Three weeks to go until my GRE, and I barely studied. Take this past weekend for example. I flew down to Orange County to attend the much-anticipated Vietnamese Professionals Society Benefit Gala 2005. Proceeds from this gala went to VietACT, the newly-formed non-profit organization that combats human-trafficking of Vietnamese people, primarily in Taiwan.
It’s truly sad and a tragedy that human trafficking occurs today so easily with so many governmental institutions turning a blind-eye to this growing problem. Father Hung, who flew from Taiwan to report on his work in offering shelter for these Vietnamese women and the legal and public awareness fight that he is taking on in Taiwan.
When I went to Vietnam in 2001 to teach English in the extremely poor and rural areas, I made friends with an English teacher at a local high school who told me about her intention to sell herself as a Vietnamese bride to Taiwan. Imagine that, a local high school teacher not earning enough money, struggling to keep her sick parents alive, willing to sell herself to Taiwan, because a good life and money is promised to her and her family. Little does she know that only 3-4% of these people in Taiwan are actually happy, and that the rest are brutally abused, mistreated, raped, psychologically traumatized and denied of any legal, medical or emotional services. My friend and I literally had to talk her out of that decision.
The gala was a huge success. Much kudos goes to the VPS Southern California chapter which has worked very hard on this event for the past year, and I am excited to see that quite a lot of money has been fundraised. Another event, another slideshow, but with my little time that I had these past weeks, I only managed to put together a decent slideshow: http://www.thsv.org/download/2005/VietACT/VietACT_Human_Trafficking_Small.wmv
VPS Gala 2004, photo courtesy of Minh Chau
Pictures: http://minhchau.smugmug.com/gallery/872435
VietBao article: http://www.vietbao.com/main.asp?nid=91535&catgid=5
On Sunday, after hanging out with UVSA friends for most of the morning (and studying for the GRE for barely 45 minutes) I went out with Helen to go to the Walt Disney Concert Hall to attend a Beethoven string quartet concert. Ahh… the moment we’ve all been waiting for. It has always been my dream to attend a concert at the new world-renowned Disney Hall, and both Helen and I truly love orchestral music. This was my first pure-classical concert though, as all my previous concerts have been film music-only in nature, and I must admit that classical music is a bit harder for me to embrace due to its abstract and non-thematic unpredictability.
LA's Walt Disney Concert Hall, photo courtesy of someone else
Nevertheless, Disney Hall is an amazing concert venue. There is a reason why some people say that the acoustics at Disney Hall is "too perfect" because you can hear every audience member’s cough, sniffing or even the artists’ breathing. The acoustic was amazingly clear. Add to that Frank Gehry’s signature-use of shiny, non-perpendicular metal for Disney Hall’s architecture, a view to downtown Los Angeles from the terrace with its glimmering lights, followed by a late-night congee dinner in Chinatown with a wonderful companion and you have an amazing downtown-experience.
Next dream up: attend a concert at Disney Hall with a full orchestra and getting into the school-of-my-choice, but wait…. how many weeks I do have left to study for the GRE? Yikes!