Monday, February 16, 2009

Learning from the Central Part

Dear All,

The warmest greetings to every one on the New Year of the Ox.

My Lunar New Year has been celebrated by the journey along the paths from Quang Nam to Quang Binh province in the central part. It was long enough to sense a little taste of this area under different perspectives.

Sometimes I had felt a bit interested by the distinction of the culture, environment and people in the area; and of course always feeling warm by the friends' hospitalities along the roads.

The central part of Vietnam has treasured a natural beauty with its greenery of forests, mountains, caves, oceans, and of course deep tastes in its cultures and foods. On the other side, I've been struck by its different levels of economic growth and the hardship of people.

The delta is smaller than the northern and southern parts due to the majority of highlands. People hardly earn much from agriculture growing and planting except leaning on the nature. The more developing parts seem to benefit from their land, and natural resources. This is the story of resource allocation that contributes to one part’s growth but not for the others’ (Success to the Successful - StS). Noticing the more growing areas such as Da Nang, Hue, Quang Binh, and Hoi An are having more houses and transportation infrastructure. It is said at the first place, early centuries ago; the overseas traders arrived and did their own businesses here. Mostly, we don’t see these people (as well as external elements such as TV, etc.) playing the roles of creating the StS structure.

The story is the same for either Ho Chi Minh City or Hanoi as well as the other developed cities nowadays. These stories observe the structure of “Success to the Successful” playing around along with their “escalations”. When we are keen to pay attention to one part (more investments to HCMC over time) and ignore the other part, it does not help the other part even grow by the visionary pictures people hold from the beginning. I have heard many stories from students of their dreams for ‘developing the hometowns’. At the end, it seems more pull-outs.

Under the eyes of systems thinking, I am a bit stuck to see different systemic archetypes at play around at the same time. One tip that my friend has given is to look around for different patterns over time.

It has been quite blessing and delighting for the trip as I could travel also to different fantastic places. Three of them are World Heritages (Hoi An Ancient Town, Hue Imperial city & Phong Nha National Park). Of course, we did enjoy food, festivities with the local families.

What could you see this differently?

Wishing every one the New Year of the Ox of Persistence, Good Health and Spirit!

Regards,

Tuan Anh

Thursday, February 12, 2009

A Little Sense of Impermanence

The central-part trip is for me the journey of beauty, joy and discovery. I had been visiting different beautiful places by its nature and sensing different airs and cultures. That’s something I would love to hold back.

While crossing the fantastic nature of Phong Nha – Ke Bang National Park, by its wonderful millions-aged stalactites, at the moment I just sensed that the beauty was just right there and gone as the way the time works.

I have found these lovely words from the Zen Master Thích Nhất Hạnh that I would like to share with every one here:

"If you suffer, it is not because things are impermanent. It is because you believe things are permanent. When a flower dies, you don't suffer much, because you understand that flowers are impermanent. But you cannot accept the impermanence of your beloved one, and you suffer deeply when she passes away.

If you look deeply into impermanence, you will do your best to make her happy right now. Aware of impermanence, you become positive, loving and wise. Impermanence is good news. Without impermanence, nothing would be possible. With impermanence, every door is open for change. Impermanence is an instrument for our liberation" - Thích Nhất Hạnh

Monday, February 2, 2009

Upcoming Events


Action for Life - Vietnam Outreach Program

09 Feb. - 01 March, 2009

Action for Life (AfL) is a seven-month leadership development program. The course uses a combination of interactive training and fieldwork to expand the capacity of each participant. Distinctively, participants and staff come from different generations, nations, and faiths to form a diverse learning and working community that represents an increasingly globalised world.

The Vietnam Outreach takes place between 09 Feb. and 01 March, 2009. It is to interact, learn and support the local Vietnamese team in terms of team building, personal engagement and culture.


19 February - 19 March, 2009

An online program that introduces the core ideas and practices of Presencing in five life online sessions facilitated by Dr. Otto Scharmer. Participants will also work in small groups via skype or conference calling.

26 Feb. - 01 March, 2009
Malaysia

Tools for Change develops practical skills and inner resources to help individuals become more effective change initiators – in corporate and business life, education, non-profit organisations, families and communities. Within the context of a very engaging ‘learning community’, the conference moves from theory to action – individuals form bonds of friendship and networks of transformation.

T4C will explore personal change and its links to change in businesses, education, civil service, non-profits, families and communities.

Saturday, January 3, 2009

Happy New Year!

Dear everyone,

My first wishes of "Dreams High, Promises New, Joys Afresh and Learnings Great" comes to everyone on the New Year of 2009!

The end of 2008 has observed some of the good news. One of them is the Vietnamese Football Team's AFF Cup Championship after approximately 5 decades. The vision seems emerging out of our preceding hardship, dreams; and especially the willing of change over the time.

I saw people rolling excitingly and jofully down on the roads to cheer up for the celebration. The synergy of a shared vision has been exploded. That is how the shared vision works to inspire and motivate the inner insights of growth and creativity. The event of our winning is a part of the whole country vision. I would be very curious about the larger vision of Vietnam for the next coming years. Sooner or later, it will emerge - noticing for many years, since the war ended, we have been paying a great attention to "wealth" by the economic growth and development policies. On the other hands, it stays the hidden escalation systemic structure unless we give rooms for different individuals' goals exposed - the event of winning is such the space.

Now our New Year of 2009 has come, it is the time we regenerated new wishes and dreams with the New Year Resolutions. It is where our personal vision (Personal Mastery works) comes out.

It has taken me a while to appreciate the ways things work by themselves. There was a time when I turned my back against the corperate world as assuming "it's not for me - for my dynamics". And it is interesting to see how much I could be able to learn from it since I have started my work at LogiGear - a software testing outsourcing company. This means quite a lot. Sometimes we may not be very aware of what is meant to us due to the attachment to the "different vision" until we can learn to open hearts and accept things to come in. At the end, there are the reasons for things to happen in such the ways.

My first new year day is celebrated by the other good news from the program of Institute of Potential Leaders. I have passed its third round (out of five) after the competence test. There are still two rounds to go with the interview parts before the course kicks off. I would appreciate all of your prayers.

On the season of New Year which blossoms the work of Personal Mastery, I have found a nice quote by Peter Senge "We often spend so much time coping with problems along our path that we only have a dim or even inaccurate view of what's really important to us."

Happy New Year to All!

Kind Regards,

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