American War History Museum - Ho Chih Minh 2009

Strikemaster Jet

In the heart of District 1 lies this old museum, which houses the relics of American warfare such as F5 and Strikemaster jets, Huey helicopters as well as the AMX 13 tanks, It serves as a constant reminder that the Communist Vietnam was victorious only about 35 years (1975 ?) ago when the North Vietnam forces occupied South Vietnam and united the entire country. Many films depicting the desperate final months and days of the 20 year war such as 'Platoon', 'Apocolpse Now', 'Hamburger Hill' as well as the much decorated film 'The Deer Hunter' by Martin Scorsese starring the then young and handsome Robert de Nero have been made and played out to impressionable youths (like me) in the late 70s and early 80s. They shaped my impression of the war. Going to Ho Chih Minh changed my preception of that forever.

Whatever images that was painted in those films were mainly seen through American and foreign eyes. The crappy Rambo movies which sold millions of tickets depicted Viet Cong as evil despicable people intent on torturing our poor but well endowed John Rambo and screwed up his mind. What a load of Bulls***!!


Image of death staring out the window

During my first trip to Ho Chih Minh last year, I had a mindset change, in the form of realising that the reality was that while America were the losers of the protracted war (they pulled out), the saddest fact was that Hollywood cashed in on the world's ignorance and short terms memory by producing films of utter nonsense depicting fictitious heros like Rambo (1-IV),and lots of other forgettable films where the heroic Americans helped their comrades out from the dirty village prisons.

What Herosim ! Never mind that the Americans dropped thousands of bombs filled with Napalm (Agent Orange) and killed or worse still maimed many thousands of women, children,families and led them to a bleak future as a handicapped disabled person. How vile and despicable can this so-called superpower be ??


AMX 13 Tank

Bear in mind, the Vietnamese were fighting for their independence, and right to govern, and Ho Chih Minh was the catalyst and lightning rod to galvanise the country, though how many Vietnamese were true Communist was a debatable question. Americans on the other hand, were fighting for 'llberty,freedom and he American way'. Again, another piece of Bulls*** foreign policy of American attempted dominance after French colonialists were booted out in the late 50s. Its so true that American interests in the form of businesses in Da Nang (a seaport) plus all the American companies in the S.E. Asian peninsula would be threatened with the spectre of Communism.

Looking at the world order today, and see that China (Communist) is now aiming to lead the world in economic progress. So is the democratic way of Governance the ideal way forward ?


F5 Jet

The biggest irony about this museum is where in the world would you find a country which has been victorious in defeating a huge and vicious enemy which had inflicted bilions of dollars of damage and millions of lives lost, dedicate a musuem to the weapons of mass destruction (at that time) ? It doesn't show anything about the horrors of war, the people who suffered tremendously, and the countless of lives and families torn apart by these weapons of destruction.

This is again, another petty attempt at earning some tourist money, but if I were a Vietnamese, I would be shocked to go and visit a musuem in Ho Chih Minh which showed me what killed my family and friends 30 odd years ago.

Its a cuel joke.

Andrew's Commute to School

I'm at the entrance of my school - total commute time 5 minutes

My son Andrew is in the fortunate position to be living barely 5 minutes from his Secondary School, Anglo-Chinese School at Barker Road. The benefits of commuting to school in such a short time are plentiful. Firstly, he can have at least 1 hour more
per day to sleep in ; so for a term of 10 weeks, that is a savings of 50 hours. Secondly, we as parents can save on the $70-120 per month from him taking the school bus every morning. That in itself translates to $1200 per year in savings based on $100
per month average school bus fare.


Oh I'm still tired !

Thirdly, because his commute time is so short, we can monitor his coming and going better and since my wife is not working, can plan his rest,play and study schedule much better. His attitude after a long day can be quite grumpy so its essential that he can have a short nap in the afternoon before resuming the rest of the day. Making sure that he eats balanced and wholesome meals after a long day is also quite critical for youths and teenagers.


After a hearty breakfast of scrambled eggs on bread, its time to put on his shoes

So parents, spare a thought for your child. While putting your children in a 'good' school may be your priority, the family environment to encourage and develop the right attitude for study and graduating out into the 'real' environment is most important. There are many fine neighbourhood schools who have improved lives of many children of lesser means. There must be literally tens of thousands of parents who drive or send their children to 'brand name' schools and wake up their children at the unearthly hour of 5.30 or 5.45 am just to drive them to school, a commute which takes about 1 hour or longer - one way. So every day, about 2 hours is spent on travelling or wasted time.

Is it worth you and your child's time ?
What about the work-life-play balance the extra 2 hours PER DAY could do for each child and yourself ?

Charity Groups - Are they Relevant Today ?

The Executive Board

I have been serving as the 2nd Vice President at a small charity for the last 6 months.There are a total of over 2,000 charities in Singapore and the short experience I have had has led me to question a) the relevance and b) the objective of not just this charity but for the bigger picture, the charity landscape in Singapore.

