translation-for-abhishekpawar

[translation-for-abhishekpawar]

Hello hello my dear Abhishek,

Hahaha I just wrote briefly in Vietnamese so it took me quite a time to write this down in English... I don't this is a note anymore. It's a documentary...

1/ DAY 24th APRIL - IS THIS THE RIGHT CHOICE TO BE HERE?

🏍️ In the morning, I went to the bus station by motorbike taxi. And the taxi driver asks me where I was heading to so I told him honestly like yaaa I went for meditation in a pagoda, which is I think a wrong move. He kept giving me lessons about life, how to stay calm and focus and stuff we argued a bit lol, I finally shut up so that he wouldn't talk any more thing. Finally because of too much lecturing, he dropped me at the wrong location, then nice enough to picked me back and dropped me at the right place. His face looked pissed =))) While on bus I was thinking of my opened expensive whipping cream at home, hoping it wouldn't get spoiled when I got home again.

🚐 In the evening, I reached the place by bus. I called you before got gathered at the hall to listen about some rules. I saw an old peer at my oil painting class too. She has disappeared for 3 years at least. We decide to meet after 10 days of meditation. Then people at the pagoda gave us something to eat. I was so shocked babe...

🍚 My friends told me the food is good here. But the first meal, there were only bland rice / rice noodle, raw vegetable and some soy sauce... I was slow so I only got little... A nun saw us being hungry so she gave us some more instant noodles. I was kinda disappointed haha. Is this kind of a test or sth?

😫 Someone also had the same pair of slippers like me and I almost lost them =))) I was like oh god "Is this the right choice to be here?"

☸️ We met the oldest nun there and she got a soft but very powerful voice, very straight-forward also. She was around 60 but she seemed like in her 40-50s. She also warned us not to leave in the middle of the process. It would mess up with our mental states. "This is like a mind operation" she said like that.

☸️ We learned about the first technique that day, in which we stay focus in an area between our nose and mouth and feel the breath going in and out. We also learned the definition of Sìla, Samàdhi, Pannà. Hence, I tried keep myself with the morality/rules (Sìla) to achieve 2 other things later.

😭 But in anyway, I really missed you in that day babe. I cried a lot. It hurt so much, all of my doubts and insecurities came up a lot. I couldn't get my mind focus.

☸️ Ah the oldest nun (teacher) chants very well. It's like singing for me.

🚿 Someone locked the water in our block and we were not supposed to talk and also I couldn't find the supporter too so I couldn't take the shower that day. I even had to carried rain water in the bucket to flush the toilet. oh nooo rreally...

💤 I struggled to sleep that night. I was anxious, and I was not used to this sleeping schedule, and the insects in the forest were TOO LOUD. I went peeing 3 times at night. So much of tear came out also.

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 However, interestingly, when I closed my eyes, I didn't see you, I saw gỏi cuốn (a rice paper roll with shrimp and meat), and my brother came back to Vietnam and ate dinner with me, mom and dad.

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2/ DAY 25th APRIL - MESSY THOUGHTS GOING AROUND

🍜 The breakfast was much betterrrrrrrrr! I ate macaroni soup and drank some bean milk. It tasted so good, not so much of spice but it's the sweetness of long time cooked vegetable. Interestingly there is a curry leaf in the soup too...?!?

🍚 We ate nice lunch too, it was rice, vegetable and some kind of savoury food made of tofu and some fruit and some sweet bean desert too, as I remembered and and a dead worm too... purely organic food I think.

🍋‍🟩 I don't eat the dinner as they suggested not to. So I only drink salty lime water.

☸️ So we meditate 10h that day. We tried to focus on breath so that we can settle our mind, not letting wandering around. There were 2 cases either my mind wandered around or I felt asleep.

📱 That day I missed you so much so I texted you to tell you that I wouldn't open the phone till the last day... I went against the rule (Sìla) once. And then I took out the gummy bear candies and ate so I went against it twice... really ashamed of myself. At this day, I wasn't able to settle mind, my mind kept having bad thoughts so it was so bad, depressing.

