The Carnivorous Vine and the Monitor

If you think this title is corny just wait until I tell you about my dream.

It was actually a nightmare but after years of experience with terror filled visions, my unconscious is now adept at moderating nightmares and actively intervening at the right moment to achieve a PG rating rather than an R rating.

By intervening, I mean that I can, to some extent, control my dreams and lessen the horror to come. This implies that usually, I somehow know about the worst that is to come...
It's a little like a privileged preview of the dream. I sit there, watching the dream's frames flip by in fast forward motion, glimpsing the horrific climax and then I stop, rewind, take a deep breath and watch the dream at normal speed.

In an emergency, I can self-willingly fly, become invisible, shape shift, penetrate through walls, move objects through telekinesis...I'm very powerful. Through my touch, I can also pass my powers to others in order to protect them. So if I want to make you invisible, I only have to touch you and make myself invisible. When I disappear, so do you. That way, the boogie man (or something more out of the ordinary from Laura's monster catalogue) will no longer see either of us and we can be safe together. Or if I want to fly away and take you with me to escape an evil place, I can also do that by holding your hand.

The sum of all this, is that what usually threatens to be a nightmare, becomes just a dream.

So a couple of nights ago, in a potential nightmare, Laura borrowed a monitor from uni and placed it in a lab room. Who knows why I needed a monitor from uni but it's a dream and I'm sure there was a useful purpose behind it.

It was an Apple monitor by the way. Why do you think that is? I've never owned one...

It was haunted.

After placing the monitor in an empty lab room, I reached out to touch the screen (for some reason, don't ask). I then watched with great alarm as a red spidery web began to etch itself on the monitor's surface. The web spread into fine, hairlike veins and reminded me of a cracked mirror.

And that's when it happened. A leafy green vine almost five centimeters in diameter jutted out of the center of the web and began to extend and grow out of the monitor - yes, that's the Apple monitor, you haven't lost me - it continued to grow, reaching out to the four corners of the room and threatening to crash everything in its path. Think "The Fountain" when the tree of life shoots out of the conquistador and that's approximately the effect in the dream.

Except it was a carnivorous vine.

So there was a lot of carnage. The vine killed and devoured everything in its path with its many little green jaws armed with pointy little piranha teeth.

Being a lucid dreamer, I decided that I hadn't died and that I was somehow floating around the room avoiding the vine tentacles. A bit like in a computer game where you have to dodge things. I had already calculated that it was a plant and therefore needed light for photosynthesis and to grow. Whoever said that high school science was useless? It could just about save my life...

So I shut the blinds. What do you think happened? The monstrous thing was so sensitive to the absence of light that it soon retreated back inside the monitor, at a frightening rate. The red crack disappeared from the screen and everything went back to normal apart from the smashed glass doors (I forgot to mention that the lab had glass doors...) and the couple of dead people lying around the corridor outside the lab.

With my heart pounding, I decided to return this haunted monitor back to the university. Somehow, I met my current psychology tutor and returned the monitor back to her. That's where it becomes laughable. I expertly told her that she could use the monitor without any issues but that she would have to close the blinds and avoid touching the screen...

Of course initially she didn't believe me. Who the hell would. So I demonstrated. Leaving her office blinds open, I gently touched the monitor's screen until the red spidery web appeared. Then as soon as the demonic vine made its appearance, and I was satisfied that she had seen it, I quickly shut the blinds to avoid a situation. My tutor was now convinced that there was a carnivorous vine living inside her monitor. All she had to do was follow my instructions and she, along with the other people around her, would be safe.

I could do with some dream interpretation.
Now, just where is Joseph when you need him?


************************



I guess this makes me a Natural according to this article on Lucid Dreaming.

"Naturals" are Dreamers that have been lucid dreaming since before they knew what lucid dreaming was, and before they attempted to have lucid dreams.
Naturals are a lucky few, who almost qualify as an entire subculture on their own.

Did you read that? I'm one of the lucky few!!! Go me.

The Passive-Aggressive Boss and the Quest for Competent Managers

Last night I dreamt that I was working for a short, hairy, incompetent Mediterranean man with a deep insecurity complex and strong manipulative tendencies. I would classify this dream as a nightmare.

I woke up overjoyed to find myself in bed, snuggled under what I've baptised my purple marshmallow-like duvet, enveloped in a sea of aquamarine sheeting and feeling the total bliss of not working for a Passive-Aggressive controller with an insecurity complex. It was only a bad dream.

