Good Morning Vietnam

Traveling truly destroys preconceived notions. I was expecting to land in a steamy, tropical country as Vietnam was portrayed in Hollywood. Chilling wind blew across Hoan Kiem Lake to welcome us to Hanoi. It was so cold we had to scramble to buy scarves and gloves for the kids.

I expected the hustle and bustle of a busy metropolis like Manila but I saw a tranquil lake steeped in lore and legend at the center of the City. Beautiful Hoan Kiem Lake, where the giant tortoise granted the magic sword to the Emperor Le Thai To so he could repulse the Chinese invaders only to snatch it again after victory so that peace may reign. We walked across the red bridge to the Ngoc Son temple in the middle of the lake and offered a prayer. I prayed for the happiness of my family and I thanked the gods for bringing us to the enchanting land of Vietnam.

Hustle and bustle there was, too, when we arrived at the Old Quarter. It is truly ancient as it has been the heart of a city that is a thousand years old. My wife was becoming cranky so I led them towards Silk Street where the beautiful scarves and dresses were sure to make her happy. Silk was only one of forty other products sold in the quarter where each street is devoted to a specific trade. It is really one large marketplace and my wife called it a huge Divisoria. It was both stressful and charming at the same time as thousands of honking motorcycles competed with the shoppers and vendors for the cramped space of the narrow streets. To take a break, we hailed a couple of cyclos and spent an hour just taking in the sight and sounds of every street.

As we walked back to our hotel, we stopped by a cafe beside Hoan Kiem lake and ordered Vietname's famous coffee. Vietnam is the second largest producer of this sublime drink. Sipping rich and thick black coffee beside the lake amidst the cold winter air was a great moment.

I expected Communist propaganda everywhere especially as we went to the Ho Chi Minh Museum and Mausoleum, but I did not expect to be actually impressed by the courage and heroism of Vietnam's freedom fighters. I find the call to defeat the American imperialists and their running dogs amusing, but I can only respect how they defeated both France, their former colonizer, at the glorious Battle of Dien Bien Phu, and the world's superpower through a war of attrition culminating in the Tet Offensive. Uncle Ho is probably not the saint he is made out to be, but a leader he was and he led his countrymen to freedom.

I expected beautiful Eastern art as we went to the Museum of Fine Arts. I did not expect to be floored by magnificent works of silk embroidery, silk paintings and lacquer paintings.

Just across the street, we walked to the thousand year old Temple of Literature, a temple and university dedicated to Confucius. Van Mieu is a series of five courtyards culminating in a temple to Confucius. One of the courtyards showcased the stelae of doctors signifying their scholastic achievements. Perhaps I will no longer be a doctor of philosophy myself as I have chosen a different path, but I was glad the one I chose enabled me to take my family to Vietnam to see the work of those ancient doctors and to venerate the memory of Confucius, that master teacher of the right order of society and the art of being a gentleman. Even as I struggled to manage my never ending worries, I noticed how my children were living in the moment. They were offering incense; they were trying to play with other boys; they were staring at the pond in the middle of the courtyard. There is a lot we can learn from our children.

As we traveled for four hours the next day to Halong Bay, I expected to be disappointed as the sun hardly made its presence felt. The skies were cloudy and the breeze remained cold. As we first glimpsed the sea and saw limestone karst in the distance, most of them were shrouded in mist. My wife's mood did not help. She was grumpy because of the long ride and was afraid we could not take great pictures. But as boarded the Emeraude, a luxury boat that was a reproduction of a 19th century paddle steamer, our moods began to change. The boat was beautiful. The sheets were luxuriously soft, the fixtures were all brass, the flooring was hardwood. It was a journey to the past and how could I, a history buff, resist the romance!

As we ate a sumptuous lunch, we saw the beautiful islands rushing past the big windows. We walked around the decks and we finally saw how majestic the bay was - three thousand beautiful limestone formations dotting a calm sea and, because of the cold, surrounded by mysterious mist. Now it was hard to believe this was not formed by a mythical dragon who dropped pearls and jade to stop the invading Chinese! No geological explanation would do justice to the astounding beauty of the place. Now, we were really having a vacation.

After cruising for about two hours, we rode a boat to explore the Surprise Cave. After climbing more than two hundred steps, we were greeted by another amazing vista. Inside, we saw several huge grottoes. The path was paved and well illuminated so it was an easy, if contrived, walk.

We opted not to go Titov Island anymore. We just enjoyed each other's company on the deck of the boat, watched a cooking demo in the early evening, and had another great dinner with plenty of fresh seafood including sweet, succulent prawns. After a couple of beers, I fell asleep and spent the night dreaming in the middle of Halong Bay.

