I learnt about the Weekend inferno in Victoria (Aus) while watching an action film on channel 10 “more than 25 people feared of dead by fire and more…”. Everything was too fast. The death number kept doubling days by days. I read almost all of the words about the fire in Victoria with all my mind and my heart. The pictures and the moving stories of newspapers made stronger impression on me than the TV.
I know that this is a tragedy for Australia where disasters are rarely able to take many lives. But this time, too many have gone. Why hadn’t people flee the fire earlier? Why hadn’t warnings been issued? Why were many willing to sacrifice their lives to protect the house? I have asked myself so many stupid questions as I can’t believe that so many people have been killed in such pains and panics in the peaceful and beautiful country of Australia.
If you were in my country, you would be adapted with such bad news. Everyday, dozens were died or injured in traffic accidents. Every year, hundreds were killed by floods, flashfloods, landlines and storms. The death news come so regularly that it is not a surprise for most of us.
Then I remember the way Friedman explains gloablisation since 1999. Globalisation doesn’t mean only culture, economics, politics and technology. It also include environment, yes, environment globalisation so we can have disaster globalisation.
What has occurred like Tsunami, earthquakes, floods, storms and fires in every corner of the world (both developing and developed countries) is obvious reply that we are suffering from what we damage our environment. Soon one day, disasters may sweep over the world and we will become archeology.
I’m not scared of that day because we are already involved in the process. If we are not sure about the world future, just enjoy your life now with your beloved and friends. Don’t be angry, jealous, greedy, indelibrate and rude. Keep smiling, help each other, be optimistic and generous with others. On one of the hottest day in Sydney, I looked up at the sky and saw the words “Stay cool”. And now I also want you to stay cool and everyday of your life will be great days!
For the first time, I had a New Year Festival (Lunar New Year) away from home. 32 years you have celebrated the biggest holiday with your family and friends. Then, you are in a Western country where lunar calendars are not sold in the news agents.
The New Year of the Buffalo arrived in Sydney quietly and suddenly. It is only felt from the home websites, from my husband’s notices and a promise to join in a party at a friend’s house. At this time of last year, I hurried around the city to visit relatives, go shopping and work. But this year, I’m free and have nothing to hurry on the last day of the year 2008. I suddenly liked to escape such busy and noisy things before Tet at home.
Only when I realized that my 6-year-old daughter should know something about Tet did I ask her to clean up the house, a tradition any Vietnamese families do to welcome the New Year.
Chinese merchants open 2009 business with dragon unicorn and firecrackers
This year, I welcomed the Lunar New Year in the summer time but it’s a wonder that the weather is very cool with some drizzling rain on the New Year Eve and the first two days of the Buffalo Year. The cosy party at my friends’ house with Square cakes, pork pie and noodles finally woke up my feelings for the traditional Tet. Like any Vietnamese kids, my daughter was so excited to receive lucky money in her new dress.
I followed a local family to burn incense at a Buddhism pagoda. Then we walked along the street to enjoy dragon dance and the happy sound of firecracker. We ended up the New Year tour by visiting another family and tasted sweets and cookies. Wow, the Vietnamese people in Sydney celebrate the Lunar New Year festival almost like those back home.
On the way back home, I realized that I still love Tet. I love this special Tet away from home because it will be very soon that I can enjoy a real Tet at home with my parents and my friends. I still love to be busy for Tet because that is what I belong to. It’s wonderful to experience a different Lunar New Year in a different country, but if it is forever, it will be really really sad.
How happy my man looks when he is with the “spider” girls from China
I wish good health and good luck to my beloved ones (my grandparents, my parents, my little daughter, my husband, my sister and her partner, my relatives my friends and me) in the Year of the Buffalo and forever.
I’m reading the victory of Vietnamese team over Thailand in the Xmas morning of Sydney and the loud music from the neighbour’s house.
My tears are out and I feel creepy while swallowing all words and photos about the great game in Thailand.
It has been a common fact that the Vietnam team has to lose to the Thai. But this time, it is unbelievable and unpredictable.
The victory is more meaningful to those who live far away from home. I’m no longer a young guy to jump up in happiness but I shout and cry.
I want to hear more about of such great news for Vietnam because I love my country and I want it to grow.
Thank you Calisto, the coach, you have suffered a lot. You are our hero.
Thank you the best guys of Xmas night 2008. Thank you the best guys of Xmas night 2008.
I have been living in Sydney for only 10 months so I still have very little experience about this exciting and big city. But 10 months may be enough for a mature woman and a journalist to make comments.
