How do you say: "Slow down" in Vietnamese

Or if not that, then how do you say ‘please follow the traffic rules?’.  Too bad I didn’t even know how to say anything but I was already so tired of walking around the center of Hanoi that I would have taken a ride anywhere.  The ‘ride’ this time was in a motor-taxi.  I usually take motorcycle taxis in Bangkok as they are a convenient link between a BTS stop and your destination, but Vietnam has a lot more motorcycles than Bangkok, and traffic goes a little faster than the traffic molasses we're used to in Bangkok.

We were staying at the Hilton Opera which is just on the other side of the Hoan Kiem Lake from where we stayed at a previous visit so I was not as familiar with the area at the time.  I stepped out of the hotel without a map or even being able to see the sun to tell which way was North or South but sometimes I love to just get lost and see if I can find myself.  I don’t mean to brag, but sometimes is not easy to get lost.  I am usually very orientated but Hanoi doesn’t have a big landmark that you could see from the distance so on a cloudy day you have no idea which way you’re walking.  So lost I got.

Not scary lost, just fun lost.  Every turn I took, I expected to see something that I’d recognize but would be surprised when I happened to have been completely wrong, again, and again, and then again.  By this time I was getting tired of the walk and needed to get to the hotel a little quicker.  So, I motor taxi offered his help and I grabbed it.

I did manage to negotiate a price before jumping behind the guy.  I got it for half the price.  Although we ended up only going half way so I’m guessing he won the bet at the anyhow.

The ride was as expected, very exhilarating to say the least.  To start, he was safely wearing his helmet, and I had my skull exposed to the elements.  But his driving made me think that I had negotiated a ride to the hospital instead of to the hotel because he rushed like there was no tomorrow.   A red light, meant ‘proceed with minimal caution’, oncoming traffic meant ‘finagle your way around them without getting hit’, and obstacles on the way meant ‘you have permission to cross to the other side of the street to avoid them’.

Wish I had known all those rules and I would have negotiated a little harder, or at least learnt how to say a few more key words before taking the ride.  So we didn’t end up at the Hilton as requested, we ended up at the Hoan Kiem Lake but by then I should know how to get to my new hotel from there.  Half price for half the distance, not bad.

Actually, getting up a little earlier gave me the opportunity to stop at a street café.  I love how everyone here in Vietnam sits on tiny plastic chairs on the sidewalk and have their lunch or snack just about anywhere throughout the cities.  So I was tired and a little hungry and saw an empty stool so I sat down on it.

The mid-afternoon menu was no longer the lunch menu so it was mostly about coffee and yogurt.  But I wanted a little more than that.  When the “waiter” came by me I tried to explain that I wanted a yogurt drink but also something to eat as well.  We weren’t getting through so a kind young woman sitting with a friend of hers asked me in English if she could help.  When I said that I wanted something like what they were having, she offered and gave me a sample of her fried cheese-sticks and something else.  She offered to order for me if I liked them.  At the end I offered to pay for her meal but they both refused.   I ended up not ordering any more as they had given me enough so with my yogurt drink I was set to find myself my next motor taxi to places unknown, and with prices to match.  Enjoying Vietnam!

Mind games we play

I think it was Covey that first taught me that we have a lot more control and power over how we react to things than over the things that get thrown our way.  It was about 25 years ago that I read that but the concept has taken a sweet old time to finally sink in.  Of course we have more control over what we do than with what others do to us and not only we have that control but we can actually choose from multiple ways we can respond to it.  And respond we will.  There is not choice in that.  One way or another we will react.

I remember a few years ago that I was having a deep conversation with a friend of mine in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.  He was recently divorced and living a life that on the outside looked like having a lot of fun but as he later confessed, in the inside it was actually more painful than he showed.  As I also confessed insecurities and uncertainties of my midlife, he told me “Orlando, if you wanted to, you could be divorced within a year from now”.  It’s not that he wanted me to be divorced or that I had told him that I wanted to get divorce he just said that to tell me that in his own life both of them had drifted apart and in a way made the choice to make their own separate lives and within the year he was a divorced man.

That’s very powerful.  I could be a divorced man like my friend was.  I could also be in a mediocre marriage.  But I could also be happily married.  It was my choice.