We reluctantly said goodbye to the Emeraude the next day. It was all too short. I hope we can come back.

We spent the last two days in Hanoi shopping. We bought a big lacquer painting of a Vietnamese lady wearing a conical hat and a large opium pipe made of gemstone and brass.

On our very last day, we went in the morning to the Army Museum. The boys and I had a lot of fun looking at actual warplanes and tanks. The wreckage of various American and French airplanes was arranged into a tower resembling a bouquet of flowers, an homage to the fierce resistance of the Vietnamese and a monument to the folly of American intervention.

In the afternoon, we trooped to the Thang Long water puppet theater, a venerable Vietnamese traditional art. We saw a panorama of the history and peoples of Vietnam portrayed by dancing puppets in a pool of water to the tune of traditional Vietnamese music. I saw the richness of Vietnamese culture while I also felt the universality of human values and aspirations.

In the evening, just before we left for the airport, we had a nice dinner at the hotel restaurant and had an engaging conversation with the Vietnamese waiter. We were thankful for a week together as a family seeing new sights, learning new things, widening our horizons. There is nothing like traveling, especially with the people you love, to truly make you feel alive. We thanked the gods for being fortunate enough to be able to travel to Vietnam. For a brief moment, it was a land tormented by colonialism and ideology, but for much of its history it was the magical land of fierce patriots resisting invaders, of hardworking farmers making the land around the Red River overflow with prosperity, of giant tortoises and white horses and mythical dragons. It is morning in Vietnam and I was happy to see a kindred people rising to seize the day.

Beautiful Budapest

Budpaest was breathtakingly beautiful. As soon as I checked in the hotel, I started walking all over the city and I did not stop until it was time to go home two weeks later. Almost everywhere I went, I kept on exclaiming how beautiful and picture perfect it was.

Seeing Budapest was a life changing moment for me. It was my first time in Europe and it was even better than what I imagined it to be. There was music, art, culture and history everywhere I looked. There was refinement and thoughtfulness everywhere, from the grand architecture to the pedestrian friendly streets to the well organized public transport system.

It was a veritable paradise for someone like me who has been reading about but have never really seen the treasures of Western art. There were grand buildings everywhere. The Parliament must count as one of the most beautiful buildings in the world. Spanning the Danube were several bridges of striking beauty including the famous Chain Bridge. Then across the Danube, sitting on top of Buda Hill was the majestic Buda Castle, testament to the imperial power of the Habsburgs.

I felt so alive as all my senses were stimulated. I began to realize this was the joy of traveling. It was the joy living anew, of seeing new things, hearing new things and tasting new things. Or of seeing what one has only read or dreamed about.

I welcomed new experiences throughout my stay. I did not want to waste my time on sleep so I hardly slept. After walking for six hours the Sunday I arrived, I walked every afternoon thereafter and even ran in the morning to see more of the city. I became very familiar with the streets and the squares that my colleagues began calling me a local.

I could not believe there were concerts happening almost everyday: from the pop music festival at Sziget to the classical music concerts in churches everywhere. I indulged myself in a symphony orchestra performance at the Danube Palace and then an organ music concert at the Szent Istvan Basilica. The orchestra performance was playful and showcased a unique Hungarian sound. The organ concert was sublime. Hearing the Toccata e Fugue played live through a church organ was a spine tingling experience.

My taste buds did not want stimulation either. I kept ordering Hungarian food until I got fed up with paprika and sausage. In the process, I discovered how good Hungarian wine was especially their famous Egri Bikaver or bull's blood. I ate a sinful amount of goose liver because it was relatively cheap compared to Manila. I tasted wild boar, duck breast, goose leg, lecso, langos, and, of course, goulash.

I bought a couple of books in Budapest, Nobelist Imre Kertesz' Fatelesness and a History of Hungary by Laszlo Kontler. I read Kertesz' work as I was riding the train for some sightseeing in Vienna. I could vividly imagine the Jews in Budapest as they were herded for slaughter during the Holocaust. Life was normal yet it was horribly wrong.

Back in Manila, I read the five hundred pages of Hungarian history. It was a little dry but Hungary's history was so colorful it was still a satisfying read. Somehow, I felt I once lived in Budapest. I felt I was there during the events of 1848. Perhaps I was.

I cannot wait to go back.

