou get up early and barking orders to the wedding planner and assistants - just like a real project manager - or perhaps, as if he is the wedding planner with lot of experiences, instructed the guests, the limousine drivers on which car to take, how to line-up before getting to the bride's house, whom to carry the ceremony's gift baskets, etc...

Since the bride's root is from Hue, which heavily conservative and rich with traditions that mostly passed on from Royal and King families centuries ago, so of course the bride family wanted to keep the wedding ceremony as much traditional as possible. Thus, my brother got to hire a wedding planner from this province, to advice him the local custom and the required procedures.

as custom required, even the female and male from the groom family & friend, must gather separately outside...

... while waiting for the bride family welcome them into the house.

When we getting to the bride's house, as the formal custom required, the groom party must wait outside - at least 20 yards - from the bride family house, until the head of household or representative of the bride family goes out and inviting us in. The inviting hour was consulted and determined in the Astrology calendar, to make sure it will be the "good" hour when they come out and invite us in.

Aren't they so cute, eh?

They're actually brother and sister from neighbor. The lantern symbol represents the light, the wisdom that will help guide newly wed couple for a long lasting happy married life together. Nowadays, It sure makes a lot of sense to me.

As the custom indicated, after a representative from the bride family came out and inviting us, this pair of lantern carrier led the groom party procession, line up in two columns and carrying the gift baskets to present it to the bride family, at the end of the wedding ceremony, it will be divided into 2 - one for each side of the families.

Here is Lou and his brand new wife :)

Just to make this story "short and sweet", after the introducing family members of both side, a normal burning candles and worship at the ancestor altar, the exchange vows between the couple, then a gift giving and well-wish event from the bride family & relatives to Lou and his new wife, then the party is ON... Of course, the same routines will repeat again at the groom family in Saigon later next week, but too bad that Kathy and I have to flight back to USA one day after we returned to Saigon tomorrow. Oh, I forgot to mentioned that later in the afternoon, both families invited relatives and friends to a famous restaurant name "Vy Da" for the wedding party, and I have to say that I was really impressed and respected Hue's people, who came not only on time, but graciously having fun, not a hint of typical rowdy guests often - happened during a Southern's wedding party - and the foods was excellent, just enough - not too much or wasted, and because the party was held on Thursday, thus many also graciously left early (around 9-10 PM) with a happy note, nobody grumpy or complain about the party was far too short either. Best of all, later on I heard people complimented me on my speech during the ceremony and a quite young looking over 50 'dude'...LOL Final thought: Well, just like that, my 2+ months vacation trip was gone in a flash - just like my previous 50+ years ago - where it all went? I know for sure that on our 20+ hours flight back to USA and weeks or months after that, I will have "plenty" of time to contemplate about what do I wanted to do for the rest of my life on this earth. I wasn't boring with working and making money, but for whom and why...and that my friend, it will be another long, long blogs in the future - LOL Sam

Back To The Grindstone...

2010-04-04T11:16:00.000-07:00

After 5 months without a job, and used to live a life style like Tiger Woods (well, actually at a Jr. Tiger Woods level), then several of mine mistresses became restless, because they just staying at home playing chess, watching with me old war and John Wayne movies, eating generic popcorn from Costco... since I can't afford to take them out to shopping, go out dining - except when Mac Donald or KFC has 99-cents meal promotion. They all gang up on me and forced me to look for work, so one day as I drove by a shopping mall and saw a sign on the street, saying that I could made $20K a month by just call a number they provided. Thanks God that it didn't say "hurry or the opportunity will be gone".

"Whoa!" I thought that with my new income of $240,000 a year, I can afford to have another mistress (or two), or perhaps replacing those has treated me badly - even though I know deep, very deep down I am a bad boy, a very bad boy!

I wrote this piece just few days ago, on April 1st - you know it's a April Fool Day, right? HAH!HAH!HAH!!!
Hey, even on Friday April 2nd - when I showed up at the new company's headquarter for the New Employee Orientation training; and with a straight face, I introduced myself to the receptionist with "Hi, my name is James, James Bond!" . After a few second with surprise, then she laughing out loud as she saw a big grin on my face, and she played it along:
- Hi Mr. Bond, what can I do for you today?
- Pssst...don't say it too loud, other will know who I am, for now just call me "Sam", and I am here for the New Employee Orientation session, ok?

Yeap! I am now actually back to work for a new "old" company that has been established since October 12, 1847, which somehow generated an eerie feeling about another "ancient" institute created on September 25, 1889, that I used to work for and now ... pooofs...is gone - or actually had been take over by another bigger company. It's even more weird that the new company I am now working for, assigned me to work to support the same group that before I left the previous company! Go figure.

