JarJar Nixon's Blues Kitchen

Staying at the fabulous Vin Pearl Hotel. Took a wild, very quick speed boat ride with one of the owners from the shore to the special island that the hotel owns. Earlier in the day he rescued a pilot whose plane crashed in the ocean not far from the hotel.

...be back in a week. sorry i haven't posted lately.

have u read that 7 habits book? i finally got around to it--key to the book is that it is honest--no magic overnight paths to personal change/success. only ongoing, continual introspection and selfless behavior.

Not quite sure what this one means...


The Right Wing takes over
The eagle flies in helpless circles.
A lone wolf prowls the fences, Darkness falls.
There's a sea change coming
The evil ones will drown in their own bile.
A single moose egg hatches in the forest
No one sees or cares.
It carries a simple, plaintive message
"I am the Angel of Death
The Day of Purification is at hand"

...has an interview and profile on the Vietnamese media...


http://rconversation.blogs.com

Sometimes I think my Blog posts are about as exciting--and accurate-- as reading a Jackie Harvey movie review in the Onion (www.TheOnion.com). So glad I could add Don Adams' poem the other day. Email any other contributions to staticVOID@hotmail.com

Poem by Prof Don Adams, former senior Fulbright Scholar in HCMC:


TEMPTATION

One day, when I was sitting on the front porch of my little yellow house
(a "bungalow" in local real estate parlance),
gazing out at my garden
(a yard that requires solicitous attention), a man came to the gate of my
front fence
and said that he was developing property in the neighborhood. "What would
it take
to get you to sell?" he asked. "I haven’t thought about it," I said. "But
if you make
me an offer, I will." He promptly produced a figure beyond my wildest
dreams.
When I first saw my house seven years ago, it was, in fact, in a dream.
At the time, I wasn’t even thinking about looking to buy a house.
Then my landlord said that he would soon be selling, and that I should make
alternative arrangements. When I was first shown this little house in a
green garden,
it seemed remarkably familiar. Although I had just started looking, I said,
"I’ll take
it," without hesitation. The clincher was the hedge surrounded by a wooden
fence.
The hedge was tall and thick and thriving, but the fence,
had obviously seen better days. Well, who hadn’t? To be honest, in my
dream
the house was somewhat different, and next door to it lived an old crone who
would take
me to task for living life as though time were endless. That house
was white and made of wood, and not of yellow stucco. But it was in a
lovely garden,
like this one, and the feeling of the place was strikingly similar — enough
to make
me feel at home almost at once in my new surroundings, if not to make
me appreciate the screaming and shouting behind the rotting fence.
There is a snake, says my friend Bobbie, in every garden,
which reminds me that I had said to Bobbie and her husband in my dream
that my longtime cat companion, Mr. Banks, would surely like the new house
better than the old one, which was too urban; whereas he, in fact, didn’t
take
to it at all, and howled and fought almost every night, until I thought I
couldn’t take
it any longer. And then he simply disappeared. I looked all around, but
never did make
out what happened to him. He was the first casualty in this new house.
The gentle greyhound Karla, who came soon after, and delighted in digging by
the fence,
followed him six years later, passing out of the suspended dream-
state that was her retired-from-the-races life in this sun-dappled garden.
One is, in any case, never quite alone when surrounded by a garden,
in the midst of which sits a diminutive house, which a developer would like
to take
and tear down (in exchange for a small fortune), as though life had been a
dream
here for all of these years, in which one has had to make
do with what one could do for oneself – such as, for instance, propping the
indigent fence
back into place when it fell down altogether. A house
is an occupation in itself, and a garden, as I can vouch, will take
you even more work than a house, if you want to make
it more than just a place behind a fence, and like a place in your dreams.

http://hochiminh.usconsulate.gov/wwwhhavikoro.html

OK, some of the photos on the preview page do not load, but you can still click and get to each one.

HaviKoro is a hop-hop dance group from Houston that has won awards worldwide for their dancing. Last Thursday they sizzled on the Phan Dinh Phung Stadium stage in district 3, dancing and singing with Vietnamese stars like Khasim Hoang Vu, the ABC breakdancers and Trio 666. HaviKoro (Havoc+Kore) performs positive hip-hop i the tradition of A Tribe Called Quest and Arrested Development.

With this concert it feels like VN has really cut up with the rest of the world musically. I think Viet youth are ready to cut-up their Carpenters and ABBA CDs, toss on a baggy shirt and enjoy some music with a good celebratory beat.

If anyone ever wondered last year why DaNang city planners built such wide boulevards leading into and out of town, all they have to do now is go look. When I was there over the weekend, streets were filling rapidly with motorcycles, personal cars and trucks. The city is transforming itself at preternatural rates.

And we stayed at a fantastic new five-star hotel out in Hoi An called the Palm Garden. It's not even officially opened yet, so you can get very low rates for villas that are probably too close to the beach to be eco-friendly.