Rise of Thedore Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt is one of the heroes of the Art of Manliness, a site I subscribe to and regularly read, because he epitomizes what he himself called "the strenuous life." Indeed, Roosevelt valued action above all and his speech the Man in the Arena has become immortal.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

Edmund Morris' biography of his rise from a sickly child suffering from asthma to one of the greatest Presidents the United States ever had is truly a masterpiece of narrative and it only pushed me to emulate Roosevelt even more. Like him, I seek to be a historian. How he managed to write several books while working full time is a feat in itself. Even more, he frequently left the city to explore the great outdoors as a hunter and naturalist. I have begun climbing mountains on weekends, but there is more, much more of the world for me to see. As a politician, he reached the pinnacle by becoming the youngest President at 42. Yet he did not just reach the top, he became one of the greatest. I have always felt a calling for public service. To trace his steps and accomplish a fraction of what he did would be to live a good life.

Communion with God

This was the first book of Neale Donald Walsh I read so I have been reading them in inverse order. In this book, he discusses the ten illusions including need and superiority. These points are all sensible but more so for me after having immersed myself in Buddhist thought. I still find it hard to grasp egolessness and how everything is one, but understanding this is what allows Neale to argue that there is no such thing as need. If one were one with God and everyone else, then it is only the illusion of separation that creates the idea of need.

Without the need to feel superior, we begin accept things as they are. We learn to stop struggling and just be. We appreciate ourselves for who we are - to the extent that we accept the existence of a self. We begin to be grateful for who we are and what we have. We look to God with joy and gratefulness instead of fear. We begin to feel abundance instead of scarcity. We dispel the illusion of the self and of separation and we start to feel we are all one.

International Economics

As a college senior, I read some chapters of this book by Paul Krugman and Maurice Obstfeld. While I aced the basic economics class the year before, I only received average marks for this course. I found it difficult to understand some of the theoretical chapters so I ended up having some knowledge of international trade and finance, but not any intuitive understanding of its concepts. Last year, six years after college, I finally read this book from cover to cover. I doubt I can explain comparative advantage to someone else anymore than I could when I was in college, but I feel I have a better grasp of the economic headlines today - the sovereign debt crisis in Europe, the impact of foreign exchange on the Philippine economy, and recurring fears of another global recession.

I once seriously considered taking a master's degree in Economics. After taking a couple of graduate subjects in Political Science, I realized there was not much new to be learned from my professors so I planned to enroll in the School of Economics. But life happened. I became a father at 22 and my career in IBM just kept on growing that I finally gave up on graduate school.

As a manager in the BPO industry, I actually see how currency exchange fluctuations can frustrate my attempts to reduce cost. This is international economics in practice.

After Dark

After Dark describes a night in Tokyo, but I can hardly remember the plot. The focus is less on the narrative, but more on the setting and the mood, on how an entirely different world exists when the sun is out. I wonder how Murakami would have written this had he been in Manila instead.

In Manila, the world after dark is brimming with life and energy. Not just from the usual centers of night life such as red light districts, but almost every concentration of tall buildings has probably more people working at night than during the day. After all, Manila is now the number one outsourcing destination for voice services. With most of the BPO companies still operating out of Manila, most of the half a million people working for this industry make Manila after dark vastly different from Tokyo or any other city after dark.

Here, workers who hardly see the sun start their day after sunset. Usually waking with a nasty headache, they usually head to Starbucks before reporting for work at 9pm. They then answer calls and emails and process transactions for the next nine hours or so. They usually spend their breaks drinking more coffee and smoking outside the lobbies. On a Friday or on any weekday they feel like it, they start happy hour at 7am and will drink until late morning.

I was once a call center agent myself. I am now in a senior manager role and start work in the afternoon, but it is exactly midnight as I write this. This is Manila after dark.

How the World Came to Be What It Is

Steve Hagen invites us to see the world as it is, unmediated by concepts. This was tough reading for me even though the Buddhist thoughts being explained were quite familiar. I remember reading this book at the airport while waiting for my wife to arrive from her US business trip. I went to the airport really early, around 5am, and I waited for over two hours. I was really tense while waiting as I did not inform her beforehand I would be there and there was a chance I might not spot her among the crowd.

I actually almost missed her. For some reason, I was certain she had already passed by so I started running past the barricades to the area on the other side of the gates where the taxi cabs were waiting. And I found her there, pleasantly surprised to see me. It was the first time we had been apart for two weeks so it was great to give her a surprise welcome. I also did it because I once came home from abroad really hoping to see her at the airport but it was not to be.

So how is this personal note related to Steve's book? I do not know. This is how I saw things when I was reading. So this is what I wrote about.