👻 In that day, my mental state was not well to be honest. I didn't turn off the light to sleep because. I felt scared haha. Actually even our teacher can expect this, she asked if anyone had bad mental state and scared of ghosts, please tell with supporter to help as during the process it will be messy. She said many people like watching ghost movies so they just saw ghosts as their mind consumed so much of those creepy movies.

👻 I'm one of them, I like crime series... so I woke up in the middle of the night that day, with the light on saw, a head with messy arrangement of eyes, nose, and mouth hanging on the divider... I was kinda freaked out but still close my eyes and continue sleeping lol.

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3/ DAY 26th APRIL - THINGS GETTING BETTER

☸️ I was able to settle my mind well this day. I also realized that our teacher chants in the pace of slow breathing, that's why I felt so peaceful when she chanted at the end of the day. There were sometimes my mind wandered around, and in those moment, I saw you did bad things and I told you off and criticised you, made you feel bad, and won the argument. My mind was bad lol.

☸️ We learned the second technique today too. The body scan I told you in the message on Whatsapp.

🩸 I also got period.

🍚 Food in day 3 was so good as usually. The bean paste was so gooddddd. I didn't sign up for light meal at dinner but the girl sit in front of see my mouth was watering so she shared of the bao bun with me. So nice!

⛈️ It rained so heavily that night. I opened the full door for fresh air...

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4/ DAY 27th APRIL - RED DOTS BUT SOME CONTROL AND REALIZATION

🦟 And I got at least 90 super red dots of mosquito biting all over my exposed skin. At first I just realized at 2 hands. We didn't have mirror here (not to distract ourselves lol). But luckily I brought my little mirror, and saw that I got around 14-15 newly bitten red dots on my face...

☸️ Today, I focused better and was able to use 2 technique flexibly. When I was body scan and lose focus, I did the 1st technique and get my mind settled again. Sometimes I scanned not with the right other just like how i am doing things in life.

🍚 Food was still good and not even repeating. Using the same ingredients and leftovers but it was so good in terms of freshness, neat and logical and even creative sometimes. The food were not giving me extreme excitement like meat and sweet treat but it was just enough good and sustainable. I gave me peace actually when eating. A little of waiting and expecting happened in me when meal time was coming everyday lol.

🩸 I brought enough pads for my periods but I was kinda overthinking and bought more pad. I was not allowed to talk to the supporters so I have to wrote to them to buy the pads. They didn't deliver right away so I was scared if I was asking for too much.

💤 Good news was... somebody moved in to my room. Still there was a divider, but hearing someone breathing near me makes me feel safer to sleep. I slept ok that night!

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5/ DAY 28th APRIL - GOOD DAY PASSING BY

🩸 Nice, finally they delivered the extra pads for me, put in on my seat in the kitchen room with a cute note and wishes...

🩸 But their pads have holes because of the termites...

🌄 I had good food. I also discovered a new place to see the sunset with trees and purple flowers and really want to make connection with ppl in the pagoda lol. Hmm there was a girl who was so chill and also shared the place with me. I really wanted to say hello but we had to keep our mouth shut so ye. Good bye lol.

🥹 No more crying but I wondered if you got a new girlfriend just yet.

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6, 7/ DAY 29th, 30th APRIL - ITCHINESS VS GETTING PISSED...

☸️ I didn't feel hurt even when sitting anymore. But instead I feel kinda itchy lol. And the day I was most itchy was the day I got pissed with beautiful girls who used the same toilet with me. Yaaa they didn't throw away the trash bag and showed shit in front of my face lol. I was changing the bag myself and got mad and shook my head while doing it. One of the girls seemed to notice... then I calm down and thought of when they tidied the bathroom for me... Interestingly, I felt horny on that day too. Thinking of you all the time in those 2 days... I masturbate at day 30th and I really felt ashamed of myself for doing it in the pagoda. I also dreamt of finding soft sweet ice cream cone at night lol.

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8/ DAY 1st MAY - A LITTLE CALMER

☸️ I was able to sit still today although I still felt hurt and itchy sometimes but I didn't react to it constantly. I just scanned pass it and let it go... My teacher said if we meditate long enough we will be able to be sensitive and delicate but the point is we have to have to ability to let the sensation go. Try to practice it =))) or else we will be easily to get pissed and fight with ppl. When we meditates, mostly there are bad thoughts, only a few are good or random, the thoughts come up can be classified into 3 types: greed, envy and delusion or doubt. So being awake meanings we can keep the mind stays still on the breath or scanning not letting going away with unreal thoughts.