After taking more than 2-months off for travel and relaxing, I started sending out resume to apply for several opening positions posted on the Dice.com, Monster.com, etc...However, just as I suspected - many Job Agencies are typically post many "ghost" positions in order to collect as much as resume as possible, so in turn they can boasted and claim with real company searching for people that they have the largest database of available and qualified candidates.
Anyway, just after a month I really started looking for job, I got 5 referrals that all eventually lead to interviews and actually meet people doing the hiring. All of the referrals were from my former colleagues & friends, which tell me that I got more valuable, intangible good wills and trust in friendship more than with the head hunter, who are just looking more after their wallet than for my career.
The first company that I had an interview with - at first they said they were looking for a contractor then after reviewing my resume, they changed their mind, saying that they now wanted an FTE, which I told them that it was fine with me, then after the interview, they told my friend that they're now looking for an DBA with Analysis Services experience rather than a pure Database Admin. expert like I am. I wouldn't miss them as much since the driving to work is almost an hour each way, and they allowed employee to telecommute only one day a week. I was seriously "spoiled" by WAMU, especially near the end of it's era, when I worked exclusive 4 or 5 days from home, only went to downtown to have an meeting with client or something that can't be done at home.
The next company I interviewed with was over the phone, because the company was out of state, and with a good referral from close friend plus impressed with my background and experienced, I got through the first two interviews easily before they passed me through a third one, this time was more technical questions as I expected. Even sometime I have difficult to hear the questioner's accent, I think I answered all the questions pretty well, except a couple easy one that somehow my mind went blank (thanks for a long vacation trip in Vietnam of course!). Before the 3rd interview, they already mentioned to me that this position required 90% travel - all over the world - which mostly I don't mind, but when they listed all of the possible place and they mentioned the "Middle East, Dubai, etc...", it rang an silent alarm in my head, thus I was not bothered when they didn't response at all after more than 2 weeks.

In the meantime between those 2 companies I had interview above, another friend of mine - who was still provided supporting JPMC - land another full-time position with another company, he asked me whether I would like to to take over the support until the system go away before then end of 2010. Hey, why not - I told him. The next week or so, a quick interview with his boss and the hiring was rolling, before that weekend arrive, the new company now I worked for offered me a short-term contract and take over my friend's job. I told the manager that give me next week to let him know whether I will take his offer, because I was scheduled to have a 2nd interview with a local company - also from a friend's referral. Anyhow, the interview with the hiring manager at the retail company went so well that he wanted to bring me in a next day or two - for the final interview with his team, while he will asked the HR Rep. to start the paper work ready, because they needed a replacement as soon as possible. Perhaps, it was fate or karma that I was either "lucky" or "bad luck" that I mentioned to him about the offer from another company, and asked whether he could speed up the process so I can make a decision within next week. Well, I didn't heard from him or from the company's recruiter since, until more than a week after I already accepted the offer from the company that my friend referred me to.

This remind me the scenario that happened to me almost 9 years ago, that back in 2002 I had an interview at WAMU for a DBA position, which after 3 grueling interviews with the whole team - everybody like to have me join their team (including a lead who later joined another group that I replaced him a year later) - except the hiring manager, somehow he thought that I was"over qualified" and won't stay long. A year later, after a friend of mine send another manager also at WAMU my resume. I have an interview with him, and with 3 others persons, and I got an offer right on the spot. Every now & then, I ran into Peter (the manager that didn't want to hire me previously) I just smile and greet him, and I was often asked by one of his people, name Scott ( which BTW, we used to worked together at Boeing), to help him with the SQL Server or sometime with Oracle issues - one which I still remembered that: they had one application using SQL Server which collected data from Oracle's database, but for over 3 months, they can't make the connection between two platforms to work. Lucky for him that I know both Oracle & SQL Server, and it took me only couple hours to make it work for them.

It was lucky for me too - a BIG lucky one - it turned out that ever since -I've worked for a best manager that many (well, may be just me) often dream of, and of course - much better than Peter, the manager that my friend Scott said not so many get along well with him. The rest was history.

So the moral story is (well, I just made it up! :) :
After I left Boeing in 1999 and after having many, many job search & interviews, I learn that it's not just experience and skills, but also luck (or fate) - to land a job. I have known many good people with plenty of experience & talents, but still remain unemployed last longer than some other with less qualifications than them. However, once both groups able to get in, the one with true talent & experience almost always last longer than those who has less qualified. It's life and that the way it is, so why feel depress or stress when others get a job and I am not? I just do my best and let The MAN UPSTAIRS worry the rest...piece of cake, right ? LOL

Now, should I am glad for having a job or I just go
ahead and shoot myself, eh?

BULETTIN NEWS:

Just got a latest news from FoxNews channel that list all of the women links to Tiger Woods . Boy! when I will be 95, I would be proud to have such list attached to my name, but then again Kathy wouldn't let me live that long...

Ancient city - HOI AN

2010-03-31T07:14:00.000-07:00

A morning scene at Hoi-An river
(click on it for a larger image)

After knowing my dad's condition was improving and just allow time to let his hand to heal, Kathy & I took off to the ancient city Hoi-An, which it is 30 km south of Da-Nang. This will be our "get way" trip after more than a week stay in Saigon city, and later on our way to Hue - where we have to be there in 4 days to attend my younger brother's wedding.

a restaurant for tourist near water front, on Bach-Dang street.

We had been here before, back in 2005 as first time - but some how I feel very close to this ancient city, a similar phenomenal that I received back in summer 1973 - when I first traveled with my friends to Da-Lat city, and for some strange reasons, I felt that I had lived there before, everything seem to be very familiar, very close to me as if I was born there in recent previous karma or something.