I’m always a curious so I watch Sydney and its people whenever I leave home for my Uni, to go shopping, to the supermarkets and to hang out with friends. I watch Sydney when I walk, on the bus, on the train, from my friends’ car; when I talk with friends, strangers, shop assistants, police..etc… I mean, whenever I’m not in my home. I watch Sydney with the eyes and mind of an outsider from a poor country, of a journalist who travel overseas a couple of times but watch abundancy of things on TV, of an individual who is critical and demanding. The reason is that this is my first time I have ever lived in a developing country for such a long time. I have to face with daily troubles of housing, money, relationships…
I mean, what I will write about Sydney is objective and honest because my words will be about the not-good aspects of Sydney.
I may add some more points to the above list till the last day in Sydney because those only things I’m sad about Sydney. The remaining, which is uncountable, is a wonderful Sydney where you should live and study.
I knew the importance of technology in this modern life. But it wasn’t until yesterday, Nov.23, 2008, did I realize that internet is an indispensible part of my life. Internet has made many things come true. Internet bridges Australia with my families in Vietnam and enables me to be with my family.
I spent 3 hours on Sunday to chat and eye my sister’s engagement meeting just through a webcam. Thanks to Skype, I could see from the first to the last moments of the event. I could see every attendant of the meeting and talk with them.
I saw my parents and my aunts walking to and fro in happiness to make preparations. Everyone dressed so well and smiled a lot. I could hear the music, laughs, congratulations and everything. The most heart-breaking moment is when I saw my younger sister in the tradition dress, I even cried. My tears are for a number of reasons: for the fact that my sister has really become a woman, no longer a little girl always with me and for the stupid pity that I hadn’t flown back home to be with her and my parents in a life-time day.
Thanks to Internet and Skype, I feel a little bit guilty about my absence. At some time, my soul was like be with my family. I also laughed and shouted as a guest.
From this time, I will totally support Internet. Whatever it does harm to you, it’s because you don’t know how to use it
Look and see how journalists do their job!
Photo taken in front of Hay Market, Sydney, Sept.2008.
A look at the yellow leaves in Hanoi this morning notices me that Hanoi’s already in the middle of autumn, the best time of the year.
Autumn has many relations with me. I was born in autumn (this month). My daughter was born in autumn. I like the cool dry days of autumn when I can have my best clothes on and feel free to go out in the street.
If you want to travel to Vietnam, especially Hanoi capital, you should choose autumn. Then you will avoid the chilly winter and the burning summer. You can walk, oh no, you should drive a motorbike (I know it’s dangerous for foreigners but you will be fine) and you will enjoy feeling the autumn with the falling leaves, mild wind and fresh air. Or, you can sit in a street cafe subbing special milk coffee with ice and enjoy.
Photo by Hoang Ha
The falling leaves in autumn, you can find everywhere around the world but I still love those in Hanoi. Whenever I’m among the falling leaves, I have the very subtle feeling of sadness and missing. I miss my childhood, my birthplace, my parents. I miss the day when I had only me to care for and to worry.
I have a stupid belief that if a leave accidentally falls on me, that’s the god’s gift saying that I will be lucky that day. The belief was told by one of my friends and it has followed me since I was 19.
This autumn, I’m very far away from Hanoi. No leaves fall on me for a long time and I’m plesed with the current life. But I still love receiving the falling leaves as a good memory of my 20s.
It’s been 10 weeks since I created this blog, my first ever blog, as an assignment.
10 weeks ago, I started it with no idea in mind. How could I have two entries a week? How could I exist in the cyber world which I had only toured around for reading news or searching things?
I come from a developing country where IT application is popular but only a small group of people can master it. In my country, we contact by face-to-face talks, by phones, by fax, by papers, and recently by email and by blog (only Yahoo360). I should remind you that internet was first introduced in Vietnam probably in 1997.
I belong to the 1760s generation who saw the first TV in our life when we were in the 6th grade. We learnt how to use computer at university. We love the internet and use it every day but we don’t have the habit of putting everything in blog. We are only the visitor of Internet, not the citizen.
It’s still clear in my mind that in the first lesson of UTS online journalism, I could understand nothing. I had no idea of “tumblr, twitter, blog awards, HTML…”.
I kept asking and asking so many things. I asked my lecturer, classmates, younger friends…everyone, who was good at using internet. Sometimes, I did feel that people stared at me as if I fell from another planet (yes, I come from a quite different world). I spent much time figuring out what is with HTML, making links or connecting my blog with other sites.
