Why is the Philippines Poor?

Craving Crab in Saigon...

If you've got a craving for tamarind crab, in Saigon the best place to visit is:

Mr. Tamarind Crab Man's Place over at 13 Pho Co Dieu St., District 5, HCM.

The crab is cooked in a thick, sweet, rich tamarind and garlic sauce. Yumm... Best served with a cold bottle of Tiger beer, Saigon baguette and shared with your friends. I do not recommend eating this alone.

I do recommend starving yourself for the day and gorge on this for dinner. It's almost a religious experience.

Check out the article.

http://www.doriegreenspan.com/print/2008/11/tamarind-crabs-somewhere-in-saigon.html

A word of caution... this is NOT a date place. It's an eat-your-heart-out hole in the wall kind of place. Nothing fancy just good food.

Thanks David! :-)

Why can't we just get along?

Institutionalized rejection of DIFFERENCE is an absolute necessity in a profit economy which needs outsiders as surplus people.

As members of such an economy, we have all been programmed to respond to the human differences between us with fear and loathing and to handle that difference in one of three ways: ignore it, and if that is not possible, copy it if we think it is dominant, or destroy it if we think it is subordinate.

But we have no patterns for relating across our human differences as EQUALS. As a result, those differences have been misnamed and misused in the service of separation and confusion.

AUDRE LORDE
Author, Sister Outsider

*****

I've been in this self-searching and self-understanding mode for quite sometime now. It has been a painful, funny, scary and mind altering walk so far. You could say I'm Neo in The Matrix who after taking a lot of beating from Mr. Anderson decides in his frustration to take the red pill...

and voila! ... Reality Sucks.

Don't get me wrong. I have no regrets. I highly recommend this to everyone. I think for anyone who is genuinely out to understand himself or herself relative to people and life - this incomprehensible mess we call life - that person should be ready for the TRUTH.

Ready for the untainted, uncensored, unblemished Truth. At naku nga naman ang Truth... sakit sa ulo talaga. Makes sense why the other guy couldn't wait to take the blue pill instead.

But it's the only way.

I also realized that I should not only be ready for it but I should seek it even if it does not want to be found, look for it in the deepest darkest crevices of my past...ugh, want it as much as I want all the good and pleasurable in this world, swallow it even if it is the bitterest of the bitterest ever! Because it is only then my mind, heart, soul and stomach can digest it and nourish me with it. Parang gumawa ka ng ampalaya puree at sinabi mo sa sarili mo - nguyain mo girl. :-)

Neutralize, energize and release!... the Truth. It's called purging yourself of your demons.

I think it is necessary to engage this exercise because for one I don't want to lie to myself or allow people to lie to me and two it is the only way I can truly reach understanding.

I have this theory that when people are self-aware they will know what to do with the things life throw their way and that knowing is winning half the battle.

A good example is this story about Gandhi.

A woman once came to Gandhi and asked him to please tell her son to give up eating sugar. Gandhi asked the woman to bring the boy back in a week. Exactly one week later the woman returned, and Gandhi said to the boy, "Please give up eating sugar." The woman thanked the Mahatma, and, as she turned to go, asked him why he had not said those words a week ago."

Gandhi replied, "Because a week ago, I had not given up eating sugar."

It will be hard to stay true to people if I am not going to be true to myself.

Truth...you are such a pain! :-)

Thinking 2010...

“ The Filipino, it seems, has lost his soul, his dignity, and his courage.

We have come upon a phase of our history when ideals are only a veneer for greed and power, (in public and private affairs) when devotion to duty and dedication to a public trust are to be weighted at all times against private advantages and personal gain, and when loyalties can be traded.

Our government is in the iron grip of venality, its treasury is barren, its resources are wasted, its civil service is slothful and indifferent, its armed forces demoralized and its councils sterile. We are in crisis. You know that the government treasury is empty. Only by severe self-denial will there be hope for recovery within the next year.

To rally the people, I vow to fulfill the nation’s “mandate for greatness.”

This nation can be great again. This I have said over and over. It is my articles of faith, and Divine Providence has willed that you and I can now translate this faith into deeds."

-- Speech of President Ferdinand MARCOS during his first term as President

*****

If he can sound so right in the beginning how can he go so wrong in the end? How can an entire nation make the mistake of voting a Marcos into the presidency? How can we prevent that from happening again?

For the 2010 Presidential elections can I propose that before we scrutinize the Platform of Government of each candidate, we first look at and dig into each candidate's CHARACTER.