Of course, in this particular example it does take “two to tangle” as they say.  Both of them had to decide the same path or one of them would be unhappy about being driven to that unhappy end.  But if they both chose to give up, then they both ended it ended where they knew it would have.

The point is that I have a choice to make.   If I know that something can make me bitter, then its easy to brew up some poison that you can caress for months until you end up where you knew you’d end up.  But if you, knowing that the bitterness affects you more than anyone else, choose health instead, you will choose to react in a way that will take you where you want to be.

Last week I had an opportunity to practice what I’m preaching.  I was enjoying Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam and was almost saying that it had become one of my favorite Southeast Asian cities.  Until a couple of thugs tried to rob of that experience.  They succeeded in robbing me of a few personal possessions such as my wallet containing money and credit cards, but I don’t want to let them rob me of my whole experience in the city.  Why could they have that much power that they would ruin my trip to Vietnam?  I refuse to give them that much.  They took the wallet, but that’s all I will let them take with them. 

My experience in Vietnam and my reaction to their indecency are mine.  And I will choose to do what is right for me.   I will continue to think that 99% of the people of Vietnam are just going about their business trying to make a decent living.  I will continue to have good memories of the country and its cities.  Yes, for a time I will probably be more aware of potential danger and guard myself a little closer.  But I refuse to suddenly define my experience in Vietnam on what those two did to me.  It is my choice if I want to continue giving them of myself, and I chose that it was enough already.

It’s taking me a few years but I hope it’s finally sinking in.

Timing the showers in the rainy season

If you travel in the rainy season, you’re bound to get wet a time or two.  With that in mind B and I left the Le Bel Air Hotel on the outskirts of Luang Prabang, Laos in a couple of bicycles borrowed from the hotel.  It was already dark but we wanted to see the night market in town.  The day had been hot and sunny but we already saw some dark clouds in the sky before sunset.  The day before had rained all day and all night so the thought was that the clouds were already drained and it would take a while to fill them up again.    But by the time we climbed on our bikes we could already see the lighting at the distance but we thought it would take a while to get to us.  As soon as you roll out of the hotel the first thing you see is the Old Bridge into town.  A two-motorcycle lanes wide, wooden bridge over the Nam Kham River, a tributary to the mighty Mekong River just a few yards away.  The Nam Kham is dammed just up the river and its controllers were releasing a lot of water in preparation for more rains coming and it was showing unusually strong currents.  To the point that even some locals were mesmerized watching the waters rushing to meet the Mekong.  Impressive during the daytime but at night it sounded as there was a caged dragon under the bridge. 

Bicycling on the Old Bridge you really have to speed up, as the many motorcycles behind you don’t seem very patient and understanding to the slower human-powered two-wheelers.  But there was no other choice; they had to wait until we got through.

The night market was already in full swing.  The first stop was for a custom-made baguette avocado and chicken sandwich being sold for 15,000 Kips (a little less than US$2.00).  I hadn’t had bread in a while so it was a treat.  The bread looked a lot better than it turned out to be but still better than anything I had have in the last 4 months.

Being more familiar with the rain during the rainy season, the locals seemed to have a sensed what was coming.  Normally the rain doesn’t stop the locals from their business but this time the sudden winds and the lighting threatened that something big was coming.

Within minutes of us being at the market, the business women started to pack up their wares and bring down their tents.  We got the hint.  We immediately got our bicycles from where we had them parked and left immediately for the 15-minute ride back to the hotel.

Seemed that we thought of it a bit late as we started feeling a few drops along the way.  The rain started to pick up just as we found the Old Bridge and started heading into it.  The wooden lanes were already wet.  The lose dragon was still roaring.  The boards were shaking a little more than the first time around but we were happy to have made the crossing intime and soon were returning the lock and picking up our hotel room key from the reception.  Just as we were walking from the Reception to our cabin, the rain started coming down in earnest.  Now there was no doubt that the heavens were opening up to torrential rains. 