I was encouraged by my teacher, by the study pressure and by the must to get over this big challenge so as to catch up with the world development. I wrote about many things: my daughter, my thoughts, my country, Sydney…The more I write, the more I feel confident to write and the more I need to write about. I then realize that I get used to a new habit of writing something in my blog whenever it is Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Now, I can write directly in my blog instead of cutting and pasting from Word document:”>
I used to be haunted by many unhappy ending when you show up too much on the internet. But after I become a member of citizen journalism, I find out the interesting sides of a new world where you can reach as far as you want and you never have enough time to finish anything. In this world, I built my new house called Blog in tumblr. This is the place I can express myself or and exchange things. It’s a very good way to train my writing skills, to share and to receive.
Yesterday, I happily informed my husband that I have registered in Twitter; I have posted my photos on Flickr; I could create a project on savefile.com. That might be simple for you but means much for me. I’m proud of what I have created.
I’m like a tortoise, slowly but patiently heading to my finish.
My assignment has been done but I’ll keep visiting my blog regularly. It may be my online diary I write for myself and for my children.
I don’t have a lot of friends in my blog because it is written in English (while my English is not good), not in my language.
But I may be the 1st Vietnamese guy having a blog in tumblr. Do you believe that?
I had a one-day trip to Canberra yesterday. Half of my 12-hour trip was on the bus with other 55 Chinese tourists. Everything of the tour is made of China: the delayed starting time, the bus, the food, the music and the tourist guide. The language is Chinese so we could understand nothing though the tourist guide kept speaking from the beginning to the end of the tour. We had no way but kept ignoring what the guide said and enjoying Canberra ourselves.
I’m not writing about those Chinese things but Canberra!
The national capital of Australia is much quieter and larger than what I imagine. This time is spring but winter still hesitates to leave the capital so trees look dry and yellow-green. The capital city doesn’t have the noise of cars, motorbikes, music or human voices. During 4 hours, I just saw only 2 green buses and several people walking on the streets.
Canberra is the opposite of Sydney, which is always busy and hurried. I can’t imagine that this is the heart of Australia. And behind those white buildings are the Government, Parliament House, High court and many other departments, agencies and corporations.
I love to drive the car in Yarralumla which is home to many embassies. See the flags and you can tell the name of the country. What impressed me much is the US embassy which is the only one with cold-faced guards and the Chinese embassy which looks romantic like the palace in the 15th century.
Canberra doesn’t look green like Sydney. Maybe, all of its flowers are in the Floriade. Wow, the Floriade draws colourful pictures of red, white, pink, black and yellow tulips, poppy flowers..etc…Despite of the dry and sunny weather of the ‘“bush capital”, the flowers are bright and happy. The flowers wiped out my tiredness and thirst of a hot day. Flowers made me feel relaxed.
It’s a pity that I didn’t have time to visit the National Gallery, National Museum and Australian War Memorial.
I will return to Canberra to discover those cultural destination and find out what can be the noisiest parts of this capital. Certainly, my future trip will be without Chinese things because I want to understand everything in English.
I’m one of many many fans of Friends. I can watch the comedy all the day, again and again and remember many details. Sometimes, I think of the characters’ jokes and laugh myself like a crazy person in the street.
I’m not surprised if you complain that the guys in Friends have too much time for coffee, hanging out together and joking. But they are very good at representing us, both the good and bad things in our daily life and at the same time making us laugh to forget worries, sadness and anger.
6 actors in the cast are best in their own role but I like David Schimmer because he has a special voice and very natural acting of comedy.
I respect the actors for the committment withe sitcome during 10 seasons but I give higher appreciation to David Crane and his writers of the comedy. If you understand a little bit of TV and sitcom, you should look at the people who work behind the screen. They create the jokes, the situation, make them like life and nurture the series. Those guys have a big sense of humour, rich living experience and perfect creativity.
When can Vietnam have such talented film makers? If you ever watch a sitcom made by Vietnamese film makers, you will understand the primitive stage of film making. You will find so many mistakes of the actors, film products and scripts. What really annoys me is the conversations of the actors. They are very different from human conversations: simple, boring and meaningless.
This explains why I can watch Hollywood films only though I was recommended to give support to the development of local movie. I can’t. Film is entertainment. I watch films because I want to enjoy other parts of the social life.
That’s why I love Friends. It makes me smile all the time.
If you never watch Friends, try this. Hahaha!