💖 I thought it through today and let the feeling of owning you go. I feel happy to have you and let's try to solve this all together. Even if you got someone new, I think I also have enough strength to stand still and hope the best happen to you. As long as we are getting better, together or not together is not the point. I love you babe.

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9, 10/ DAY 2nd, 3rd MAY - MISSING HOME & YEARNING FOR CONNECTION

🏡 Lol, I miss you and home so much, I lost focus more frequently... and also I stalked people or tried to help them lol. I think I needed to talk and exchange information...

💤 I slept very well in the last 2 days anyway. Still I dreamt of finding a hamburger too and dreamt of my parents also.

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11/ DAY 4th, 5th - SOCIALIZING, CLEANING AND GO HOME

🧹So tired of cleaning haha. I cleaned multiple toilets and washed and hung around 200 hundreds of each types of blankets, bed sheets, bed mesh, pillow covers. We do it together but on the day 5th, only around 5, 7 people are doing lol. It was an extreme of work.

👩‍🦰 I also talked to the girl in the same room with me. When we talked she told me that she got her eyes on women too and noticed some beautiful people. She got a husband at home already so I think she is not gay hahahaha. The urge to connect to people is too real. And yes I can admit we like to look at women more than men. Men looked all the same, women they got style.

☺️ 2 of us then went out with 2 other peers to visit my artist friend and her no-longer girlfriend at their place. Actually the house was made from another artist. He let them live for free for awhile because of my friend financial status right now. That was a unique house with a crescent windows, red roof, white wall. I felt like I stayed in Greece lol. They served us dried food and lotus seed. I had a great time talking with new people.

👩‍🦰 There was a peer, she was a worker at Samsung and later on she owned a leather shop. She worked so hard in helping things at the pagoda and liked to help people too. She said she loved her job at the factory and also her leather job too. I was impressed. That girl seemed smart and self-aware too.

👩‍🦲 I also talked with another girl who wanted to be a nun there. Really interesting talk, she was too excited to be a nun that all of us doubted her intention. We were afraid if it was only the effect of the meditation class or not. This was her 2nd class. But she told us she already arranged things at home so she seemed pretty serious...

🥰 Because the bus missed me in the morning, I did more chores in the pagoda. I went home in the afternoon with 3 other nuns and pagoda supporter by 13:00 bus... I felt so tired but really glad that I was finally home and being able to talk to you again, babe.

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P/S: ah I also lost my toothbrush there, but it was lame so I didnt mention haha

Writing all this, I realize I overthink too muchhhhhhhhhh. Thank you for bearing with me babe hahaha. I know I am hard to please.

[translation-for-abhishekpawar]

City Ambition (How is Saigon different from Hanoi?)

I. The concept of “City Ambition” was first introduced to me through Paul Graham’s article “Cities and Ambitions”. In that article, Paul had 2 main ideas:

First: Every “cool” city in the world has an ambition Ambition is a value that most people living there value and strive to achieve.

- New York is money

- Washington DC is power

- Los Angeles is fame

- Boston is knowledge…

With my experience, I can feel that Hanoi’s ambition is stability, while Saigon’s is development and creativity (which will be clarified in the following part of the article).

According to Paul, because admiration is a zero-sum game, each city tends to focus on only one type of ambition.

Paul’s example is that being a startup founder in San Francisco may seem cool, but in New York, you’ll feel like a second-class citizen, because here, first-class citizens are the heads of investment funds. In DC, being a billionaire with money is cool, but first-class citizens are politicians.

Live in a city long enough, and you’ll get a sense of the city’s ambition, through the people you meet, the events you attend, the conversations you “overhear.”

So it’s

II.

Second: If you want to pursue a value, live in a city with that ambition

A city’s ambition is like an undercurrent. If you care about work-life balance but live in a bustling place like Saigon, you have to “swim upstream” a lot. You’ll have to try to find friends who are as anti-hustle as you are. You’ll have to try to ignore company culture and peer pressure, etc.