Let's first ask who is the man or woman behind the mask? Once we are happy with the answers then let's talk plans.

I think this is the best way to start narrowing our choices because if we want to learn from the lesson of Marcos the man wouldn't have passed the litmus test of character if he was subjected to it today.

If Marcos was a candidate in this day and age, where nothing is secret and everyone has access to news and information at the touch of a button, his candidacy would not have survived the question of the premeditated murder of Julio Nalundan. This skeleton in his closet would have surfaced long before he would have filed for candidacy and prevented him from even running for office.

Ferdinand Marcos in his 20s, while finishing his law degree, was convicted of murder and received the death penalty for the killing of Julio Nalundan, a political rival of his father. Marcos was incarcerated while the case was appealed in the Supreme Court. In jail he wrote an 800 page defense that won him his freedom. The Supreme Court Justice, then Jose P. Laurel, reportedly was so impressed of his defense that he acquitted Marcos of all charges except contempt of court.

The man was that brilliant. He got away with murder and, as history will tell us, everything else.

This all began in the dark ages of the 1940s when mass communication mediums like TV and radio were still in their infancy. When rulings of Supreme Court Justices were not yet subject to the questioning of a free and responsible press and the judgment of a concerned nation.

But try that today, an accusation of murder won't get you anywhere near the Malacanang Palace - let alone reside in it for 20 years. You kill a man you go to jail not become the president of a Republic no matter how brilliant you are.

If Marcos delivered that 800 page defense to the court of the people via satellite on national TV, today, he'd be booed out of the country much, much earlier than the fates would have intended.

Imagine how different our collective lives would have been if Marcos was not allowed to get away with murder? If the people then were given the opportunity at that information and allowed them a glimpse of the character of the man. We could have been spared a 20 year long dictatorship that sapped the spirit of an entire nation and made its people subject to the terror and trauma of a dictatorship.

A Marcos candidacy with such a tainted past would not have survived the burning lights of an inquiring media and the watchful eyes of a questioning nation.

History has a lot of lessons to teach us. Particularly the experiences that leave a bitter mark in our collective lives. Let us recognize those mistakes, reflect on how we made them, learn and swear never to put ourselves in the same situation again. Let us make a habit of revisiting our past so that we can make better decisions about our future.

The lesson of Marcos to me is this - in choosing our leaders the first thing to ask is CHARACTER. Who is that person standing in front of me promising me a better future? What does his past say about his capacity to lead? What kind of person is this?

One way to answer these questions is to look back in each candidates life and sift through the political talk and find the stories that help define the character of each candidate.

For the 2010 Presidential elections let's be more curious. We need to look inside the closet of each candidate and be willing to unearth the skeletons hidden underneath.

As in the lesson of Marcos finding the skeletons means the very life of the entire nation.

You're Invited! Saigon Ultimate Summer League

Three years ago I found Ultimate Frisbee in Vietnam and it's been a beautiful love affair since.

*****















SAIGON ULTIMATE SUMMER LEAGUE

If you are in Saigon and want to learn how to play Ultimate Frisbee. Join us May 31 for the start of the Saigon Ultimate Summer League.

It's going to be 7 fun filled Sundays with the oldies (regular players) teaching the newbies (new players) how to play the game. If you already know how to play Ultimate and are itching for some disc time drive over to the RMIT Soccer Field in Phu My Hung on May 31. Discs fly at 330pm.

It's a great way to spend a weekend afternoon. So if you've got the time you are welcome to join us. We are inviting everyone!

For more info please mail our league director Tri Le at trilehawk@yahoo.com. (He's the guy in the photo doing that awesome break mark throw.)

For a quick intro about the game, check out the video:



See you there!

Wisdom is a gift...

While surfing through Youtube, I happened across Toni Morrison's letter of endorsement to the Presidential Candidacy of Barack Obama. It was a pleasant surprise.

The letter of endorsement was a good read. Reading Morrison always feels like an encounter with something tangible, something deep and soulful.

Check out the video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IT8XUDU9R4

or read the letter below...

*****

Dear Senator Obama,

This letter represents a first for me--
a public endorsement of a Presidential candidate.

I feel driven to let you know why I am writing it.

One reason is it may help gather other supporters;

another is that this is one of those singular moments
that nations ignore at their peril.

I will not rehearse the multiple crises facing us,
but of one thing I am certain:

this opportunity for a national evolution (even revolution)
will not come again soon, and I am convinced
you are the person to capture it.

