Vietnam has been a phenomenon in economic and social standings in recent times...ok maybe economic and political standings........ok....maybe a place where they have factories churning out trinkets and fake stuff@!@#@#
Anyhow, that was what I tot until I visited Ho Chi Minh City for an IBM partner conference. I was quite amazed that a country so ravaged by civil war/Vietnam War has picked itself up and is now producing trinkets and fake stuff. I also found out that many humongous organizations have set ups there to product their stuff like the outsourcers of iPod. Which brings me to the questions of...How do I get a job in Apple? and isn't the word "ravage" used a lot in mills and boons books?
Maybe it was the weight of work while I was there but I didnt really njoy myself very well. The people are just finding ways to fleece you or take as much money from you. Very little is honest and sincere. Cabs agree one price before they take you and another when you arrive. Same with some of the vendors. It was quite disappointing. Maybe i expected it to be more like BAngkok, where it was a lot more honest and friendly.
That is not to say that there wasnt any highlights. I took a little tour to the Cu Chi Tunnels which was super depressing. For someone my size, I had the very real danger of being stuck in the tunnels. You gotta give it to de Viet Congs who lived and fought in the tunnels. After that I went to a war museum which was equally depressing! Wait, this paragraph was supposed to be highlights...ok next paragraph.
The girls were simply gorgeous and sweet. Most can speak fundamental English and are genuinely friendly. Most are also looking for a lover. They are not all after your money as some just want someone to love and love them back. I learned that my looks was a bit unique from 2 waitresses and a hotel door..person. I thought I looked local but they said I looked like a Bollywood Star...well hello Mr Salman Khan. Ok a kinda pudgy and aerodynamic one. So I actually had offers from sales girls, hotel guest and one waitress. I tot they were working girls but they only wanted company...wait a minute...that would make me a gigolo.....
I walked back to the hotel late one night and it was a 10 minute walk. In that time, I was stopped by 6 beautiful, sweet, young things on a motorcycle and was offered a ride "home". I think they are "working" girls but I obviously wasnt interested to find out. So it was a good ego trip for me. The other highlight was that the Ms Universe pageant was held there at the same time and the hotel I stayed in was the sponsor. So I had breakfast with ALL the Ms Universe every morning!!! It was kinda cool but they were generally too tall for me and most came with their mothers. So we just looked, some oogled at them from afar. I am sure they thought I was a Bollywood Star but I was too tired to approach them.
Anyway, the event went well and I had tons of food. Not becoz I was a pig but they servings are just large. One dinner I tell you this is really what we had. We each started with a plate of spring rolls which we rolled ourselves. Then we had a very large (about 8 inches) river prawn followed by a meat crab. Remember this is each of us!! Then they tell us that was the appetizer!! Claypot rice with beef followed with vegetable and then a hot pot with all kinds of seafood (prawns, scallops, crab, clams, etc). Of coz there was dessert you oaf!
Shopping was good, cheap but not always friendly. Coffee was good and I do like the food in general. There really wasnt much to do and I didnt think it was kid friendly. I don't think I will go there again but it did leave me good memories. Sigh...such a drag having to go back to shooting my new film in Delhi.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Saturday, June 7, 2008
Can Bill Gates dance?
This is the burning question that is on everyone's mind. Who cares that million are dying needlessly but can the richest human being on the planet dance? Does he pay others to dance for him? Does he pay people to say he can while he just laze around doing...nerdy stuff! The answer is...no. I worked in Microsoft for almost 10 years and I have had the fantastic pleasure of meeting the King of the Revenge of Nerds. In a nutshell, he is just like a geek. A person that is brilliant, thinks many steps ahead of everyone and is just excited about new stuff. I remember reading the founder of Hotmail who said he was not impressed by Bill (we are on first name basis) in their negotiations. He asked very ordinary questions and seemed very shallow for Bill Gates. Let me tell you, he is like that when he is disinterested or he already knows all that needs to know about the subject.