Morning of our departure from Singapore I went to Borders and went nuts. Among the treasures I got was Death Cab for Cutie’s release of some of their earlier songs, “Songs That You Can Play with Chords.” Nice photo of downtown Bellingham, Washington on the cover (take note, M.).

In Singapore for a couple of days. Experiencing total reverse culture shock. All signs in English. My son grabbed a a Coke and fries at the airport McDonald’s as soon as we landed (no junk food except KFC in VN). Much greener than I expected. Went to the Night Safari and experienced the best zoological tour I’ve ever had…lions lurking in the darkened woods, huge bearded pigs rooting through underbrush, a massive boa lurking in a wooden box under the seats at the show.

The driver who took us from our hotel up to the zoo spoke impeccable English and was insanely punctual. “We used to be like Vietnam 40 years ago,” he told me. “But you know what changed us? Transparency. You get it wherever you go.” He was talking about transparency in prices, laws, processes, the boring glue that holds together a prosperous, solid country. The traffic was right at the edge of a traffic jam (it was rush hour) but not quite. “Whenever one car gets junked, someone else is allowed to buy and register another car. Not until then.” His talk about law and order was a little scarier: “First time you steal anything, you get four years in jail and six canings. No way out.”

As we stopped at a downtown intersection I noticed my son could have fit well into the group of people (not a crowd—haven’t seen any crowds anywhere yet) crossing the street: sleek black clothes, electronic devices hanging off the belt and ear, faces wearing a mix of urbanity and Asian low-keyness.

Finally got my Rolling Stone issue dedicated to Hunter S. Thompson. I was surprised by the detail of Doug Brinkley's description of Hunter's last days, and almost wish his ending had stayed shrouded in a bit more mystery.

A Rolling Stone a few issues earlier talked in detail about Bob Marley--and once again, it was a bit diminishing knowing about his all too human fear of medical professionals was a contributing reason for his quick and early death.

In my February 14 blog, I recounted the tale of the Thai Sea Gypsies who, the morning of the tsunami, recalled ancient wisdom advising them to seek high ground if ever they saw the sea recede. Page 55 of the April National Geographic has a sidebar confirming that only one of the Thai Sea Gypsies perished (but it does not mention the reason why they were able to survive). It also has captivating photos of the Burmese Sea Gypsies, many of whom were at sea during the tsunami and died.

Has anyone seen any of these? Particularly 'First Morning.'

UC Davis Asian American Association Film Festival - Davis, California - May 2-13, 2005
Films shown in Chem 194

Some of the planned films are:

American Desi
College Freshman Krishna Reddy, who has never cared for his Indian-American cultural heritage, looks forward to a new life on campus but is surprised to find that he has been assigned Indian roommates. Through his new experiences, he struggles to understand the side of himself he has always turned his back on in order to fit in.

TaeGukGi
After independence, Korea is hopeful about the future. Then, war breaks out and two brothers must struggle to stay alive and return home after their draft into the military.

Second Class Veterans
This documentary reveals the stories of Filipino World War II veterans after Congress stripped the Filipino soldiers of their military benefits. The veterans and the Filipino community struggle for equity and equal rights to their military benefits.

Wet Sand
Dai Sil Kim-Gibson's ground-breaking 1993 documentary SA-I-GU stands as one of the crucial texts to offer a Korean American perspective on the events surrounding the Los Angeles riots -- an invaluable discussion tool for promoting better understanding of the socio-political factors that played into one of the grimmest moments in United States race relations. With WET SAND, Kim-Gibson revisits L.A. to learn what changes have occurred since then, only to discover that living conditions have deteriorated and that few remedies have been administered to the communities most stricken. Through interviews with a multi-ethnic set of first-hand witnesses, this essential follow-up probes deeper into the racial and economic issues that not only shaped the climate of 1992 Los Angeles, but continue to affect all of America today.

First Morning
A Vietnamese family is forced to flee as a result of the war. They are separated and then must struggle to fit in after reuniting. Infernal Affairs The war between the Hong Kong cops and the mobsters (aka the Triads) rages on. Each side has successfully planted a mole in the other organization, and those moles have risen to positions of power. Now their presence is certainly known; only their identities remain a mystery. When their respective bosses pit them against each other, they realize they'll have to work together to make it out alive. Small Voices She gave them a reason to sing. A teacher in the Philipines reaches out to her young students through music, trying to get past all the cultural barriers in place.

More information available at http://film.davisaaa.org

I imagine that TV stations back in the States are saturated with coverage of the Pontiff's death; they certainly are here on the international news channels such as CNN and BBC. Vietnam has millions of Catholics who also are in mourning. In general, Catholic services here are often overflowing with people, and Catholics whom I have met seem very sincere about their faith.

The Pope's passing is epochal, and it will be fascinating to watch the Cardinals' election of his successor. I wonder if the new person will be from the Third World.