May I describe to you my thoughts?

I have admired Senator Clinton for years.
Her knowledge always seemed to me exhaustive;
her negotiation of politics expert.

However I am more compelled by the quality of mind
(as far as I can measure it) of a candidate.

I cared little for her gender as a source of my admiration,
and the little I did care was based on the fact that no liberal woman has ever ruled in America. Only conservative or "new-centrist" ones are allowed into that realm.

Nor do I care very much for your race[s].

I would not support you if that was all you had to offer
or because it might make me "proud."

In thinking carefully about the strengths of the candidates,
I stunned myself when I came to the following conclusion:

that in addition to keen intelligence, integrity and a rare authenticity,

you exhibit something that has nothing to do with age, experience, race or gender
and something I don't see in other candidates.

That something is a Creative Imagination which
coupled with Brilliance equals Wisdom.

It is too bad if we associate it only with gray hair and old age.

Or if we call searing vision naivete.

Or if we believe cunning is insight.

Or if we settle for finessing cures
tailored for each ravaged tree in the forest
while ignoring the poisonous landscape
that feeds and surrounds it.

Wisdom is a gift;

you can't train for it, inherit it,
learn it in a class, or earn it in the workplace

-- that access can foster the acquisition of knowledge, but not wisdom.

When, I wondered, was the last time this country was guided by such a leader?

Someone whose moral center was un-embargoed?

Someone with courage instead of mere ambition?

Someone who truly thinks of his country's citizens as "we," not "they"?

Someone who understands what it will take to help America
realize the virtues it fancies about itself,

what it desperately needs to become in the world?

Our future is ripe, outrageously rich in its possibilities.

Yet unleashing the glory of that future will require a difficult labor,
and some may be so frightened of its birth

they will refuse to abandon their nostalgia for the womb.

There have been a few prescient leaders in our past,
but you are the man for this time.

Good luck to you and to us.

Toni Morrison

****

I HOPE that my country would someday find a leader that would compel an intellectual the likes of Morrison to step into the arena of politics, if only for a moment, and get involved because such is the belief in the leadership.

I HOPE that my country is nurturing a leader that it's citizens can also call the man (or woman) of our time. And please it's not Manny Pacquiao. Let's leave him to fight in the arena where he is trained for - boxing - not statesmanship.

I HOPE that we can leave all the non-statesmen outside the realms of governance. Yes, I refer to the celebrities, the athletes, the TV personalities, etc. You know who they are. You know who you are.

I HOPE that we start setting standards for our leaders... very high intellectual and leadership standards.

I HOPE that we stop measuring our leaders based on popularity or personality but instead measure the depth, breadth and reach of their intellect and vision for our country.

I HOPE against hope that we all start taking our country seriously and seriously start thinking about who is truly capable of leading us.

ZoiOi Vietnam!

A few years ago I told myself that at the age of 30 I should be out of my country and into the world. That was when I knew Manila was starting to get to my nerves - traffic, eating at the same old restaurants, getting drunk at the same old bars, hair cuts at the same old salons...Ugh! Work was starting to burn me out and life felt like a trap. I was a hamster running in circles in this wheel inside a cage. The self loving side of me was nagging if I don't get off I would die of exhaustion. A little too dramatic but I am sure you get my drift.

Mama always said that I was reckless. I think what she really meant was - restless. As a child I was always running around with friends and hardly at home except for meals and sleep. A summer spent with friends would look something like:

6am Jog to airport and sprint in the tarmac
9am Climb big old Acacia tree
12nn Lunch
1pm Siesta or sneaking out my window to go to a friends house to play jackstones
2pm Biking around the neighborhood or playing Chinese garter
5pm Home to help mama cook
7pm Dinner
8pm In bed reading

I was happiest outside my house and exploring the neighborhood or the city alone or with friends. Even in the evenings I managed to get away as I curled up in bed to read a good book. Nancy Drew and Sherlock Holmes were favorites.

So yes. I liked running around, moving places, finding out new things, new people and new ways to have fun, make fun and play.

So when, at the age of 30, a friend called and said, "Anne, do you want to work in Vietnam?"

I looked up, smiled, mouthed a big Thank You God! and said, "Yes."

Zoi Oi! Vietnam... "OMG! Vietnam..."

This blog is my effort at making sense of and sharing this current adventure... aka keeping my sanity in this oh so wonderfully crazy country.