Priceless.

There is an online exhibit that hit the web-sphere a few months back called "Make Your Franklin." Anyone with internet and design skill is free to participate. You download the $100 USD bank note .jpg, and then have at it, re-designing the bill to your liking then upload your creation to the site. I had my Photoshop class create their own for extra credit. Since we're having a shortage of USD here in the 'Nam I figured I would create my own currency. Of course my initial thought was to put Obama on the bill to create a "United States of Black America". Sounds nice, but would leave out every other culture that exists in the American population. Then I examined each of the U.S. dollar bank notes and the notes I've collected from other countries. I have a 20.000 VND blue note, two 100 notes from Cambodia (don't ask me what they're called, they're so insignificant no one knows) they are purple brown and green duo tones against cream, I got 1.000 Korean Won note also blue, I gotta Ringget, 1 RM from Malaysia it's also blue, 10 PHP Philipine Peso bill, a burnt orange and cream with brown, and the best for last a 10 Hong Kong Dollars note, the most colorful of them all.

10 Hong Kong Dollars. Pretty in purple.

All of these bank notes have 1 thing in common: they all "pay" homage to a person or place/ monument in the history of their respective country, with the exception of the HKD. The Hong Kong dollar is quite different, at least the 10 dollar bill is. Pictured, it is a beautifully interlaced network of multi-colored ribbons, bars, lines, and Cantonese characters in a split-complementary color scheme of violet, fuchsia, cerulean and yellow. There is no trace of someone's face, no monuments, no land marks, only the design itself. Does it represent the network of cultures that are present in Hong Kong, or its perception of being a place of kinetic commercial and technological energy? Florescent ultraviolet strips of text make the bill difficult to replicate and the watermark is an image of the hibiscus flower, also known as the China Rose. Absolutely beautiful.

. . . Meanwhile the United States dollar gets uglier by the minute, literally and figuratively. There are 5 bank notes in our currency portfolio. Actually the country doesn't own the bank notes, the Federal Reserve does, ain't that some ish. We got Lincoln on the $5, Hamilton on the $10, Jackson on the $20, Grant on the $50 and Franklin on the $100. Sure these men did interesting things and significant decisions that did help form United States of America, but what about everyone else? The slaves? The indentured servants? The immigrants? The Native Americans?

One person cannot take credit for forming an entire nation! Cultures, tribes, slaves, indentured servants, activist, blue collar workers, leftist, rightest, democrats, republicans, everyone in America at this present time is forming America. If it takes a village to raise a child, then it takes an entire population to help weave the diverse tapestry of the supposed United States of America. To put only 5 dead white men on a bill with disgustingly tacky graphics that illustrate monuments instead of the people that BUILT them is more revolting than any insult.

There's definitely more to this f'd up economy than 9/11. The corruption began when the first set of servants landed on the east coast shores and people were categorized by their skin color. It's weaved in the fibers of the notes themselves. . .

"The Job."

I think this episode explains how I feel at the current state in time. Nothing is more awkward than not being able to communicate with co-workers. At least hers speak English. 

Where is the money?

It's all about the Ho Chi Minhs, baby.

Hey blog-o-sphere.
Yes I know I've been M.I.A. The holidays are approaching and I've been planning a glorious get-away for moms and I. Island hopping in the Philippines is only a few months away. However I wish I could joyfully anticipate this excursion. Instead I am guilt with worry at the threat of lacking enough dollars. Why should this be, you may ask, since I have a decent paying job. Well apparently there is a shortage of USD in Vietnam. Really? Really. According to the HR at the j-o-b there is such a shortage that they can no longer pay us in USD. So I am now being paid in VND. This wouldn't be a problem had I left the US with zero debts or responsibilities to tend to. However I like saving for my retirement, and my student loans will not do a disappearing act. Well I thought there was a simple solution to this predicament. Just transfer VND into my USD account in the US. My US bank accepts foreign currency, so what's the issue? This alternative will not work thanks to the stringent rules of the Vietnamese government. You don't want your monopoly money leaving your country???  Because it's absolutely useless anywhere else in the world??? Whatever. So I'm forced to ask the age old question I've been asking numerous times since I arrived in Vietnam: What is the solution to this problem? (because common sense logic never applies in a Vietnamese situation).

Hmmm, let' see, get a new job? Because on any given day the bank claims they may, or may not, have enough USD to sell to me. I think this is a load of BSD. (a bull-shit decision) The bank has plenty of USD. Maybe not as much as they would like to have, but they have enough to sell to me. I'm not asking for millions of USD, I'm not making Donald Trump deals! I'm just a poor Black girl from rural Wisconsin tryin to make a dollar. I didn't travel 6,000+ miles to another hemisphere, to crazy weather and cultural traditions to be broke! It's definitely time to go home!