'Charity begins at Home' is a common proverb which is very apt, even in today's times. There are record levels of unemployment all over the world and countries are becoming very clever at reporting statistics which would cast them in bad light, so underemployment - a situation whereby there are a group of people, many over 40, without the proper skill sets,education, with health issues who have been unemployed for over 18 months and have given up looking for a job. They would NOT be classified as unemployed, so do not fall into the category of unemployed.So, categorically, there are many people who are 'semi-working' or providing useful time as semivolunteers, especially after they have lost the will to look for a full time job,in charities.

I have several questions which are similar to those first raised by my friend Roland Teo in his blog post.

a) Is there is a pressing need to serve the niche of for example, wayward youth, whereby our own Government has ably provided many programmes under the Minstry of Community Development,Youth and Sports such that a charity be set up solely to address this niche ? The answer is YES and NO. Depends on who you ask - basically.

b) Will charities solve the social problems of our society ? Again the answer is YES and NO. YES to a certain extent, they do help and NO they only provide the basic support structure which their meagre funds from wellwishers and donations from
corporates (eg. MNCs)can support. Charities can never replace the Government in terms of funding, infrastructure and organisational capabilities.

As Roland had aptly put it, if the Multi Natinal Company really wants to be charitable it should look after its interests of its staff and not fire or downsize the company whenever their profits are dwindling. What they are doing now is doing both, that is downsizing or rightsizing their business and also donating a sum of money through its Corporate Social Responsibility CSR programmes. This helps to improve its 'good corporate citizen' image and also show the public that they are a'caring' employer.

If MNCs were so 'caring' they would do their best not to retrench or downsize. That would itself be a charitable act for their loyal serving staff, rather than focus always on productivity.

So in the end, why are charities existing ?

They are for the greater part, self serving, and also providing the small niche services which the Government should be handling. Instead these organisations fill the small role which the Governnent should be taking more direct involvement in.

Another Play on Words Joke

This second joke is also courtesy of Get Fuzzy (Darby Conley) first featured today 21st Feb. Lets get to it.

Fred and Rita were much in love and wanted to get married,as part of their marriage preparations they wanted to engage a singer to sing at their wedding. So one day while they were at the KTV, they heard someone sing the song "Don't Stop Believing" in the room next to them and it was AWESOME. "My, the cover of this song from Journey is great, lets get to meet him." said Fred.
So off they went and met up with Sam. who incidentally turned out to be a Justice of the Peace or Judge. Sam was a nice guy and he agreed to wed the both of them in 2 weeks time.
Anyway 2 weeks later, it was their wedding and Sam sang another song "Faithfully" from Journey and it was AWFUL. Fred and Rita were so upset but what was done was done, and in front of so many guests too. So what was the moral of the story ?

Don't Book a Judge by his Cover LOL !!

A Funny Joke

This is a series of jokes from "Get Fuzzy" a cartoon strip in our Sunday Times. It is a play on the phrase, Don't Judge a Book by its Cover.

1. There was once this fellow, lets call him Frank. He went to the Ferringhi beach to sunbathe and found a nice and quiet spot near the end after walking for quite a while. So he picked his spot and laid donw his blanket and went to sleep. He was awoken by someone near him who had plonked himself down recently. When Frank sat up to see who it was, Horrors ! it was a fat senior man with grey hair and a bald top who was sunbathing about 3 feet away from him. The worse thing was that this fat guy was naked and only had a book covering his face and he was sleeping and snoring ever so loudly.

So what did Frank do ? He gingerly took the man's book and placed it over his - you know what - and thought that was it. NO, the guy woke up and was very pissed with our friend Frank, the guy turned out to be a judge and sued our poor Frank. So what is the moral of the story ?

" Don't Cover a Judge by his Book " LOL.

Doing the Right Thing

If there is one philosphy to guide yourself in life, it is to do the right thing. People will always have their objectives,
emotions, agendas and preferences but at the end of the day, if you have given your best effort and its still not up to the expectation of people you work for,or around you then at least you will have the satisfaction of telling yourself that it was not meant to be.

That has always been my personal and business philosophy and it has served me well. Give of your best and nothing less and God will be fair to you. Another very simple phrase to remember in life is this :

1. If IT (business proposal, offer or situation) sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

So don't get conned by 'sure win' deals. Its a scam.

Conviction of the Heart - Kenny Loggins (Acoustic Version)

This version is the acoustic guitar only with Kenny Loggins at the Taylor 30th Anniversary gig. Fantastic song about the fragile Earth and what we humans have done to it. We need to go beyond just mouthing phrases like Climate Change, Global Warming and walk the talk. But before doing that we need the conviction of the heart to push forward this agenda worldwide. The earliest version was made in the lats 80s and 20+ years later, we are slowly killing Mother Earth. There is still time, if each and every one of us take a serious look at our carbon footprint and make efforts to reduce our dependency on oil, and non recyclable products.