As usual - I rented a motorbike and took Kathy around the tiny town and outskirt of it, which of course, it doesn't take a whole day by motorbike to cover the entire ancient town. However, in order to see the real daily life of the local, it is best to park our rental bike near by and walk around city's blocks, especially at night when the tourists - after spending a long day with all kind of excursions and resting late afternoon, they gathered around this small town for dining then more street sigh-seeing with lanterns hang almost everywhere, a romantic and classic atmosphere that perhaps bring tourist back to late 16 th century, because within this ancient town, a section of it has been designated as a Viet-Nam's heritage site (as well as one of the UNESCO famous Heritage sites), thus many old houses (more than 300 years ) are not allowed to change, or upgrade with modern architect but only maintain and upkeep exactly as it was.

This is a typical "middle class" street vendor, who can afford to own a cart that can carry more items and less effort to move around than a poorer, traditional street vendor - whom mostly women - carry a heavy load from 2 bamboo baskets on both end of a wooden bar on their shoulder.

On the next day, we spent the morning at the beach, which it was rained last night and with the "cold" weather during off season, the beach seem almost empty - except for a few European families, for them this 73F degree in Hoi-An, Viet-Nam - was a "toasty warm" as currently in their countries the temperature was hovering near the sub zero freezing cold.

We met an old women who has not many tooth left when she smile and told us that she was 73 years old, every day come here to sell snacks, cigarette, etc... to tourist, to support her and her disable husband - as their adult children live and working in Saigon city, also are too poor to help them. Of course, this old women was not the only one that we met on our journey, but so many like her still exists now and forever, as long as mankind still remain. Just thinking about me - an unemployed, no job and still hundred or thousand time much better than her own fate. Was God not fair or just us, who chose a role to play in this life ? In a "short" while, many of us - soon or later - will feel no more pain & suffering, just like a co-worker of mine, Ann Barron - forever lives in peace, happiness and being close to God. She passed way only few weeks after we have been laid off and after she had been went through pain - a lot of pain - during her last few years battle with her cancel. When we still working along side (remotely) with each other, I always heard her soft and gentle voice, never a trace of hurt, pain nor even a hint of anger about her illness, her fate. I kept telling others that Ann was my hero, my inspiration and best sample of endurance. Looking at the picture of this old women above, I wondered what was the inside energy source that still keep her get up every morning, wandering around town and on the beach all day, and still keep smiling. Regardless, she reminded me that I could do a lot more...

a night scene on water front

ORPHANAGES' ALLEY

2010-03-21T07:50:00.000-07:00

Before I left for Viet-Nam, I read an article published on Tuoi-Tre Online magazine early 2009, which it described a story about many young boys & girls, who lost their parent or were abandoned by them, and they resided together in a small alley No. 115 on Nguyen Du street, District 1 in HCM, a former hotspot for drug addicts and prostitutes. The story also mentioned about a teacher name Hue-Lan, for more than 20 years, she has been teaching hundreds of students in her 10-square meter room, many of them were from this group of youths bonds together , kind of a surrogate family, reinforced by the help of locals and nurture of this teacher.

At the bustling dawn of each day in the tight quarters of Alley No. 115 on Nguyen Du street, this group of young children sort their wares in preparation for the all day wandering on the street of HCM to peddle the items, which is either lottery tickets, newspapers, shoe-shinning equipment, post-cards, etc... Before they break up and disappearing into the city, they gather near the alley’s entrance to receive free breakfasts from several street food-vendors in front of the Alley.

The story has touched many good hearts not only in HCM city but all over the country, and perhaps the world, which later on I’ve learnt that many had indeed sent gift, money and clothes to teacher Hue-Lan to help the kids.

From the article described above, I keep a note and plan to pay them a visit on this trip, to see what else I can do. I arrived at the Alley No. 115 above couple days ago and met Mr. To-Truong (means a Community Leader) of the alley. He asked me of whom I was looking for and after I told him the teacher’s name Hue-Lan. He just shook his head and inquired whether I was there to help the orphanages, which I confirmed with a node. Mr. To-Truong then told me it was all lies or the truth has been twisted to present a touching story in order for teacher Hue-Lan pocket the money from unknowing charity groups or person. The truth according to him that, yes - Hue-Lan is a teacher, but parents pay her $600,000 VND per month for each pupil, not free to the young orphanages as the article said, and when the officer asked her credential, which she produced a certificate/license, it’s for teaching the first grade only, but Hue-Lan also taught the 2^nd and 3^rd grade, that violated her permit.

After a few minutes exchange story with Mr. To-Truong, I thanks him for the information then left, but in my mind, I already decide to return in a day or so, to find out the truth.

Kathy & I returned to the Alley No.115 couple days later, and after I parked my motorbike at a nearby street, we then ventured into the Alley. On the left, there is a row of “houses”, which it’s actually just about 2x 4 meter size, big enough for a bed, a small table & chair, plus a locker to store clothes or valuable belongs.