And rain it did.  That night Luang Prabang received torrential rains for at least 10 hours straight, which we heard later that it dropped at a rate of about an inch per hour.  Quite a night. I was just happy that we timed it just right and made it to our safe place just as the sky began to open up.  I feel for the vendors that night after night wait there for the few tourists that may inquire about something they sell to start their negotiations.  Hope they were able to time it just as well as we did. 

Lucky for us the rain subsided this morning and we were able to keep our schedule for the day.  Hopefully we can time it just as well the next time they are going to come down.  And come they will, this is after all the season for the rains in Laos.

On making (business) decisions

Being remote to our business back home, decisions is all that I make.  Or help make, because our sons back home make a lot of the decisions on the spot and only consult with me with matters of larger impact.

Business ownership is all about decisions.  It was relatively easy to make decisions when I had a boss.  Either you ask the boss, or you decide based on the level of authority you have been granted or based on the rules set up by the company.  However when you’re the boss, the decisions are on you and the outcomes of those decisions falls on you too.

And so is in life.  The product of who we are is almost all based on decisions that we have made throughout our lives.  Of course, the earliest decisions were made for us, our genes.  And later on, decisions were made on our behalf until the point when we felt that we could break out on our own.   But even before we were completely on our own we were making decisions such as the decision to attend a class or goof off with friends, or to do the homework with all the attention it deserved or going shopping to the mall.  All those small decisions shaped our lives to be what we are now.

If we thought about them, decisions are always important.  There are always implications to when, how or where we decide to do what we do.  

In business, the word on the street is that decisions are made based on someone’s gut feeling.  A lot of times the “gut” they refer to is previous business experience but sometimes it boils down to a healthy degree of risk taking. 

In science we rely more on data and facts before we make a call.  Seldom gut feeling comes into play.  Having been trained in science all of my life, business decisions don’t come easy to me.  Often times I find myself suffering from “analysis paralysis” but when I do find the nuggets of knowledge I was looking for, I feel on top of the world, even if the decision that I was supposed to have made with that information is long passed.

As we get older, decision-making becomes easier.  When you’re young you still have to make some basic decisions that are the building blocks that will help you make the big decisions later on.  Let me use honesty as an example.  Early in your life you confront yourself with the decision to be honest or not.  A small “white lie” gets you out of some trouble and this by itself becomes a bit of information that is used later on when you are confronted in similar situations.   If you continue on that path and become a dishonest or deceitful person, your business decisions and your life in general could take a shady path and you shouldn’t be surprise of where you may end up.  If on the other hand, early on you make the decision to always be true to your word, then every time a decision that involves being honest confronts you, it’d be an easy decision for you.

The key to make the process of making decisions easier is to agree to a set of principles that you can use to guide you at all times.  The principles can be self-imposed or can come from someone else.   But regardless, we make the decision to abide by them or not.

People with deep religious convictions have an easier time making decisions than others.  Here in Thailand I have witnessed how some (actually, a lot) base their decisions in their faith to Buddha and where the stars line up for them.  Christians and Muslins also base a lot of their decisions in their faith on the Bible and the Koran respectively.  Of course some times what is written is open to interpretation but when the writing is crystal clear, the decisions they make should be made easily.  The basic principles used by them have already being set for them.  When they were younger, the decision was to follow in their parent’s beliefs or go on their own.  If following their parents, or their traditions, or their culture, then the principles already set for them and their decisions should be based on those principles.

In business it’s the same except that every business is an entity on it’s own.  It is like another person that has been created, either by the sole owner or by a committee.  And like a person, it needs to have its set of principles that “it” will use to make decisions when the time comes.   Having a clear vision for the future of the business and clear operating procedures make the tough job of making decisions a lot easier.

The problem with Death

Death is and has been the big mystery of the ages.  Ever since we gained consciousness as a race, we’ve been wondering at what happens after you die.  Religion was pretty much created to address that and several other mysteries, but even with the advancement of science, what happens after death still lingers as the topic we know the least.

As we face different religious believes on a daily basis in this part of the world, it occurred to me that a bigger question is not so much what happens after you die but if there is any level of consciousness or better yet, self-consciousness after you cross the line.    I haven’t really being able to ask the question to anyone around here but it’s my understanding that for both Hindus and Buddhists, life is a continuum and your consciousness is recycled to another being, be it human or otherwise.  Most of what some devotees do in their lives is in preparation for being placed in the right body upon their deaths.  The believe is that if you do good in this life you either attain Nirvana or get closer to it by moving into a higher-level human being in your next life.  If you didn’t do so good then you get downgraded to another life form.  That in part might be why some animal forms are respected because they may contain an old family member or another lost relative.

