The Tao of Thao

The joy of living with no regrets

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Load your weapons ;-)


Well, here is one of the pictures of the Brussels Gay Parade two weekends ago. I had not been to one even though they organised it every year. Personally I think it is a great idea to organise such a parade because the gay group often get forgotten. You don't find people who are more open than them, open in relationships, open in their sexuality...A small disappointment on the way they expressed themselves, much of it was about sex whilst I think being gay or lesbian is a little more complicated than that.

Anyway, I went to see the Host last weekend, yeah finally!!! ;-) and I loved it. In fact, I had not seen such a good movie about monster for a long time. It was not a scary movie or that at the end someone became a hero. It was about the story of a ordinay family, so much laughters, love, traditions...I had such a good time watching it. You know, the kind of movie that stayed in your brain for a long time.

Apart from that, we are preapring a the big African dance performance that will happend in the weekend after this coming weekend, and the professor starts getting irritated when we get a step wrong ;-). I think we are doing quite well, everybody works hard for it...

Friday, May 11, 2007

Waves of culture

Finito the super warm, pleasant weather that we had for the whole month of April here in the capital of Europe ;-), mind you, I am not complaining. In fact, I think it is good for the trees to have rain, and a wash. I always like looking at the leaves after the rain, they look as if they are painted with a gorgeous green colour or if we breath in the air after the rain, it seems so much fresher, and cleaner. And of course, bad weather like what we are having the whole week motivates you to take time to rest, and maybe thinking about something a bit meaningful in life ;-) (or at least that is what I am trying to do ;-))

I normally do not have time to do any extra social activities or gather, simply because I have final exams in a couple of weeks, and the defense of my thesis. Lately, I have stopped making myself stressed about that, it does not help when my nerve cells have to work double in everything ;-). Life is too short to not take chances on things (and I think I am good at this ;-)). When I was young, I loved painting (still do) but my grandfather said "don't be an artist, you will be so poor, choose another profession, but not artist". When you were young, you just not wanted to be grow up poor, have no money, you wanted to have a lot of money, so you could buy toys or eat stuffs that you were not allowed to ;-). Obviously, I dropped being an artist among many other things that a kid dreams to be or want to be when they become adult. Now, I think I am trying to make up with what I could not do when I was younger like taking dance courses, musical instruments, or at the very least I try anything that has my interest, so then I could say that I don't like it.

Talking about the what I can eat when I was a kid, I could only eat Pho when I was sick ;-) because it was a luxurious soup when your family did not have a lot of money. So, everytime me or my sister got sick, my grandmom always took us to the best Pho place, and we could have as much as we wanted (not only Pho but any sort of foods that we liked eating). But of course because I was sick, I did not feel like eating, nothing seemed to be good at the time. The sweetest memory was probably when I got sick, my grandmom used to force me to drink milk ' try to drink, it will make you stronger'. she was surely right, but I did not like it. You can't imagin what kind of milk it was, not the Danone or Vitalina or any of that sort that a kid has here. It was a sort of concentrated milk that we took a couple of soup spoon, then mixed it with hot water ;-). It will never end if I start talking about my childhood ;-). Those were best days I guess.

I had only travelled with mom once ;-(. Yeah, my mom is a not a big fan of travelling or maybe she is too busy to work to feed us. Mom said I was a super good kid because when we went somewhere, I never asked her to buy me anything, she always had to ask if I wanted something...I don't know why, maybe I was not a good kid, but I was too lazy to ask ;-)

I think culture is such an amazing thing, it could either bring people closer or dishtinguish them apart. If we look around, "globalization in culture" ;-) has done a good job in mixing different races ;-). How many couples in modern society have children not with their pure race? In fact, maybe in the next couple of years, there won't be a person who is a pure Vietnamese or else. The good thing is your baby automatically speak several languages, I think that is the coolest thing to be able to communicate with different people. Unfortunately, culture also spreads people apart if you don't try to understand why such an action...For instance, I find it is very strange that a colleague invited a lot of people for a BBQ, and then ask each to contribute 10 Eur, not only that, he then asked what do his guests want to drink, buy wines in carton...You see, in VN, this sort of things should be avoided, either you don't invite but if you do, you have to make sure that everyone you invite have good foods, and drinks, and that they bring what they think is good for you (maybe sometimes you don't but that's the way it is). Or when you are invited you should not ask the person who invite you what should you bring, but suggest what you can bring. Asians are well-known for their politeness. To be honest, I have lived away from home for quite a long time, but I am still shocked sometimes with the culture here. Sometimes, people are too blunt here.

Like we laugh about arranged marriages, but really how bad could it be when you see many couples still f*k their marriages up in the name of freedom in love. Our ancestors fought to win the right to choose those they want to marry, but I think because they really value love. Yeah, that is how human is, we never realise what we have, and what we do not have. So, we f*ck everything or be f*cked no matter what and in whatever we do. Mind you, I am at this moment having a super positive view on life! So, yeah, learning to love a person is doable, many parents had lived long together until they die. Isn't it what we all want at the end? To share a life with someone you love until the day you die.

Male dominated or Female dominated society? I don't give sh*t as long as the system works, and people do not suffer because it. That is why we invented plenty of organizations for that matter, but does it help or again talk sh8t and do little?

Monday, May 07, 2007

BBQ 2007
















Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Dinner chez Sudhir and Neha

Uncle and I were invited for dinner at Sudhir's place because his newly bride came to Belgium a few weeks ago ;-).

Some very interesting, and honest conversation on how a male dominated society works, arranged marriages, and the development of India, I learnt many things in one evening, and I had a lot of fun being in their company.

Indian foods


Only main dishes, btw ;-0)

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Spidey ;-)

Well, it was labour day in Belgium yesterday, and everybody had a day off. We went check out the opening of "our friendly neighbour" Spiderman ;-). The movie was well, ya know as usual entertaining, a bit cheesy, but fun to watch, and of course some cool special effects.

Apart from spidey, I have very recent read "The Hobbit" (I know, sorry I am from VN, and we used to have a lot of books to read). I remembered when I was younger, I read plenty of kungfu books, or a lot of romances like "Gone with the wind", "Godfather"....that my moms read ;-). Surely, it wasn't a book for kids, but I read anything that comes to me, of course, my grandfather used to punish me for reading THAT sort of books, "not good for kids" he said, and he was probably right. Anyway, I think I know why many people love "Lord of the Rings", "the hobbit" was definitely the right book to begin with, I love it so much. It likes you are going back to be a kid, and let your dreams go wild and beyond imagination.

OH, btw, if you have a chance, go and visit the photos exhibition at the Royal park, they are taken from above for us to see the different colours, regions of the earth, and it is super cool. Warning that you might be disappointed (or you may not ;-)) by photos of Brussels/Belgium, they are completely out of place!

...sleeping under a tree after a long walk