So, Paul Graham's advice is that if you know for sure what value you want to pursue or what kind of work you want to do, go there and live. It's always easier to swim downstream.

Choose the right city, meet the right network, more opportunities will come to you.

III.

How important is choosing the right city?

Do you need to be in a creative city to do creative work? Do you need to be in a financial capital to do financial work? Do you need to be in the center of science to do research work?

Paul's answer, which I agree with, is DEPENDS :))

- There are jobs that you MUST be in that city, in that network, to be able to do. But this number is not too many.

- There are also jobs that you only need a few good colleagues.

If you are in a creative city, but do not hang out with people pursuing creativity, it is worthless.

The city you live in is an important flow. The network you play with is the people who swim with you. But your skills are still the most important. Opportunities come from networks or cities that you don't have the skills to grasp, no matter how strong the flow with teammates is, you won't be able to go too far.

For me, the fastest and most effective way to hone skills is not to lock yourself in a closed room to "practice", but to work, exchange, and cooperate with the best people. And in my experience, the best people in a field often gather in the "coolest" cities.

San Francisco has the best software engineers, Paris has the best chefs, Cambridge (Massachusetts) has the best scientists...

The most ideal condition to develop the above skills is to live in the same city, and live with the network of the best people.

IV.

What about working online?

HOWEVER, with the development of working online, many people (like my father) will say: "If you work online, why bother going anywhere? Wherever is ‘comfortable’ is fine.”

Yes, if the value you are pursuing is “comfortable”.

However, if the value you are pursuing is to build big, long-term careers, then you have a higher chance of doing this if you live in cities where many people have built such careers.

If I had still lived in Hanoi, I would not have been able to build a relationship with my mentor as deep as I do now. I also would not have met other founders and creators from the North who moved to Saigon to start a business - people who have become my very good friends because we share the ambition of “developing”.

An ambition so big that we are willing to leave behind the easy life with our families, to move to a new city, more expensive, but with more opportunities and like-minded friends.

A video call can solve work problems, but cannot replace the time to meet in person.

100% of the relationships I've built in the past year have been through eating out, karaoke, traveling, not 1 or 2 video calls.

My team at OPEN can work effectively online for a year, but to really get close to each other, we still need offline co-working sessions, or 1-2 company trips a year.

It's no coincidence that San Francisco has the best software engineers.

Good people want to be around other good people. Because they're close, they can easily help each other become better. And that attracts other good people. A loop.

Living in the same city with people who are good at what you are interested in is, for me, important for career development.

V.

How is Saigon's ambition different from Hanoi's ambition?

To answer this question, I think personal experience is not enough. So I will cite a very high-quality report from the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) - the PAPI 2023 report on "Vietnam's provincial governance and public administration performance index".

There are a few very interesting points I want to point out in the migration situation section of PAPI 2023:

- Saigon is the hottest migration destination in the country (far surpassing Hanoi - top 2). The remaining 3 names in the top 5 are: 3 - Da Nang, 4 - Can Tho, and 5 - Lam Dong (aka Da Lat).

- The two main reasons people want to move to Saigon are better jobs (35.1%) and family reunification (35.4%).

- Compared to Hanoi, the top reason for migration is family reunification (accounting for nearly 50%) and only 20.7% want to migrate to Hanoi for work.

From a personal perspective, the conversations I have with my friends (from secondary and high school) living in Hanoi are always related to marriage, starting a family, and "entering the payroll". But with that same group of friends, living in Saigon, the conversations will be related to the next steps of work and career.

I understand that the group of "Northerners moving to the South" is already a very special group, but when zooming out and looking at the numbers in the national report, I boldly put forward the first hypothesis:

Hypothesis #1: Hanoi's ambition is family and stability. Saigon's ambition is to get rich and develop.

Hypothesis #2: Da Nang and Da Lat's ambition is lifestyle.

- Unlike Hanoi and Saigon, the remaining 3 cities in the top 5 all have "Better natural environment" in the top 1, 2 reasons for migration. Notably, 70% of those who want to migrate to Lam Dong and 38.8% to Da Nang chose "better natural environment" as the top reason.

