Armed With Fruit Snacks and M&Ms
Posted on July 6th, 2009.Armed with fruit snacks and M&M’s, the Larson litter trekked out to the airport for the torturously long flight to Hanoi. There were maybe 8 Americans on the plane. Which reminds me that Americans are funny.
We have hot dog eating contests. Run around for meetings with black computers in our hands so that we can ignore the purpose of the meeting and send hair brained ideas out on our own. We ask questions like “you don’t have Paul Newman’s teriyaki salad dressing in Sapa?” or “I can’t get a sugar free vanilla latte with whip cream in Hanoi?”
But our friends are funny too. They’re wearing swine flu masks which the girl next to me takes off to sneeze on me. If you’re wearing a swine flu mask, either 1) you’re sick, 2) you think someone else is sick but 3) we’re all in a confined space so does it really matter since we’re all gonna die anyway? We made it. Alive. Which is why I’m writing this blog.
I’m not afraid of dying, but with the saturation of social networking sites in Vietnam – there is a lot of death around here. Next week I’ll be talking to the Hanoi Young Business Association about the death of sites like Face Viet (Vietnam’s answer to Facebook) that are trying to figure out how to turn a profit. Something Twitter is working on too.
But enough about death, let’s talk about life, which we’ll be discussing Friday at the Vietnam Bar Association meeting. Life, especially for lawyers, is about truth hunting; something lawyers are really good at as they try to find out what really happened in a case, what the Constitution really says, and who is really liable.
Life and truth is something we’re discussing with the 18 expat kids at the summer camp we’re running this week here in Hanoi. These lively kids singing songs and making crafts are from Rwanda, Thailand, Germany, the Philippines – it’s the veritable UN in that swimming pool. Without the crazy antics, albeit some yelling about who gets the floaties next…
Lawyers are always truth hunting, questioning, asking why? Someone once said “the truth shall set you free”. Truth is found in seeking, searching, and finding. Truth quests involve reading, writing, speaking, bouncing ideas off one another, and growing. Truth hunts mean sitting over a latte at Highlands Coffee in the Hanoi Towers and reflecting on what life is about, where it’s going, and why I’m here. Truth journeys are about questioning.
Belief in truth and asking the questions to get there is what gets people out of bed in the morning. It is the bedrock, the foundation, upon which people construct their lives. Whether we’re with lawyers, business people, expat kids – each day we’re seeking to understand truth. What we believe. And how we put that into practice. With fruit snacks and M&M’s to fuel the quest
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