Don't "buy" into the hype, looks can be deceiving.

oh brother

My brother bid this ballad to me before I decided to abandon the life I once knew. From the book of Acts chapter 7, it reads, "Leave your country and your people,’ God said, ‘and go to the land I will show you."
Ain't that the truth.

Nothing to lose.

What would you do if you lost everything?

What if all your close friends have moved away? What if your family is too far to reach? What if the internet stops working and you cannot skype and your phone has run out of minutes? What if the television stops working so you cannot receive cable, and your DVD's will not play correctly. What if your computer conks out, or just doesn't work as good as it use to? What if the amount of money you use to make is cut in half and you have little hope of getting that other half back? What if you get caught in a rain storm with no umbrella and when you go home to take a hot shower, the electricity goes out, so now you have no hot water? What would you do?

Believe it or not, people used to live with no electricity, no hot water, no cable, no iphone or iMac, no Adobe Creative Suite or Wacom tablets. In the modern world we designers have become so accustomed to these things. When technology does begin to break down, we tend to do the same. It slows down our productivity. Clients don't want to see a sketch, they want to see smooth crystal clear gradients, shiny computer graphics, the "slick" design. What happened to drawing with pencil and reading from a book? What happened to lithographers, wood cut printers, and sign painters? When everything is stripped away, breaks down, or stops working we'll have to result to this anyway to get the job done. So why not continue using these skills?

Perhaps we're scared that we'll actually have to use our hands. Maybe we're afraid of being labeled amateur (Is this a French word?) But, if everything is gone, broken down and cut off, what else can you rely on?

Only your God given creativity, and God Himself.

speechless. . .

I've had a share of crazy situations and heard some crazy stories, but this by far out weighs them all:

"Lord help these people. So, I was at a birthday party for my friend here from Texas. She is here as a missionary and her clique of Texans are all here with their church doing mission work in secret, cause you can't be too open in communist land. I was on the couch chatting with another lady who is from Arizona originally, and she has the cutest little girl and adorable little plump face boy who is maybe 1 or 2. He's soo plump I can't tell how old he really is, lol. 


Well, the lady from Arizona, told me about how the Vietnamese were "checking" little foreign babies to see if they were a boy or a girl. . . She said it happened to a friend of hers and the friend's child hates Vietnamese now because of it, gee wonder why? So Sarah says it happened to her baby boy one day, out in public, broad day light, they were near the big Notre Dame Cathedral, and this woman reaches toward the boy to reach in his diaper to "check" if he is a boy or girl, Sarah catches her and slaps her hand and says "NO!" really loud of of course. . . but I'm sitting on this couch like WTF, THAT'S MOLESTATION!!! She just molested your child in front of you. The woman wouldn't have a hand left if I caught her doing that to my child, What in tha world is wrong with these people???!?! And it's not a Vietnamese thing because she asked around, and Vietnamese people told her it's not common. I commend this woman for being fairly calm, but I would NOT have my children in this part of the world, Especially if I was white! You are a moving target, and they will kidnap your child and sell them into slavery. People say I'm brave for riding a motorbike? No YOU'RE brave, to #1 have your toddler child playing with these crazy children, and letting every Thuy, Thu, and Ngan touch your child's skin and hair, and . . . #2 withstanding the heat while pregnant AND #3 Actually trusting ANY Doctor over here foreign or Vietnamese to birth your baby properly. . ugh.

Second crazy thing. I didn't see it, but our Brazilian co-worker comes into the office one afternoon, I guess he went out for coffee, comes back and says he just saw a naked woman walking down the middle of the street, in the middle of traffic. He says she was completely naked, just frolicking down the street. Passed the police directing traffic nobody stopped her, no one pulled her to the side to put clothes on her. . . . . what is going on here??!?"

Be Simple, Be Proud, Adventures in Black Hair. . .

So, the reoccurring question I received before I flew off for my Asian invasion was,
     
"What are you going to do with your hair?"

Thankfully I am pretty artistic in all areas of life. I've had practice "playing" with my hair since the second grade. I knew I would have to do my own up keep while living in Asia, because I did my own hair in Chicago. The only time I went to the hair salon was for a trim. However, there is the bigger question of, "Where will these hair products come from, so that I CAN do my hair?" When I arrived in Saigon spring of 2010 I had kinky twist. I made the mistake of leaving them in too long, so upon untwisting the kinks, I also took out my fine hair close to the forehead. *Sigh* Won't be doing that again. Afros, extreme heat, and motor bike helmets do not work well together. I resorted to my method of flat twisting. Dividing my hair into sections, and twisting it back, in a cornrow-like fashion. Again, I know I'm one of few that actually knows how to do their own hair. But, ironically one of the best things you can do to your hair is nothing. Do not over process it with chemicals, do not over comb it the wrong way, do not dry it out with blow dryers and flat irons, do not stress your scalp with tight braids and extensions. Just let it be.