- "More interesting lifestyle" is the top 2 reasons for migration for both Lam Dong (10%) and Da Nang (18.1%).

From my short-term travel and work experience in Da Nang and Da Lat, I am quite confident in this hypothesis. No matter how tired I am after a day of work, getting up to go swimming in the sea or watching the mountains and forests helps me feel more calm.

I have also considered moving to Da Nang to live there because I like the sea air, but when I sit down and think about my ambitions at this stage, I feel that Da Nang is not suitable for long-term living. I still crave hustle and meet hustlers in Saigon more than I crave going to the beach every day in Da Nang.

If Saigon had a beach or mountains near the city, it would be the best. But this cannot be changed.

BUT if Da Nang attracts more hustlers and founders in the coming years, I believe Da Nang will become a VERY INTERESTING place in Vietnam - a city with both economy and nature 😀

VI.

Saigon's ambition is ambition

This is a comment in one of my articles, answering the question "What is Saigon's ambition?":

Saigon's "Ambition" is "Ambition" (more ambitious). Many young people come to Saigon as a place to nurture their ambitions: more famous, richer, more successful....and then become more ambitious.

I have an interesting idea that most ambitious young people come to Saigon and then stay in the distant future, because maybe Saigon helps them nurture other bigger ambitions and then stick with it more closely.”

“Saigon’s ambition is ambition.”

This answer is very similar to the ending of Paul Graham’s article: “In most ambitious kids, ambition seems to precede anything specific to be ambitious about. They know they want to do something great. They just haven’t decided yet whether they’re going to be a rock star or a brain surgeon.”

VII.

The special thing about Saigon

From my experience after 1 year of living and working in Saigon, I see that the biggest difference between this city and other cities in Vietnam is diversity and respect for diversity.

People living in Saigon come from all over the world, doing all kinds of jobs. I believe that every big city has the desire to get rich and develop, so it is not "exclusively distributed" in Saigon. But compared to Hanoi, I FEEL more comfortable living here.

My aunt and uncle have lived here for a long time and are also very comfortable. A dish is served, you can dip it in whatever you want, eat it however you want. It makes me happy.

I FEEL that Hanoi has a lot of energy to evaluate :)) Saigon has 2 flows that I feel: The first flow is ambition as Emma commented. The ambition to be richer, more famous, something more… This flow fuels the bustling lifestyle of Saigon that everyone can feel.

The second flow, which only migrants to Saigon from the North and Central regions can feel, is the flow of freedom and comfort.

What I find most enjoyable in Saigon is the free energy of this flow, no matter what you do, no one will judge you 🙂 Perhaps, Saigon's aspiration is freedom. And everyone has their own way to achieve their freedom, so everyone respects each other.

Ambition - The ambition of a city, perhaps simply the FEELING that a city gives you - free and open or reserved, doing better or playing better, being safer or being more innovative...

This feeling is brought about by many factors - history, culture, economy, politics, who is there, and who is/will be there...

The more I write, think, and discuss this topic, the more I believe that with a city of tens of millions of people, who you hang out with is more important than where you live.

But who you hang out with is not as important as whether you are steadfast in your values.

VIII.

Personal Values vs Common Sense

“Every society, every city has problems. There are common sense (norms) that we can compromise, but there are values that you have to choose for yourself, and be steadfast in your choices. You can't let anyone, any city, or any society sway you." - Morrie, "Tuesdays with Morrie"

I believe that every important decision should come from within. In the topic of where you should live, the first question to answer is what are your ambitions and values?

When you choose your ambitions and values, whether to swim upstream or downstream, who to swim with, you will no longer be afraid of losing yourself. Because you know where you want to swim.

1. Choose your ambitions or values - the destination.

2. Choose a city - the flow.

3. Choose a network - people to swim with.

Of course, choosing the right flow, finding people to swim with you, you will swim much further.

What is the ambition you want to pursue? Is the city you live in, the group of people you hang out with pushing you downstream towards that ambition? Or are you swimming upstream?

Let's discuss

(translate from Akwaaba, Tùng)

10 PROVINCE THAT HAS MOST PPL WANT TO MOVE TO (in VN)