When I saw a little girl, about 10 years old, study alone by herself in one of the “houses” that I walk by, I asked if she knows the teacher name Hue-Lan and whether she can lead us to her house, which she smiled and nod, because actually it’s her teacher. The girl then led us zigzags into an even smaller alleys deep inside a maze of tiny houses before we standing in front of a 2 story building (which the only few existed), then she went inside and fetch her teacher for us.

We met a middle-age women, a widow since her husband had passed away few years ago, who introduced herself to us as Hue-Lan and invited us to come in and sit on the floor, because there is no furniture, except for a folding bed, an altar for her husband and a corner of the room is served as a kitchen. After exchanged few pleasantries, I asked her about the statement from the Community leader, which she said almost everything he said was corrected, except missing few other “detail” information that he neglecting to mention it to us. After the story has published and soon the neighborhood noticed that many charity groups or people with good intention had come to inquire and see them –teacher Hue-Lan and the orphanage – to bring gift and donate money to help them. Hue-Lan confirmed that she has license to teach only first grade and some of her pupils indeed still have parent, which paid tuition for them. However, there are still many other children either was abandoned by their parent or parents are incarcerated, imprison due to drugs related or committed crime, etc… and no relative to care for them.

As I mentioned earlier, during the day most of these children wandering all over the city to earn some money and return to her place late afternoon or at night to eat, sleep and learn some basic reading and math lesson from her without fee; some are staying overnight at their relatives and spend their day by roaming the city. According to Hue-Lan , the little girl we met and took us here name Hang, she is 10 years old and recently became an orphanage, because mother passed away few years ago , her father was a drug addict and was in jail on some petty crimes, then couple months ago hanged himself in his cell.

The little house where Hang now lives previously was more an 2m x 4m shed like all of the neighbor and after a fire accident luckily only destroyed few “houses”, so the city decided to clear the alley and build a row of little 2mx4 m houses with brick and aluminum roofing to replace the slum shelter that could bring a bigger disaster when a next fire happened. Recently, the city government announced that they will take over the slum area, including the alley, to develop new commercial or business center, thus where about the current resident to be relocated is still unknown. Back to the little girl name Hang, Hue-Lan said she is a bright and very smart girl, which last year she was one of the Honor Students at her school and earned a scholarship. Since Hang’s father now gone and has no other relative, Hue-Lan treats her like her own daughter, but Hang still remained at her house, because Hue-Lan said there is no more room at her place - as 3 or 4 other kids like Hanh has no where to sleep, except at her house.

There are many “Alley stories” like throughout this city that I will eventually visit them as much as I can in the near future. Before we left the alley, we gave some money to My-Hang to buy new clothes, books and school supplies, etc… at first she was reluctant to receive gift from stranger, but with her neighbor’s encouragement, My-Hang decided to accept it with gratitude that I hoped she will use it to improve her future, as I promised that I will come back or send others to visit her and see her progress, as well as wanting to know where these people will be relocated when the city government forced them out of this alley in the near future.

Back to Saigon

2010-03-14T20:43:00.000-07:00

I've thought that on this trip my dad and I would together go to Phat-Diem village in north Vietnam, his birth place and a place that buried my grand parents when my dad still a teenager. This would be his last trip back to his home town and I also wanted to learn more about my root, but soon after Kathy & I left to Da-Lat city, dad became sick as some kind of virus attacked his right arm and wrist, he got a fever on and off at night, then one of my cousins took him to the neighborhood's doctor, who is 71 old and perhaps, lost some of his "marbles", and instead of helping my dad getting better, he made my dad's condition getting worse. As soon as I get back to Saigon, I took my dad to Vu-Anh hospital - one of the very few hospitals in Viet-Nam that has the international certification, based on some International Standards (ISO) requirements.

a nurse taking dad's blood sample at Vu-Anh hospital

After an MRI scan and physical examination by a French doctor, who diagnosed that the other doctor's shots in the shoulder has damaged some of the bone areas but the pain on my dad's wrist is started to heal and with some pain-killer prescription that take at night will help my dad able to sleep well at night, otherwise - as he kept moaning and twisting all night, my mom couldn't get enough sleep and that she would be exhausted and collapsed soon or later. So instead of staying in VN for few more months as planned, my parents got to back to USA soon, right after my younger brother's wedding, in order to find out what was really wrong with my dad's hand & wrist. We then spent more than a week in Saigon to take care of my dad, thus there goes my plan to travel outside of city and take more landscape picture. Instead, I used my point & shoot camera and took any snap-shot around the city whenever I can.

street vendor in Saigon city

The above image may soon be gone within the city limit, because as traffic become a major headache for the local government, and they just banned the self-modified 3-wheels vehicle from enter into the Saigon city, because they said it created congestion for many. It's not just the modified 3-wheelers, but also some type of street vendors - that according to the government - they blocking traffics and they could tarnished the city's image, since the street vendors seem doesn't look "civilize" ( a code word for un-healthy or non-sanitize food prepare) as I often saw the billboards boasting Saigon is one of the most modern and with a high culture among cities in Asia.

I wondered when these street vendors will be
forced out of their way of making a living.

