Freedom

I have an army of aunts who take turns to come to Singapore to take care of me and make me authentic Vietnamese food. Although their personalities are very different from each other, they share the same thought: Vietnamese people enjoy much more freedom than Singaporeans.

In Vietnam, people are free to chew gums.

People are free to litter. (Throwing dead mice on the streets is one common thing, for instance)

People are free to pee openly in the street corners, or trees. (Kissing in public, in contrast, is less common!)

People are free to break queues. There is no such thing called taxi-stand. (If any, it would be a place for vendors to sell tea and cigarettes)

In Vietnamese hospitals, doctors and nurses are free to treat their patients like crap. If you want to have an extra blanket, you go find a staff nurse, give her some money, ask her nicely and wait. She might still yell at you: she has a lot of other things to do – she is not there to give you an extra blanket. And, you already have one blanket – a lot of other patients do not even have one!

Just a few examples of how free we are.

But all of my aunts wanted Vietnam to follow the Singaporean model. If I am not wrong, it is also the wish of the late former Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet, a well-known reformer who led the country away from poverty and isolation.

Some people (i.e. Prof. Welsh) would say: if Vietnam ever became something like Singapore, it would only be a change from this type of authoritarianism to another.

Many would just simply enjoy seeing street-peeing people getting fined, at least.

In the meantime, however, what Vietnam is focusing on is not to be Singaporeanized or not to be Singaporeanized. Who cares about which model of development to follow? We are busy preparing for the next National Party Congress. We are first and foremost busy with the power game.

Karma

On my last day of radiation, I saw a prisoner at the radiotherapy center. He was sitting in a separate room, hands cuffed, and accompanied by two police officers. He probably is a cancer patient waiting to get treatment.

You might think I am crazy, but I felt so bad for him. I cannot imagine how hard it would be to go through cancer treatment in jail.

You might say: he deserves it because he might be a murderer or a serious criminal and has to pay for what he has done. But isn’t he being punished already by being in jail? True believers in karma would not hesitate to point out: this is because of what he did in his previous life.

Now does that mean I must have done something really wrong in my previous life to have cancer in my present life? I’d rather think that I am paying upfront for my next life to be better.

But can it be a better life than this? I don’t have to worry about food or shelter. I am well educated. I have family and friends.

I don’t think I believe in karma, after all.

One year anniversary

This time last year I started having to take pain killers to go to sleep every night. Then half a year ago, when I started the treatment I thought the pain would never ever come back.

But a month ago I woke up in pain yet again. And it was the same pain that I had before. Tomorrow is my last radiation session. Yet the pain has not gone away.

So, happy anniversary, pain killers! And I guess I am marrying you!

Welshionization

So as you may know, I have been Americanized (“brainwashed” at SAIS, LOL), Japanized (my Japanese friend Yuichi introduced me to the world of green tea dessert and ochazuke) and perhaps Singaporeanized. What you might not know is that I am being “Welshionized”.

Surviving her class and living with her for more than 6 months now, I find myself assimilating to “Prof. Welsh’s culture”. A friend of a friend asked me to help her correct her personal statement and research proposal for a fellowship application. After sending her all of my comments, I looked back at what I wrote and guess what I found - a series of Welsh-like comments:

“…Irrelevant!

…Be more specific!

…This is not a paragraph…

…You don’t even have an introduction or a conclusion for your essay…

…What do you mean by this?...

…Remember to put topic sentences upfront in every paragraph…”

The poor girl must have been shocked at my harsh comments. What she probably does not know is that I got the same type of comments on my first paper for Prof. Welsh’s class. Oh well, I guess I just learned from the best. J

When I told Prof. Welsh about this, she laughed and said: “Hoa, you’re becoming a kind of teacher like me. This is scary.”

It cracks me up whenever I think about how Welshionized I have become. But my future students, you should not laugh. You should be alert! LOL

Skype

No one can deny the fact that Skype is one great example of this era’s scientific brilliance. People from across the globe can talk and see each other through free of cost video phone calls. One friend of mine, who lives in Vietnam, even has beer with his best buddy, who lives in the U.S., once a week via Skype.

And I know there are even more things people can do on Skype:

- Hey I’m seeing this girl…

- Yea? Where did you meet her?

- On Skype

- Oh Ok. Did you see her in person yet? How's she like?

- Umm…Not yet, she’s on the other side of the planet.

- Right. Hahaha.

Well I guess Skype dating is just another form of online dating. People go on Skype dates. People have Skype relationships. But unlike Skype beer- drinking, Skype dating can be a little tricky: Bottled kisses have not been invented yet and virtual kisses seem not to be satisfying enough.

