transition

high rise – an exception becoming the norm

Life is characterized by transition, as people, relationships, places and our environment are. After almost one year in Vietnam and in Ho Chi Minh City I am reflecting much on life in recent days, on the past, the present and the future. Of my life, the people I met, the way I met them and the way we have each time lived together, my family, friends, partners, everybody one meets in life. I am flying through the streets, see all the people, think about this city, how everything around is changing, so fast, so furious. And I am not sure whether it is a normal perception, whether I have been too stressed to think in the past and for this reason do now make up for it, or whether I am too small for this big world, too ignorant to understand life - so life seems like a movie sometimes. I feel like on drugs. Those which I hate. Living a modern and post-modern global life, is that really better then the village life that our grandparents had lived? Are real, life-long and close relationships not better than the corporate rush of today’s urban realities? Realities that become lifestyles, a word which our ancestors may not even have used, become pictures, pictures in motion.

last green spaces being “developed” - trees will make space for shopping centres

People tell me that 10 years ago Vietnam’s cities were quiet. Today the soaring of the motorbikes never stops. High rise is being erected in every quarter. The skyline of this big but still contained metropolis will change. Give Saigon which has still some old day’s traits a decade or two more and it will look like Bangkok or Jakarta. The dilemma for somebody preferring tranquil beaches and fresh air to noisy traffic and polluted atmosphere might be that most job opportunities and opportunities for personal development securing at least a retirement at the world’s most wanted shores are located in the cities.

rushing past – sometimes without sight

When paying attention to the details which too often rush past, one often realizes that it is oneself is rushing. Sometimes it needs a friend’s hint to slow down. Sometimes it is not an easy job to find the right balance to understand life as the movie it is, in order not to surrender, in order not to become demotivated by the circumstances of this venue and between taking responsibility and creating the most favourable conditions for the future. The remedy is not to get lost. Probably. it is just to follow one’s dreams. Becoming father will be a big transition in my life. It will mean giving up some freedom which was always so important. But it will probably also mean receiving so much back and developing my personality. Now it will be about giving somebody all the great warmth and opportunities that my parents have given me until now and on and on. At the moment, just starting into professional career, still having to finish university, and living in a city which is not easy, this will be a great challenge - and I love the challenge. There will be a way which is just about to be found. The great day will be in September, and honestly I am nervous already.

Pham Ngu Lao ward – where the “now” had begun

And so life will go on, in transition, in this everlasting flow of another world, of this holy circus, of this organic environment in the concrete city, the sometimes hostile spaceship…until we break the circle and escape into nirvana, into paradise, a better place, live there in peace and do better than these people on the District 1 stage who are in need for fake perfection and wrong values.