However in all the discussions I have heard of reincarnation and such, none of them claim or mention any level of self-consciousness.

And, if there is no self-consciousness, do you even care what happens after you cross the line?  In essence, you would never know if you did cross the line or if you participated in another life before.  So, you’re pretty much back to square one.  I’d call this a little problem.

Christianity and Muslins, on the other hand, sort of figured that little problem out for themselves.  Not only there is heaven or hell to look forward to, but you will remember your sins and pay for them after you cross the line.  So not only you have to be fearful here in this life but anything which has not been fully paid for in your life time still has a chance to come back to haunt you later.  On the other hand heaven sounds like the perfect place to be.   Little lambs climbing on the backs of big lions still showing their big teeth that were the menace of those cute little lambs before.  For some lucky ones it means being pampered day and night by 70 virgins by your bedside.  --hope this translates into a heaven for those virgins as well--.   Nevertheless, heaven must be a nice place.   The level of self-consciousness should continue without a glitch. 

But as the mind wonders, continuing with the same level of consciousness does bring in another set of troubles.  Will your consciousness transfer at the same level as you had it here or will you get a 2.0 version?  I can imagine that most mentally-ill individuals would require some level of upgrade in their consciousness so for them there will be little that would be transferred from their previous lives.  Would you be able to selectively choose what you want to remember and leave behind things you want to forget?  If you remarried after your spouse die when you were alive, would you remember the old one or the new one?  Maybe the boundaries would not be the same as we have them now.

I could speculate like many before me but I just find it interesting that we have such a burdening curiosity to know what happens next.   Everyone has an opinion and a believe in how it’s going to be.  But just in case you have some of it wrong, make sure you at least do good in the one you have because once you cross the line, that’s it.

I didn’t mean to go so dark on this blog so to make it lighter, the picture above is of one of those entry points into the next life, the great Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon (formerly Rangoon) capital of the People’s Republic of Myanmar (formerly Burma) that we visited two weeks ago. 

Look Mom, No Motorcycles!

I’m not trying to make the argument that a repressive government is a good thing to have, but there are some things that a totalitarian government can do that democracies cannot.  And it is to dictate what they think is a good idea without regards to whether anyone else cares about their idea of what could be good or bad.  In the US we spend billions arguing whether healthcare would be good or bad for the people and for business, but in a totalitarian estate, what is decided by the few goes.

Last week we visited the country of Myanmar (formerly Burma) to start witnessing some of the changes the “more user-friendly” military government is doing in the country to alleviate the burden on their people and now to encourage outside visitors to start coming in.   In addition to having been isolated for a number of years, you also have to factor the difference in culture, language, royalty, and ethnic background from any of its neighbors.   There is so much more history on this side of the world that the differences in all those factors lingers for many generations.

Case in point is our experience with the motorcycles.  Each country has handled the motorcycles in a different way.   Thailand is probably in the middle of the road when it comes to that.  There are many motorcycles riding around but you can at least see cars in between.  The top (or is it the bottom) of the list for us is Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam.  Another totalitarian government, which went a different way.   They figured that their people needed cheap transportation and they let them have motorcycles.  And on the other side is Myanmar, they must have figured that motorcycles are noisy, unsafe and polluting so they decided that their people were not going to have any of that.

It was almost a shock to us to find a city without a single motorcycle riding around.  I have to admit that I didn’t really miss them.  The streets were relatively quiet.  Walking around felt safe from being assaulted by a rough motorcycle on the sidewalk like is common here in Thailand.  And in combination with all their greenery, the air felt actually clean and breathable.

In conclusion, two repressive governments, two very different ways to handle a problem.  History will ultimately be the judge but thus far I liked the outcome in Myanmar rather than HCMC so far.

As a contrast from Myanmar, I’m posting here a short video I took of an intersection in a major street in HCMC.  I dare you to try to cross any of those streets by foot.