He can be very impatient and even bad tempered. He speaks in a high pitched school girl voice and can put you to sleep faster that 10 elephant tranquilizers but the guy has presence, character and a lot of respect. So one year during our annual get together, I had the pleasure of being on the dance floor with Bill. Every year we congreagate at a different US city for our annual conference. So you get about 5,000 Microsoft geeks raiding a different city.
That year, we had it in San Francisco which is my favourite city to date. We were at our annual party, partying to Huey Lewis and the News. I was dancing with a new found female friend from Israel when I dance a little too enthusiastically and stepped on someone behind me. I turned and realized that my shoes just stepped on about USD7 billion. I had stepped on Bill Gates' toes.
I stammered heavily and was lost for words for about 30 seconds when my dance partner apologize for us and shook his hand. After cranking my jaw close, I managed a very feeble sorry. He was real cool about it and asked where were from. When I said Malaysia, he asked how was Mahathir (whom he met at de IAP meeting) and a bit about the MSC. We actually then spent the rest of the nite together with his "homey and posse". It was very cool and he had a great sense of humour. I tot he was also very cool for hanging out with his lowly staff from an obscure country like Malaysia.
So no matter what the press or his competitors say about him, Bill Gates is one of the coolest and definitely more approachable persons i know.
He can be very impatient and even bad tempered. He speaks in a high pitched school girl voice and can put you to sleep faster that 10 elephant tranquilizers but the guy has presence, character and a lot of respect. So one year during our annual get together, I had the pleasure of being on the dance floor with Bill. Every year we congreagate at a different US city for our annual conference. So you get about 5,000 Microsoft geeks raiding a different city.
That year, we had it in San Francisco which is my favourite city to date. We were at our annual party, partying to Huey Lewis and the News. I was dancing with a new found female friend from Israel when I dance a little too enthusiastically and stepped on someone behind me. I turned and realized that my shoes just stepped on about USD7 billion. I had stepped on Bill Gates' toes.
I stammered heavily and was lost for words for about 30 seconds when my dance partner apologize for us and shook his hand. After cranking my jaw close, I managed a very feeble sorry. He was real cool about it and asked where were from. When I said Malaysia, he asked how was Mahathir (whom he met at de IAP meeting) and a bit about the MSC. We actually then spent the rest of the nite together with his "homey and posse". It was very cool and he had a great sense of humour. I tot he was also very cool for hanging out with his lowly staff from an obscure country like Malaysia.
So no matter what the press or his competitors say about him, Bill Gates is one of the coolest and definitely more approachable persons i know.
Friday, June 6, 2008
Funny Friends
These are friends who just come along, dumb as a lamp post but just can't help but brightens your day. I have a collection of stories of friends who have just killed me through the years. Here are some of my favs:-
1) My friends grandma who doesn't speak a word of English decides to visit her while she was studying in the UK. At the airport she accidentally walks into the strip search lane. So picture this white haired "ah-soh" that you see at the market, in he floral blouse, pants being groped by female officers. She apparently rushed out screaming!
2) Same grandma goes to the butcher and wanted to buy pig's brain. Accordingly to old wives tale, pig's brain is supposed to cure low blood pressure. I personally think that those old wives didn't have much to do and just wanted to see how dumb asses will believe it and actually go through with it. Anyway, coming back to our globe trotting single language speaking 70 year old. She proceed to tell the English butcher in Chinese that she wants pig brains. Surprisingly the Caucasian buthcher didn't understand her. So she pointed at the picture of the pig and pointed at her head to indicate brain. The butcher, who must have been a charade champion smiled and told her to come back the next day by pointing at the calendar. Grandma comes the next day to see the biggest pig head waiting for her.
3) Once a colleague was sitting at the steps of Menara Amcorp depressed. She had parked her car in the open space and how couldn't find it. Now, this character is not exactly the sharpest tool in the tool box. So i asked if she may have parked in the building and forgot about it. You may ask how is it that she can forget such a thing but she is kinda few cards short of a deck...if you know what i mean. So i took her going up AND down 4 parking floors and still couldnt find her car. So i left her at the steps and decided to keep her company while she waits for her husband to pick her. She was already talking about what car to buy, what colour, repayment amount, etc when she reaches into her handbag and finds a KLCC parking ticket. Staring at it, she remembers that she drove to KLCC and forgeting that she drove, she took the LRT back to Amcorp. I can laugh about it now but i was quite homicidal then and I was pretty sure any judge or jury would have acquitted me.