We have been back to Viet-Nam totally six times and had never been in hospital, but on this trip Kathy & I had been checked-in twice (one for my ears infection and Kathy's with skin rash), now with several trip in & out of a couple clinics and hospitals in Saigon city, including 5 trips to visits my cousin & uncle. I've learn quite a bit about the health care in Viet-Nam, well - to be exact - in Saigon city, and if the people in America could learn from Canada, European country and from a communist country like Viet-Nam about a national health-care program, the wise one would have to agree that (relative speaking) there is no best nor a perfect health-care in the world, and just a few major tune-up here & there, the America will even again, the golden standard for the rest of the world, one of those is the Tort Reform , indexing any cost associated with the health's expenses, premium and removing the pre-existing condition , etc... It costs me about $13 USD- including prescription medicines - at a public clinic, and $18 USD for Kathy's doctor visit & drugs. As for my dad, I remembered it cost him totally around $300 for all the trip to several clinics & hospital, including MRI and prescription. If this happened in America, the amount would be at least 10 times over!
The Vietnamese gov. didn't required everybody to buy health insurance, but provide or cover the basic medical for everyone, and whoever has more money are free to go any private hospital for more expensive treatment if they wished. In between, poor people sometime get help from charity or depended on generosity of others, but foremost they believed in fate, in self-destiny that everything happen for a reason - even in death or serious illness, accident.

NHA-TRANG - time to get some tan...

2010-03-10T20:11:00.000-08:00

After almost a week in a cool and romantic mountain city Da-Lat, we were ready for place with warmer weather and lot of sandy beach, which is Nha-Trang about 4 hours away as the Sinh Tourist's bus took us zig zag down the hair raising Ngoan-Muc pass. I don't know why, but every time we went to Nha-Trang city on this route, I just silently pray some "hail Mary" and let God worry about the trip before I step on the bus, because ever since I heard so many horror accidents happened on this narrow and dangerous pass, then seeing many altars placed along the winding pass - by relatives and survivors from the accident, to worship and pray for the unlucky souls find happy and ever lasting peace, this proved to me that those horror stories was true - and so are my fear, but as I always do then I can't do anything about this, I just talk to myself: "Oh well! what the hell..."

The long and winding Ngoan-Muc pass

Does it sound like the Beatles' song "The long and Winding Road", eh? Yeap, I "have seen these road before" in travel and in my struggle life - which now as I am daily reflecting upon, I know it's nothing compared to many people that I met on my journey.

As I always do when we arrived at a new place, I rented a motorbike that cost $5 USD/day so we can go anywhere, anytime as we like and don't have to wait for taxi, 'xich-lo' (a three-wheel cyclo) or hire a motorbike for short trip. The picture above took after Kathy & I returned from a trip to a resort 45km north of Nha-Trang. We were told that up north, there is a place called Doc-Let, which is not fully developed into a full scale, commercialized tourist like Nha-Trang city. We arrived at Doc-Let and facing a dilemma, on the right of the picture below is the luxury resort for tourist with more money to burn, and on the left is for middle class or mostly college students to visit during summer - where should we stay? Well, you should know me by now, right? lol

Even in the area reserved for "cheap" tourist like us, there was a fence with a stern warning sign - saying it's prohibited street vendors from enter the restricted place, which I later ventured into that slump area, to find out how these people live.

As you can see in the picture above, these simple tents and folding lounge chairs is for low income tourist to rent , and this is the place where street vendors making their living by selling mostly sea food they just catch from the sea early today or yesterday. When they saw me wandered into their area, within minutes I was surrounded by so many I can't count, they all pleading me to buy their products like live clams, shrimps, lobsters, crab, etc...which they can also cook to our ordered. After few minutes visit and talking to them, I told that my wife will come over to order some sea foods and asking them to cook for us to bring back, since they are not allowed to come to our place. I figured that even I know they charged us more than local tourists, but it was off season not many business lately, and the global finance crisis also impacted the travel industry, Viet-Nam could not escape the same fate, so I figured it was their chance to earn some money. "Oh well ! what the hell..."

typical fishing boats in Nha Trang

Time fly faster when we have fun. After 3 days and 2 nights in Nha-Trang, we took a night bus back to Saigon, which the tour bus pickup passengers at 8 PM and scheduled to arrive about 6 AM next morning. At the second rest area somewhere along the way, around 1 AM our bus stopped at a restaurant on the highway to let us out for a walk with fresh air and toilet duty. I get off with my camera and wandered to the near by parking lot, where I spotted a man curved up to sleep on the porch, near to his home cook hum-bow cart. Perhaps, it was a slow day/night for him, where not many vehicle to make a stop at this nowhere place for passenger, who mostly not likely hungry like I was - to buy his steaming hum-bow, because I took a peek inside the huge pot and it still full of un-sold hum-bows. After I took a snap shot below, I bough a cup of coffee then walk over and gave the man a nudge, which seem to startle him a little bit. I then gave him the coffee and started chatting with him, inquired about how his business that morning, mentioned about the weather was much colder than during the day, how much does it cost for a hum-bow, etc... Slowly awaken and sipping some hot coffee to help his mind clear and back to reality, the man told me that business this year much slower than usual, each hum-bow cost only $5,000 dong (25 cents USA) and more likely that as we approaching near Tet (Viet-Namese's new year), people tend to stay home rather than travel, and those who yearned to travel, return to their home after a year or more away working in a farther distant to make a living - since many don't have any way to earn enough money in their village - they often bring their own foods & snack to save money on the journey, therefore made this man even more struggle to make a decent income (that he said around $500,000 dong = $25 USD per month) to support his family, when both his wife also sell hum-bow during the day and him with night shift.