Obviously, a Skype video phone call can’t take the place of a real touch, or a real kiss. But unlike dating in real life, Skype dating can be polygamous: you can Skype date with more than one person; or you can Skype date with one and go on real dates with another in your non-Skype life.

I can’t help but wonder: can Skype dating be hurtful? I.e. can someone break your heart via Skype? Might it be the case where you may feel hurt when you sign onto Skype after a Skype break-up, but then when you sign off Skype and turn off your computer, you are happy again?

If that is the case, then I would like to meet my October man on Skype, so that if we end up breaking each other’s heart, we only have to sign out of Skype, even delete the software in our computer, and move on.

Haiti

I was very saddened to hear the news about the recent quake in Haiti. Almost the whole city of Port-au Prince turned to dust. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed and injured. Thousands are still trapped in the rubble. It is just so heart-breaking.

It was a gloomy day of my life as well. The news of the cancer’s return seemed to turn all my hopes and dreams to ashes.

But I remember thinking to myself: People did not have a chance to fight for their lives when the quake struck – everything came to an end within a matter of minutes. People could not fight against a quake. But I have a chance to fight against the disease. I may not win, but at least I still have a chance.

Wig Swap

So I am thinking of starting a cancer patients’ Wig Swap Group in Vietnam. The idea of the “Wig Swap” Support group is borrowed from The Chiang Mai Initiative’s Currency Swap: as most of cancer patients have to experience a period of hair loss due to treatments, wigs become part of their daily life. Wig exchanges can be useful, and fun - as people usually do not have a collection of wigs on their own, and it can be boring wearing just one over and over again. We can even have Wig parties where cancer patients can freely interact with one another and exchange wigs right on the spot. Oh, of course they can exchange whatever else they want: a phone number, a hug, a kiss, and even more than that…

OK. Let’s be more serious here. The Wig Swap Group is just a fun version of the Cancer Support Group that I am thinking of starting in Vietnam. Cancer has become the country’s new epidemic: everyone in Vietnam knows someone with cancer, whether it is a family member, or friend, or a friend of a friend. The sad thing, however, is that besides the lack of good quality cancer care, the idea of a support group for cancer patients is rather new in Vietnam, and in fact there is no such group formed yet. I saw hundreds of cancer patients waiting inside the National Cancer Center (K Hospital) with despair, and yet having no one to share their experience. I was one of them, but I am luckier than them: I am having a world-class treatment at an American hospital in Singapore. And apparently they have quite a few proactive cancer support groups here in this small island which can be a great model for Vietnam.

My goals in setting up a Cancer Support Group in Vietnam are not only to provide cancer patients and their families with information about cancer and cancer treatment (what to expect when you undergo certain treatments for example) but to provide a forum where they can talk about their pains, fears and hopes with people who have the same experience. I understand that it will not be easy: most people will not be willing to share their feelings with a complete stranger. Especially when it is a poor old lady from the countryside who has to share a hospital bed with 3 other people versus a rather wealthy young man who has money to bribe the hospital staff to get a private room in the hospital. But they have one important thing in common: they both are fighting their final battle against the Death Angel.

Fortune-tellers

I went to see a fortune teller with my friend Aighee and her friend Indra the other day. It was an interesting experience, as I have never really seen any fortune teller, even when I was in Vietnam. But what made it more exciting for me was that it was a Singaporean fortune teller. I am so Singaporeanized now. How cool is that! But anyway, I do not want to talk about how Singaporeanized I have become. I want to talk about the Singaporean fortune teller’s predictions of what my life would become.

Let’s get to the most thrilling part – relationships. The famous fortune teller said that I would meet my dream guy this October. He would be someone younger than me. Someone younger than me! “That is impossible, because I have always been dating guys who are much older than me”, I thought. But then, I realized that what I have been looking for is not an older man, but one of stature, maturity and sophistication. As it turned out, an older guy does not necessarily come with maturity and sophistication. He might just be a nice boy, and as Spice Girls spiced it - “I need a man, not a boy who thinks he can”.

Looking back at my past relationships, however, I came to realize that it was not the guys, or the boys, or the men who are the problem. It is not that I never found myself a perfect man – I did, but I took him for granted, and now he is gone, leaving a hole in my heart that I thought I could quickly fill up with…other older men.

So I imagined the fortune-teller, after listening to the stories of my life, would likely say to me: Woman, it is you who need to grow up!

In the meantime, I will be waiting for my October man. J