Transforming contemporary Vietnam

For anyone interested in Vietnam, check out this article about young Vietnamese who were brought up abroad as a result of the war and are now returning home as managers of hip bars and nightclubs, owners of art galleries and fashion boutiques and executives at architecture and film-production companies.

A great article - written by my friend Emma-Kate for the Wall Street Journal.

Trist og nostalgisk

Faa forfattere har gitt meg så gode leseropplevelser som Anne Cath. Vestly. Det er trist å lese at hun nå er borte, men hun vil alltid leve gjennom sine fantastiske bøker. Min niese kommer hvertfall til å få maaange Vestly-bøker av tante om noen år! Mormor og de åtte ungene, Ole Alexander Filibom-bom-bom, Erle og Guro, knerten og alle de andre...

Recommended restaurant in Hanoi

KOTO Restaurant 'Good food for a great cause'

KOTO on Van Mieu
59 Van Mieu Street, (opposite the Temple of Literature)
Dong Da District, Hanoi, Vietnam
Tel (84 4) 747 0337 or (84 4) 747 0338

If you ever find yourself in Hanoi, I'd like to recommend a wonderful restaurant: KOTO.

The concept of KOTO began on the streets of Hanoi in 1996 when an Australian Vietnamese man, Mr Jimmy Pham, asked a group of street kids what they wanted out of life. They simply replied, "we need skills so we can find stable jobs" and so the concept of KOTO was born, providing training and education to kids and youth with disadvantaged backgrounds. After their education many of the young staff are invited to work in top hotels and restaurants in Hanoi and the program so far has a 100% placement rate of its students.

I had lunch in KOTO today and can highly recommend it - both the food and the atmosphere is wonderful, and you are supporting a very good cause by having your meal here.

Sosial kapital på godt og vondt

Aftenposten skriver i dag om grupper som gjør deg god eller grusom. Mye sosialkapital her, og en advarsel til europeere og nordmenn som jeg gladelig skriver under på. La oss inkludere folkens!

Pixels are like cupcakes

I have just bought a new camera - a REAL DSLR, the Canon EOS450! Very exciting...

So now I'm trying to learn as much as I can about photography. This article from the NYT is pretty interesting.

I've signed up for a beginners class next week so when I've figured out how it all works I may even post some photos here. MAYBE.

Ikke overbevist

Hvis DETTE er et null-stjerners hotel, har jeg ligget på en del hotell opp gjennom tidene som må ha en god del minus-stjerner... Jeg nevner i fleng: seng som faller sammen under deg midt på natten, øgler som sitter fast i myggnettingen, laken fullt av gule flekker (understreker viktigheten av silkesoveposen nevnt i forrige post..), gedigne edderkopper, ikke rennende vann, tette toaletter uten vann, tonnevis av mygg midt i malariahelvete, madrass i badekar (en av favorittene), måtte dele seng - ikke bare rom, men SENG, med ukjent tysk dame fordi alle rom på trygge hoteller er opptatt (IKKE en av favorittene). Jeg kunne holdt på i timevis....

For all the insomniacs out there...

Believe it or not, the pillow spray (I tried the lavendel one) really helps! Particularly recommended for those who travel and have to spend time in "hotels" with less-than-fresh linens (and of course, the silk sleeping-bag is another must for that..)

Sleep tight!

Dear United States, Welcome to the Third World!

From the LA Times...


Dear United States, Welcome to the Third World!

It's not every day that a superpower makes a bid to transform itself into a Third World nation, and we here at the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund want to be among the first to welcome you to the community of states in desperate need of international economic assistance. As you spiral into a catastrophic financial meltdown, we are delighted to respond to your Treasury Department's request that we undertake a joint stability assessment of your financial sector. In these turbulent times, we can provide services ranging from subsidized loans to expert advisors willing to perform an emergency overhaul of your entire government.

As you know, some outside intervention in your economy is overdue. Last week -- even before Wall Street's latest collapse -- 13 former finance ministers convened at the University of Virginia and agreed that you must fix your "broken financial system." Australia's Peter Costello noted that lately you've been "exporting instability" in world markets, and Yashwant Sinha, former finance minister of India, concluded, "The time has come. The U.S. should accept some monitoring by the IMF."

We hope you won't feel embarrassed as we assess the stability of your economy and suggest needed changes. Remember, many other countries have been in your shoes. We've bailed out the economies of Argentina, Brazil, Indonesia and South Korea. But whether our work is in Sudan, Bangladesh or now the United States, our experts are committed to intervening in national economies with care and sensitivity.