click on the picture to see a larger size

Before getting back to our bus when the bus driver started the engine and waiting, I told him that I was not feeling hungry even though his steaming hum-bow was looking very tempting good, but I gave him some money with hope that it could help his family for a few days and wished him luck. The man was stunt and still hold money in his hand while standing still watching our bus slowly making back to highway. I thought about my current situation - that after this trip, I would officially become jobless until God know when, but compare to him or perhaps even billion more people on this earth, I know I am more lucky and was blessed with what I got.
It's even more important to know that with all of the materials thing or perhaps with a better health that I currently possessed, there is one treasure that God has given to me that no one can take it away: it's the wisdom to know that God's love is always there for me, and for me to share it while I am still wandering around this earth. For now, I just pray that we will be safely at home soon in Saigon and to see my dad, since I talk to mom the other day that he was getting sick soon after we left.

(next: Back to Saigon)

DA-LAT - A romantic city growing pain.

2010-02-20T20:44:00.000-08:00

After a few days rest in Saigon and visited Kathy's relatives, we ordered bus ticket for another trip Da-Lat, back to Kathy's home town to visit her father, who went there couple days ahead of us. The trip ran into 2 snafus: first, it was the bus's air condition for some reason didn't work, so the bus driver stop by the company main's garage and took more than 45 min. to fix it before we on our way again. However, as we get closer to the Bao-Loc pass, about 90 km outside of Da-Lat, we get stuck for another 30 min., waiting in a long line of convoy ahead of us. It turned out that there was a construction on the mountain pass that temporary prevented automobile to either go up or down the mountain until the construction crew making sure the road is safe for large or heavy vehicle to go through.

As usual, I get up early in the morning to walk about the street, to capture the street life at neighborhood, which of course - many people already beat me to it as they often wake up even before the ray of light started to peak on the horizon. You see below as the street light still on, which means it wasn't even 6 AM yet, and the street "Sanity Engineers" like this working women in the picture below.

I sit across the street to take the picture above while drinking coffee and chatting with two other motorbike drivers, who waiting for their first customer of the day. When I asked how the world financial crisis has impacted their life during last couple years and they both say a same thing: even when I see the Dalat city's landscape is improving every year, but life is getting tougher for many - especially the poor, and the migration from the North & Central - who came here and steal their livelihood job has made is worse.

The city cabs is waiting while the drivers drinking their morning coffee and reading newspapers

I wandered down to Ngoc-Lan hill and turn right at the end where the alley name "Anh-Sang" that most of people from Quang-Nam, Quang-Ngai provinces from Central Vietnam before and more after the 1975 came to live here. There is a city plan to uproot these people and move them somewhere else so the local government can "beautified" the city, by building more villa, condo complex or high rise hotels. Even before such planning existed, just like in Ha-Noi - many old existing communities will be replaced with new housing and business centers, especially in and around many major cities - I wanted to capture as many images as possible just for souvenir and sentimental reason.

Above is the local rice noodle "manufacture", already open for business.

I had never spend a single Christmas in Da-Lat before so this year we decided to stay and enjoy the cool and romantic Christmas's eve for a change. It turn out that the Christmas eve was even warmer than we expected and the street was already packed with people, more than triple than before 1975, when the sun started to fade out and the street light turn on. We went out for together with our in-law's cousins, nieces and nephew at one of the coffee shop on the Hoa-Binh slope and later mingle with the crowd walk around the mountain city, which of course - I took plenty of snap shots for later enjoy at our own home, to re-live the moment we spent here.

A little beggar boy

The little boy above is from the North, recently moved to Da-Lat with his parents for a better life, and talking to him, he said that even his parents did not aware nor allow, but he wanted to help them out by sitting here on the busy traffic on Christmas Eve, with hope many will open their heart (and their wallet) to give him some spare change.

Back to Saigon Dec. 12th

2010-02-14T06:58:00.000-08:00

We returned to Saigon and rested for couple days before taking another trip to Da-Lat, and the first person greeted us at Sinh Tourist's station was a girl selling newspaper around De-Tham street, locally called the "Backpacking Area", where many economy adventure tourist (mostly from Europe) preferred to stay and hang around, because it's cheap and has many actions of a typical tourist town or city.

