Carte D'Identite - from Indochina

Wow! I just found my grandmother's old id (dated 1947) from Indochina's days. The Geneva Accord was not signed until 1954. On the left of the paper, it said 'Quoc - Gia Viet - Nam', then 'Phu Thu - Hien Bac - Viet'. On the right, it showed "Carte D'Identite"

When my grandmother (ba ngoai) died, I kept some of her things in a suitcase. I was too sad to look at them. Tonight, as I cleaned out that old suitcase, I found my grandmother's old id. Her picture is no longer on there, but it had her old address - Sadi Carnot is the street name, of Ha Dong. So French!

I am sure that street name no longer exist. I googled the name and found a well known thermodynamics scientist and engineer who later became French president in 1887-1894. If anyone out there from Hanoi/Hai Phong/Ha Dong knows this street name still exist, I'd like to hear from you. I would love to see a little bit of my heritage.

Welcome 2007

I haven’t had a chance to blog in a while. I’ve had several deaths to deal with recently. One of a close friend and another is a member of the family who was battling cancer. It has been a tough holiday.

Death is inevitable, but I can’t imagine how I’m going to deal with it when it happens to my parents. They are very healthy, so I don’t expect anything to happen to them, but you never know when it’s their time. It could happen to anyone, like my friend. He went in for a triple bypass and never made it out of the hospital alive.

There are some things that have been on my mind that I want to write about, so keep checking back for an update. Over the holidays, I had a chance to watch a special about China. It was a story about how China's boom in manufacturing and the way they dispose of the chemicals that affects their rivers and agriculture. Some of the other topics I would like to explore are about the vietnamese culture: the acceptance of the "second wife", handling of different class - marriage between families with money and families without money, and last but not least, my observation of the Vietnamese's obsession with their look, the nose and eyes and all the plastic surgeries that Vietnamese women in America are having.

OK. I hope that's enough tease to bring you back. I promise to write some of these blogs within the next few days. So check back again soon.