4) A klutzy but brilliant classmate in secondary school who use to eat with his chopsticks upside down for many years before we pointed it out to him. He always tot that he pieces keep falling off his chopstick is becoz he can't manage it very well. Same lovable guy who one day during our puberty years was sitting in a conversation where we asked our girl classmates on the method of using Tampax. We could understand the normal sanitary napkin but how the heck did the Tampax work? He very innocently said, "You just take a hammer and whack it in". While we weren't sure how it worked, we were pretty sure that was not it. Our girls were just horrified. WE later found out he thought we were talking about tent peg and asked how to put it into the ground to build a tent.
5) A colleague once took out her mobile phone and complained that it didn't work and wasn't sure if it was the network or the DAMN phone!! We later found out it was her home cordless phone.
6) Another colleague's mom, once hailed a taxi at Sg Wang. When it didnt stop, she chased after it and hit the back of the car with her umbrella. The taxi stopped and 2 men stepped out to see what the commotion was about. My colleague got a call from the police saying his mother was lost. His mom had hailed a police car thinking it was a cab.
1) My friends grandma who doesn't speak a word of English decides to visit her while she was studying in the UK. At the airport she accidentally walks into the strip search lane. So picture this white haired "ah-soh" that you see at the market, in he floral blouse, pants being groped by female officers. She apparently rushed out screaming!
2) Same grandma goes to the butcher and wanted to buy pig's brain. Accordingly to old wives tale, pig's brain is supposed to cure low blood pressure. I personally think that those old wives didn't have much to do and just wanted to see how dumb asses will believe it and actually go through with it. Anyway, coming back to our globe trotting single language speaking 70 year old. She proceed to tell the English butcher in Chinese that she wants pig brains. Surprisingly the Caucasian buthcher didn't understand her. So she pointed at the picture of the pig and pointed at her head to indicate brain. The butcher, who must have been a charade champion smiled and told her to come back the next day by pointing at the calendar. Grandma comes the next day to see the biggest pig head waiting for her.
3) Once a colleague was sitting at the steps of Menara Amcorp depressed. She had parked her car in the open space and how couldn't find it. Now, this character is not exactly the sharpest tool in the tool box. So i asked if she may have parked in the building and forgot about it. You may ask how is it that she can forget such a thing but she is kinda few cards short of a deck...if you know what i mean. So i took her going up AND down 4 parking floors and still couldnt find her car. So i left her at the steps and decided to keep her company while she waits for her husband to pick her. She was already talking about what car to buy, what colour, repayment amount, etc when she reaches into her handbag and finds a KLCC parking ticket. Staring at it, she remembers that she drove to KLCC and forgeting that she drove, she took the LRT back to Amcorp. I can laugh about it now but i was quite homicidal then and I was pretty sure any judge or jury would have acquitted me.
4) A klutzy but brilliant classmate in secondary school who use to eat with his chopsticks upside down for many years before we pointed it out to him. He always tot that he pieces keep falling off his chopstick is becoz he can't manage it very well. Same lovable guy who one day during our puberty years was sitting in a conversation where we asked our girl classmates on the method of using Tampax. We could understand the normal sanitary napkin but how the heck did the Tampax work? He very innocently said, "You just take a hammer and whack it in". While we weren't sure how it worked, we were pretty sure that was not it. Our girls were just horrified. WE later found out he thought we were talking about tent peg and asked how to put it into the ground to build a tent.
5) A colleague once took out her mobile phone and complained that it didn't work and wasn't sure if it was the network or the DAMN phone!! We later found out it was her home cordless phone.
6) Another colleague's mom, once hailed a taxi at Sg Wang. When it didnt stop, she chased after it and hit the back of the car with her umbrella. The taxi stopped and 2 men stepped out to see what the commotion was about. My colleague got a call from the police saying his mother was lost. His mom had hailed a police car thinking it was a cab.
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