Would you believed it that the newspaper girl above is 26 years old? I was surprised to hear that too when I asked about her background and where she came from. I met her few years ago, back in 2007 when we stopped by a Sinh Cafe (now called Sinh Tourist) and booked ticket for traveling, and when we came back waiting for the tour bus, she always there asking me to buy some newspapers or books to read on the trip. A typical newspaper normally cost$2,000 VND (about 10 cents USD), but I always gave her a $20,000 VND bill and told her to keep it. Ever since, whenever we showed up to book for a tour or return from a trip, she was there to greet us also.
This was the 6th time that we had been back in Viet-Nam and three time we traveled from South to North, and with some observation, I can say that after 1975, there were 3 immigration phases has been occurring: First, it was my generation - the Vietnamese refugee - after the fall of Saigon in April 1975, when million refugees had fled to foreign countries all over the globe. In the meantime, in Viet-Nam there was also an influx of Northern and Central Vietnamese moved south for a better life, and now is the last major phase of the migration is children of the upper class, highly ranking officers and party members, including rich people - are leaving Viet-Nam to travel or study abroad, and more likely not return (or return here with a different citizenship).

The newspaper girl I met above was from Quang-Nam, a province in central of country, where she said that life is always tough for people in her village, much so that many already left to find job or sell anything - like her - to survive in Saigon city, which it could meant selling their bodies on the street too. I've asked whether she will return to her village for re-union with family during Tet, a New Year's tradition in Viet-Nam, which she said she don't have enough money and even so, the bus ticket would be way to high or hard to get a ticket. I heard about this problem couple years ago and was not fully comprehensive of the phenomenal until later during Christmas holiday, when many workers left Saigon and return to their home town for a long weekend, then I saw the city was seem to feel empty, no more traffic congestion and pollution like any normal day. Thus, when Tet holiday came - as many of my cousins had stated - the city would "lost" about 1/3 of it population (totally "officially" announced that there are 11 million souls in Saigon city). Even during early December, newspapers here already alerted about black market for bus ticket, counterfeit tickets, and many stories about horrible treatment from the bus driver/owner to passengers, that often force them to eat at wherever they either colluded with the restaurant owners or owned by relatives, if passengers don't eat & pay there they will be beaten, harass or worse left them in the middle of the trip. Lucky for many that government lately has clean up and remove those bad driver/owner according to the Tuoi-Tre local newspaper.

Anyway, this newspaper girl couldn't make and save enough money to return home each year to see her family, and she told me that she even shared with 5 or 6 other young women ( also from the Central like Quang-Tri, Quang-Nam, Thua-Thien province, etc...) in the same house some where in city's slump area, in order to save their money , for companionship and to care for each others.

The above young girl is definitely from Northern Viet-Nam, easy to spot with her accent, pleading people to buy lottery tickets, while her other hand holding a stick to guide her blind father and lead him to wander all over the Saigon city, another "polite"way to make a living instead of become a beggar that government declared as illegal . As I mentioned above, I have seen so many "strange" accents from the north and central now living in the south and they represented two very distinct classes: either super rich (like owner major corporation, large business or hotel chain, restaurants) or being poor like this little girl and her father, in between is few middle class remain - which by the way - started to lose their purchasing power and shrinking population , due to rampage inflation and tough economy ahead, because of the global financial crisis couple years ago.

A night to relax with my brother & his fiance
at a piano club.

We planned for 2 months stay in Viet-Nam, which I brought with me a large backpack with full of my camera gear, thinking I will have plenty of photo-ops and pictures to take. Well, my youngest brother, who worked and played in Viet-Nam just announced his wedding plan for Jan. 21th , as you see in the picture above. They both fell in love head over heel just after couple months before commit their lives together. This was one of the monkey-wrenches throw into my vacation, as you should see later, because before his announcement - Kathy's cousin also asking us to attend their son's wedding too - starting next week. So while waiting for the wedding event, I borrowed my brother's motorbike and roam around the city, then to Bien-Hoa (a suburban 35 km outside of Saigon city) to visit my father-in-law currently staying with Kathy's cousin.

Here are some of the imaged I captured from around city and place that we visited & lived:

In a so called "modern city", there are still many coal vendors like the women above, selling coal to buyer that still can't afford a clean gas stove or even an oil stove.In a court yard of any other major hospital, many family members of patients can't afford to stay at local hotel, or even rent a folding bed inside the hospital, thus many of them camped outside in a court yard like this as long as their relatives still remained at the hospital.

Speaking of hospital, Kathy had some kind of sinus problem for the last couple years, which the western medicine couldn't get rid off, only provided some comfort and relief for her. We heard about this traditional treatment from an old man in Saigon city, very near to where my uncle house, whom many patients owed him gratitude for helping their illness. So I took Kathy to see him and watching the way he gives treatment, which normally similar to acupuncture (but not using needles) only using a dull metal pointer to poke around the vital spots, to stimulate the energy around it to heal whatever patient's problem, plus a heat treatment to force the "Chi" (energy force) to speed up the process. The healer only take donation, whatever the patient willing to give, and sometime even give patient free herb to take home for their treatment.
This was of course, another "monkey wrench" to my photo-op plan...oh well! C'est la vie!

Cambodia (continue)

2010-02-09T14:59:00.000-08:00

heading to the Catholic church at Tonle Sap

The first place we wanted to visit was the only Catholic church here at the great lake, since it was the only reason for our entire trip. Months ago, several friends aware of our charity mission trip so they sent us donation, including some typical home remedies, medical supplies and some clothing for the people lives here. We met a deacon name Tuan, who is a Vietnamese and can speak the local language, and after we introducing to each others, I explained to him the reason why I was there and hand over to Tuan the gift package, and feel the heavy load (pun intended) just lift off from my shoulder , because together it was about 1/3 of all luggage that we dragged around since the day I left America for this trip.

