Beauty and the Machine

Often times, I try to think how people have come to aesthetically value machines. Aime like Gundam Wing, Volton, and Power Rangers, which took up a large chunk of my childhood's imagination and material desires, point to this interesting fact of human life today. We love machines, but do our machines love us back? If only they could think for themselves like how we do. We are rational. They are only rational in functionality because we made them so, particularly for our own rational interests. Efficiency. Lowered opportunity costs. More freedom through time and money. If we have machines do everything for us, we won't have to do it ourselves. This is the rationale behind technology. When we've reached to a point of maximum efficiency and human freedom, then what is left?

This past weekend, we were able to visit two factories: Hanoisimex and Yamaha. Before arriving there, I was thinking about the last time I was at a factory and I remembered a few years ago having the opportunity to visit the Jelly Belly Factory, which is perhaps a more visitor-kid-friendly attraction compared t these two. And they were; though I can say they depict a clearer sense of reality of labor. Growing up, my imagination around factories was heavily influenced by the Willy Wonka and Santa Claus Christmas parable. These [diminutive] workers, though they do such repetitious labor with machines, they are extremely happy and giddy. Are these oopma loompas and elves actually getting paid? Why the hell are they portrayed as a different species as though this type of labor is not for humans? This type of characterization is the polarized extreme opposite of what is truly reality. My tour of the factory was quite eye-opening and humbling.

I have to say I find beauty in machines, a disastrous kind of beauty.

Couldn't believe the Express shirts I saw were being produced at the same factory with other brands. Doesn't it make you wonder about the legitimacy and realness of brands themselves? Everything nowadays come out of factories, and sometimes out of the same factory.

Home This Weekend

While everyone was away at Sapa hiking and hurdling through the mountains, I decided to stay home to rest. As much as I am adventurous, I am also a city boy whose comfort zone is exactlythe city zone. I just did not feel like embracing nature to such an extent this time especially when I am constantly reminded of that experience cutting rice and getting totally wasted inside and out. Blah. While I had planned to stay in on the weekend, I followed through with the plan not because simply on that whim, but by circumstance. I was sick the whole weekend because of the same paralleling reason I was sick from the country-side: alcohol. Blah. For one of the nights, my insomnia also came back. I laid there staring into the darkness. Waiting. Waiting to hopefully fall asleep. Blah.

Although the weekend was somewhat painful inside and out. I was able to catch up with a few friends from home online. Thank goodness I did not have work as well though I did miss my co-workers, especially the one who is sick at home having to miss work for one whole week. I hope she gets better soon. It's not the same without you :( :( :(!

I try to avoid thinking about time so much. The calendar makes me sad. I have a tendency to count down the weeks if not days of how much longer I will be here. It's not much. Less than 2 months left. I decided that I will be going back home right after school is over here. Home as in my family in San Jose. The reason why I came here in the first place was because of family. To get away from family to understand family: whatever notions arise from family; what ever definitions, associations surround family. Studying abroad here I believe was a selfish act for me to "soul search"--to learn more, to tìm hiểu (literally, to search and understand). As much as it was a collective journey, it was also an individual journey. After I am done here in Hanoi, this journey abroad may be over, but this journey to "tìm hiểu" will be a life-long process.

I hope to be back in San Jose before Christmas which is also my birthday to celebrate it with my family. I will be turning 22. From what I hear from my Hanoi friends, people around my age often get married. With plans of more schooling down my road, that definitely is not the case for me.. I hope. Sometimes, life is unpredictable as much as we try to plan so much. We'll see what happens from here.

Stressed about:

-You know who

-Women's Day

-Globalization Final (50% of my grade!)

-History Research Paper

-Project Kiem An

-selling my electric bike!

-tương lai (my future) -- GRE, grad school, job searching, oh gawd

If stress is the antithesis of vacation, I guess I am living up to my expectation. Vietnam is not a vacation. Vietnam is not a vacation. Vietnam is not a vacation.

Once in a Thousand Years

Once in a thousand years will you be able to witness this celebration of a millennium (though its temporal accuracy could be contested). Once in a lifetime will you be able to study abroad in Vietnam as an undergraduate. This weekend was filled with "once in a lifetimes," and I wonder how these memories of me here will translate in my next few years. All the friends and even family I am making or (re)searching here; all the habits I am developing here and pet-peeves; all elements of my life situated in people's (ordinary) lives here.. I wonder how it will exist in my mind when I get back to the US.

I can't help but to think abstractly after this weekend because this weekend was abstract just like the traffic, the various accidents which included the explosion resulting in 4-12 deaths and numerous accidents on the road, the storm killing many people in the central region, and the meaning of all this craziness. It was a big party, but as a result of any large celebration of indulgence in pleasure and escape, there is definitively no escape from the trash and baggage that will left behind. Just like any large rave, there will always be that rubbish riding behind.

I can't believe I have only 2 months left here. The trip to the south is also in 2 weeks, and after that there will be only 1 month of school and the program left. Back to suburban sur-reality.

As much as I don't want think about the reality of this dream in Vietnam, I do. I do. I do. I can already imagine myself crying the days before departure. I will hold onto those marks I left here in Vietnam, and then I would have to let go. Never will I forget. Perhaps I will return next time, or even more. Perhaps. Let's hope we reunite once again. Past the Cold War politics. Past war.

Rice Cutting - cắt lúa

This past weekend, we had the opportunity to go to the countryside though very close to the city-side to get a taste of how city people, or the larger society are able to get a taste of rice everyday. To put simply, we harvested rice that weekend. Gerard's little lesson-plan inserted into EAP's curriculum reminded me of the effects, especially on the policies after communist revolutions throughout history in which the bourgeois were forced to go to the rural areas and contribute to the collectivization of agriculture process. I felt we as (sub)urban dwelling students fell exactly under Gerard's lesson of getting us to appreciate the fact that we have food period. It's definitely a lot of hard work to get a bowl rice. That was what was running through my mind that day, standing in the spider-and-crab-infested mud.

While I was in that field, bare-footed and to a certain degree, bare-minded, I tried imagining a life doing work like this everyday. I tried thinking about the slaves in the so-called "New World." I tried thinking about how food today is incredibly engineered chemically to maximize profits for companies, and what kind of methods other farms and farmers use to process food. I tried thinking about where my family came from generations ago. Perhaps my family members from generations ago were not always city-dwellers. They came from a landscape and a life like this. I wondered to myself how and why has a life and scenery like this been left in the dust of modernization and development? Without this, these people, this type of work, and the struggle, or cực khổ, we would be nothing; we would have nothing. No food, no family. Nothing.

Although I was somewhat conscious of this, I could not help but to think about the latest frontiers like.. what new mail do I have today in my e-mail? or. what kind of notifications do i have today for facebook? It's amazing how much the internet today has affected people's psyches, including mine. Truly, this was the most ironic part. I can be considerably mindful, but at the same time, hypocritical. A city-mind, university-educated, yet not universally-educated.. It's easy to think one way, but it's hard to do another. There was much to think about in terms of this experience, but I think I will leave it at there.