We thus want to acknowledge the progress you have made in your evolution from economic superpower to economic basket case. Normally, such a process might take 100 years or more. With your oscillation between free-market extremism and nationalization of private companies, however, you have successfully achieved, in a few short years, many of the key hallmarks of Third World economies.

Your policies of irresponsible government deregulation in critical sectors allowed you to rapidly develop an energy crisis, a housing crisis, a credit crisis and a financial market crisis, all at once, and accompanied (and partly caused) by impressive levels of corruption and speculation. Meanwhile, those of your political leaders charged with oversight were either napping or in bed with corporate lobbyists.

Take John McCain, your Republican presidential nominee, whose senior staff includes half a dozen prominent former lobbyists. As he recently put it, "I was chairman of the [Senate] Commerce Committee that oversights every part of the economy." No question about it: Your leaders' failure to notice the damage done by irresponsible deregulation was indeed an oversight of epic proportions.

Now you are facing the consequences. Income inequality has increased, as the rich have gotten windfalls while the middle class has seen incomes stagnate. Fewer and fewer of your citizens have access to affordable housing, healthcare or security in retirement. Even life expectancy has dropped. And when your economic woes went from chronic to acute, you responded -- like so many Third World states have -- with an extensive program of nationalizing private companies and assets. Your mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are now state owned and controlled, and this week your reinsurance giant AIG was effectively nationalized, with the Federal Reserve Board seizing an 80% equity stake in the flailing company.

Some might deride this as socialism. But desperate times call for desperate measures.

Admittedly, your transition to Third World status is far from over, and it won't be painless. At first, for instance, you may find it hard to get used to the shantytowns that will replace the exurban sprawl of McMansions that helped fuel the real estate speculation bubble. But in time, such shantytowns will simply become part of the landscape. Similarly, as unemployment rates continue to rise, you will initially struggle to find a use for the expanding pool of angry, jobless young men. But you will gradually realize that you can recruit them to fight in a ceaseless round of armed conflicts, a solution that has been utilized by many other Third World states before you. Indeed, with your wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, you are off to an excellent start.

Perhaps this letter comes as a surprise to you, and you feel you're not fully ready to join the Third World. Don't let this feeling concern you. Though you may never have realized it, you've been preparing for this moment for years.

A very good laugh

Hilarious!

Tip for your next trip to NYC

Why pay full price when you don't have to? It's lottery time!

Another good article

OK, it probably seems like I'm having an extreme anti-Palin day today
(which I kind of have every day)
But all these articles and links have been going around for days
so thought I would share here

Very funny

Katie Couric and Sarah Palin on SNL

She doesn't care about polar bears either....

Sarah Palin on polar bears, oil and climate change...

Stadig noe nytt

Lurer på hvem som først oppdaget dette....

Donate rice... and learn something at the same time

Check it out!

Small world

You know the world is small when

you enjoy your Saturday night at a bar in Bangkok

and suddenly two of your friends walk in

Another book

I shouldn't mention books without including Ben's! I've read it and it's a great account of Ben's travels in Jordan and the Middle East just after we finished graduate school in 2002. What have I been doing with my life while all these people wrote great books?!?! Oh yeah that's right, barhopping...

Who Is a Terrorist

Check out (and buy...!) my friend Anjum Ibrahim's new book!

I'm a bit proud that I helped her decide on the cover : )

Min type veskebikkje

Haha, synes denne var festlig! Kul butikk og: www.vips.no

What's next?

Last year our house help had chickens living in our laundry room

Yesterday when I came home from work I peaked out in the backyard and see a little rabbit peacefully eating his lettuce - the newest dinner investment of our house help I later found out

What's next - a cow grazing in the garden? Salmon in the swimming pool?

I'm back....

In memory
Originally uploaded by cholmemo.

After a looong absence from this blog I thought it was about time to reappear. New year, new opportunities as they say and hopefully 2008 will provide some opportunities to make some of my 2007 plans reality... I.e. no new resolutions this year, only hoping that 2008 will be a better year than 2007 was. Even if I didn't get to do half of what I planned to, I think I have learned a lot about both the joys and difficulties life can bring and I plan to take those lessons and all loving memories with me in the future. I wish all my friends a great 2008, hope to see many of you in Manila, Oslo or other parts of the world soon!