Charlotte Hess, check her out at isobelandcleo.com

I could not not remember my friend, knit wear designer, Charlotte Hess who taught me two lessons on the fashion design trip in South America: BE SIMPLE, BE PROUD. "Usually when I do nothing to my hair it grows", stated Charlotte as she used my Carol's daughter hair oil for the first time. Charlotte rocks a "Straight-Up"afro. I call it "straight up" cause it sticks straight up off her head. On this particular trip to Brazil and Argentina, Charlotte rocked the "straight-up" with long dramatic chunky necklaces, one of African amber, and big Coco Chanel type sunglasses, simple and proud. Did she care that the yellow amber and her deep chocolate skin produced a stark contrast, or that her hair sort of resembles a space ship and caused serious stares from the Argentinians?? Nope. Perhaps being one of artistic taste helps, but the point was she was doing her thing, rockin her style. It didn't matter that she was in Argentina, New Zealand, Florida, the moon, etc. She didn't let American racist ideals or European standards of beauty haunt how she will wear her hair. She let her natural beauty shine.

"Kareem Abdul-Jabar-Baha" of KL can do my hair any day!

Back to my adventure of tending to my locks. After being in this part of the world for a year and a half I found Kuala Lumpur to be a source of African hair types. On my black girl expedition with Kia we spent a weekend in KL, shopping and getting our hair did. Kia manage to pay only $30-$35 for a shampoo-wash-blow dry that took 4 hours. (Mind you the woman servicing Kia was Malaysian, not Black) I got cornrows which took 45 minutes and paid double. Such is life. I also experienced an African hair braider from Hong Kong who came to Ho Chi Minh to work on some clients heads last year. This lady works in the only official hair braiding shop in Hong Kong called Zucoma. If you're in the area check it out, but they are pricey, for Hong Kong. I had a hard time remembering the url, so instead try this: www.salonchandler.com, they seem to have professional products and a Black man handling a blow dryer. Coming back to Ho Chi Minh I was determined to find a hair braider. With all the African men here, there has to be a woman somewhere doing her own hair. I mingled with the Nigerians at church and got in touch with a Nigerian lady in District 10 of HCMC. She did a great job with braids and has healthy techniques to minimize breakage. No salon for her, I talked to people who know people and met in the room she is renting. But my main concern while living here was getting my ends trimmed. Trimming the split ends minimizes breakage, and minimized breakage = longer hair. Well little did I know my hair adventure was about to take an interesting twist. I decided to try the steamer machine at a local nail salon. In the back of the nail shop is a small hair station with the steamer machines and further back in another room is an area where you can get your hair washed. I used my own deep conditioner and everything was going good until it was time to blow dry my hair. I literally had 2-3 people in my head. The owner of the shop came and asked, "Is this natural???" me,"YEAH this is MY hair!" It really perplexed them to know that someone could have hair as curly as mine. I must say I had fun teaching the ladies at Nghia Beauty how to do my hair, and l loved that they were all eager to learn, and very careful. As I'm sitting in the hot seat (literally with two blow dryers on my head) I notice a Black lady is getting her pedi/mani and looking over at me with a "What-in-tha-world" expression on her face. Once I am finished, they even flat ironed my hair, I'm about to leave, but decide to get a mani and just happened to sit next to the Black lady. I was not going to be social because she "looked" Brazilian. There aren't too many Black American people 'round these parts, so why bother? Well I decided to bother anyway. Turns out she's an American stewardess from Texas, she has been living in Asia for 16 years, SIXTEEN YEARS. Whoa, back up. 16 years. In Hong Kong to be exact.

"I had to go natural because I did not trust anyone to use a relaxer on my hair, and I couldn't find the right products. I noticed you were getting a blow out. There are a few places here that can straighten our hair pretty well, one is real expensive but good, the other cheaper and decent."

Kia explains, "Straighten, with Ce-ram-mic, not Metal!"

Like an angel that had fallen out of the sky, she just increased my HCMC experience by a thousand. I couldn't believe it. She had stop overs in Ho Chi often, so after SIXTEEN years of being over here, I guess I would've discovered and chosen the right salon as well. I should host my own personal training session. I checked out the salon the stewardess recommended, and it is legit, and they definitely know how to work a blow dryer, lol. It's YKC on Dien Bien Phu St. Of course their styling skills need some work, but for a good condition and trim, I don't mind paying 800,000 dong to get my hair right. Below is the result of the scavenger hair hunt in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Big Thanks to Tarek for his Algerian connections!

"Kareem's" salon is male-only, he calls his braid lady. . .

We find another lady, she was okay.

Kia gets a blow out . . .

. . .4 hours later, turns out nice!