With deacon Tuan & his wife in front of the Catholic church

There was another gift envelop that I haven't give it to Tuan yet, but asked him later to take us to Father Heri, a priest and a father figure here, who currently resides in Siem Reap and come here every weekend to provide spiritual support for this community, including financial support for the poor whenever he can help them. We then took a tour to visit the floating village to see it in my own eyes on how these people live, whether what we could do in the future to help this floating community.

A floating school or tourist trap ?

The first stop we visited was the only floating school on this great lake, and within few minutes, I could say that this is not only a school but also a tourist trap for donation, which I hoped that it would be used to improve the life of these kids and this community, nothing else. Because even during a 'slow' tourist season, I saw every ten, fifteen minutes, there was a boat loaded with tourists stop by and get into the school, then after a short tour around the floating facility, taking few snapshot with children, many took out the wallet and drop money into the school donation coffer. Early in 2009, an NGO group from Canada and Thoi-Bao magazine in Texas - together organized and planned to build for this community a new floating class/school with a budget for $30k, but for unknown reason, the Cambodia government kicked them out of the country last December. Now, I've seen the tourist trap set-up from this school, time will tell whether any of the donation will remain to benefit this poor community or it goes somewhere else.

here is the only "General" floating store

a mobile floating "7-11" store

It was nothing new since last time I saw pictures from NgyThanh's Floating Misery gallery, back in 2007. Anywhere we went, I saw the same old, deteriorating sampans and boats, waiting to break up and sink at anytime, especially it's more vulnerable whenever a big storm passing by.

I could post many more images of a misery life at this floating village in Siem Reap's Tonle Sap lake, but I afraid that it may get you to feel numb or at least be distracted by the scenery that many of us never have seen it, which it gave me with an ironic thought that many tourists paid plenty of money to come to see a place that many people here just wanted to get out, or get away from it.

As I mentioned earlier, Bui Tuan followed me - well, actually go with us back to Siem Reap city, and he took us to the Catholic main office to see Father Heri, whom I presented to him an envelope with $800 USA dollars so he can do whatever he see fit, to help the community that he is like the father figure to them. I wasn't sure that because of my senile & feeble mind that I forgot to take a picture of us at out meeting (as I usually do) or perhaps, because I still remembered a recently event - when a priest at a poor community was angry enough to not allow any picture taken when a donation/gift was presented, since some so call "charity" groups has done it in order to generate publicity, thus more donation later on flowing in and then pocket most of the money but only gave the needy less than few percents as a token.
Anyway, after I left Cambodia and returned to Saigon, few days later I received an email from Father Heri, as he thanks me for bring in the gift and how he had spent it.

"From: HERIBERTUS PARDJIJO BRATASUDARMA

Sent: Thursday, December 10, 2009 1:20 AM
To: sanh.tran@comcast.net
Subject: THANK YOU

Dear Mr. Sanh,

Greetings from St. John's Catholic church. I hope this email will find you well. I am writing this short note to thank you very much for your generous donation of US $ 800 to help our Mission to bring the Good News to the poor in Siem Reap. The donation you gave us help us to help to poor in our parish. I plan to buy 200 blankets for the poor and 1000 kgs of rice for the poor in our parish to be given to them soon. 200 blankets will cost about US $ 325. 1000 kgs of rice will cost about US $ 500. Every year we gice gifts for the poor around Christmas. Christmas is a season to give and a season to share. God gives us His Only Son to share His Life with us. We share what we have with others. We have program that we call Christmas Charity Action. Your donation comes to us as a gift from God to begin Christmas Charity Action this year.

May God bless you abundantly.

With Gratitude and God's Blessings,

Heri

Of course, during our conversation I've mentioned about the gift was mostly from friends in the USA and I am just a messenger, to bring love from those with good heart & soul , to share with them a few moment of joy, as well as revive in them some hope in humanity during the Christmas holiday, a season to remind us a greatest gift from God.

With half a day left, we spent the rest to visit the famous Angkor Wat before heading back to Saigon, and here is some of the images that I took.

A couple Raiders of the Lost...wallet.

I took the above snapshot to show the abuse from tourists, who rubbed the breast of status, which ironically the similar status on the left was left alone intact.

The blessing monk

One of the photography's golden rule is taking landscape picture at either before sunrise or sunset, which they called it "golden hour" when the color cast is extraordinary quite glowing than the harsh daylight (or worse around noon time).

Philosophical speaking, I thought somehow (the rule) matched the typical of human life, that the best of our time happen during our growing up and retirement age.

From this picture you see, I waited until the hot air balloon risen above the horizon, carried those young & young at heart with more courage and risk taking than me, a chicken and "older" man sitting safely from top of the ruin temple on top of the hill - taking picture of the sunset on Tonle Sap lake. Somehow I feel I was like the sun glowing out there, which soon quickly fading into the darkness - or to be exact - to the other side of the earth or world for that matter.