Friday. Yes, it is Friday!
I have only one meeting today. Hooray! With some buffer zone of time on hands, here are some of my rambling shenanigans.
(Post-it Note: I thought that it would be a short one, but it turned out to be a long ass post with mostly random thoughts filling up the space. Don’t read it you don’t have the time to go through these topics. Sáng nay em Trang nhiều chuyện…như mọi ngày!)
First — As you know, or have not observed, most cooks in Vietnamese restaurants are…Hispanic and or people originally come from South American countries. Pretty soon, and at this rate of low labor cost and the quick wildfire effect of global cuisines, you will find Vietnamese restaurants owned by Hispanic and or people originally come from South America. On a slightly separated but well-connected observational note, you will notice that most of cash register attendants, vegetable-sorting ladies, and fish mongers at Vietnamese/Asian grocery stores are also Hispanic and or people originally come from South America. Pretty soon, and at this rate of low labor cost, and the quick wildfire effect of global understanding of how Asian business are operated, your local Vietnamese/Asian grocery stores will be dominated by Hispanic and or people originally come from South America. Nevertheless, their owners still remain non-Hispanic. It’s all about economic approach of supply and demand — people need to work and make ends meet, they will accept the lowest wages to supply hard labor as a trade-in. For the owners, to get business operate and yield revenue, they minimize the cost as much as possible, and cheap labor is one to take priority. Last week during one of my trip to my local grocery store, I overheard a Vietnamese woman calling out the fishmonger, “hey amigo, I want…” Somehow it sounded a little bit condescending, and little bit belittling, and did not jive too well with me. Am I the only one taking it as an offense? Or am I too uptight about this? Tell me and I will fix myself and correct my conscience.
In the next ten years or so, whenever you crave for Vietnamese food, things will also change. Spanish will be added to the description of each dish on the menu. There will be a glossary of terms for Bánh Mì, Phở, Gỏi Cuốn…etc. in Spanish at the back of the menu. When you look up after ordering your dishes, you will be sitting among lots of non-Vietnamese people. Not that I have anything against it, I just found it to be somewhat funny and ironic, in light of change in demography. Due to the change in different group of clientele, the taste of the food also be altered to meet the demands/tastes. Hence, overtime, Phở will no longer be Phở, but it will become the generic “Beef Noodles” you can find any where, at any restaurant, on any menu, regardless of the ethnicity attached. Like my brothers have joked, it’s a sin to be Vietnamese and go to a certain Vietnamese restaurants in the Twin Cities, just like it is a sin to be Chinese and eat at PF Chang. Whether you agree with me or not, you cannot deny this apparent social effect.
Second — Ok, this is my guilty pleasure. And it has nothing remotely related to the first point of shenanigans above, but I loop them together just to speak about globalization.
I must and have to admit that I watch Vietnam’s Got Talent. It’s fascinating to the point that if I were to be back to graduate school to study globalized cultural effect, I will use this show, and other “borrowed” shows for that matter, to be the topic of my research or even a pursuit of a Ph.D. Watching this show has revealed to me the cultural relevance, influence, and superiority between the West and the rising of Vietnamese new cultural nuances. Among the contestants who stood in front of the judges and audiences, and those who got through the next round, most of their talents are amongst hip-hop dances, popping, beat boxing, singing classic opera pieces, and mostly…singing in English. These are borrowed cultures, because to me, if this is a Vietnam’s Got Talent kind of show, I would expect to see people singing Vọng Cổ Cải Lương, Chèo, something that add to the mix of western influences. What’s the point of finding talent when most contestants just imitate (bad imitations, mostly) of what has already been happening in other countries of the west? Sometime I feel like a hard ass cultural critic, but I am not. I observed, I watched, and drew conclusions base on what I perceived as such. At a certain level, to compare Vietnam’s entertainment and pool of talents to other countries’ is a lop-sided argument, but even that, I think it’s fair for me to point out that the incongruous level of talents are just mere inauthentic imitation of a borrowed culture. That’s why I found it fascinating, and funny at the same time. Oh, and the numbers of scandalous stories in the media…adds spice to the whole phenomenal!
I am not a culturalist, nor am I a cultural anthropologist, nor and a pop culture expert…I am just a regular viewer whose curiosity found me a little bit more invested on analyzing this cultural phenomenal more than I needed to, aka, wasted investment of time.
Goodness, that’s why I call it the shenanigans for the free time I have on this great Friday. 
(Happy-mood dancing and swaying…cha cha cha!)