The Rundown on Passive-Aggressive Controllers

In her book, "Coping With Difficult People", Arlene Matthews Uhl describes this type of controller as "angling for control, but having learnt to do so indirectly."

This person:

1. Repeatedly promises to do things and then "forgets".
2. Continually finds seemingly plausible excuses to delay taking action.
3. Withholds important information (or sometimes money or other resources) so that you are unable to take necessary actions when you need to.
4. Evades direct questions by offering vague or ambiguous responses.
5. Sometimes sulks and plays "poor me".
6. Expends extreme effort to maintain a friendly, cooperative persona.
- Arlene Matthews Uhl, Coping With Difficult People, Penguin Group, 2007

Other tactics I have personally recognised in this type of controlling manager and which border on deception include:

1. Keeping the ball in your court to keep you responsible and feeling guilty. For example, you raise an important issue that they have failed to address, they ignore it. Then they raise a seemingly unrelated but petty issue that you need to address yourself.
2. Failing to recognise your efforts (since this only highlights their own incompetence).
3. Being only too happy to help undermine your confidence (usually by voluntary omission of supportive, positive feedback).
4. Playing you against other people. They believe they can get you to do exactly what they want through favourable/unfavourable comparisons with other people. These comparisons seem perfectly innocuous so that they can not be accused of manipulative tactics.
5. Organisational changes occur suddenly and without warning and often these changes are at odds with what you have been previously told by your manager.

The book goes on to say that dealing with this person is very frustrating. They control by saying yes when they mean no, by stonewalling or playing the victim.
They dread confrontation and are afraid of conflict so they operate covertly.
The remarkable thing is that they often leave you baffled, insecure and perhaps feeling guilty!!!

"They're exceptionally adept at gaslighting, making you feel as though you're the problem...if you buy their spin, you'll end up apologising to them."
- Dealing with Difficult People

Gaslighting is described by Uhl as the "practice of getting someone to doubt themselves, dismiss their own reactions and perhaps wonder if they're mentally unbalanced."

She also gives tips on how to deal with this type of controller. There are actually four types of controllers, would you believe, and the book identifies other problematic individuals at work including Narcissists. Her tips for dealing with the Passive-Aggressive Controllers include:

1. Remind yourself of your accomplishments.
2. Think of the positive feedback you've gotten from others in the past and the present.
3. Don't share knowledge with them. If your plans do not concur with their plans, they can make your life difficult.
- Dealing with Difficult People

The author explains that you must be especially careful what you reveal to covert controllers.

The Issue of Trust

I actually found the book frustrating to read. Granted it was highly illuminating and I would eagerly encourage it to anyone dealing with difficult work colleagues.

But take a look at point 3 in the previous paragraph. What's wrong with it?

Well to begin, I tend to think that TRUST is the foundation of a good business relationships. I am an idealist, I strongly value trust in all my relationships. I refuse to go to work feeling suspicious and being worried about sharing information. I refuse to go to work watching my back. Why should I have to watch what I say at work? Why shouldn't I be able to fully trust that a co-worker would be honest enough to give appreciation where it is due or to openly share their plans, hopes and yes, even their failures, rather than having them hide information, sweep things under the rug or making my work progress more difficult through their planned incompetence?
Why?

I gather that most people (except for psychopaths) who are difficult to work with, are primarily insecure people. Their insecurities more or less explain why they are either unsupportive, self-absorbed, pushy, competitive, covert etc... Insecurity is a trait I do not expect in a manager yet it seems as though many managers are highly insecure and make life hell for their teams.

The Competent, Self-Assured Manager

Aside from personality disorders, insecurities are at the root of many problems in personal relationships. Why should they not be the main culprits in work relationships? I personally think they are.

As I told my sister the other week: when shopping for a job, if we want to avoid nasty experiences with bosses, we should look for a competent, self-assured leader. I am sure they exist as I knew a couple of them in the past. I personally want to look for a manager or leader that I can trust.

A competent manager is more likely to be a joy to work with since they will not hinder your progress.

A competent manager is less likely to be threatened by your own competency.

They will not hide work related information from you since they do not see you as a threat.

They are more likely to be encouraging since they are not themselves insecure.

They are more likely to raise issues in the open and provide regular feedback.

They are more likely to admit their failures since they do not feel themselves diminished by mistakes.

They are not invested in making you or other people doubt themselves since it does not serve a purpose; quite the opposite, their lack of insecurity imbues them with confidence and they spread this confidence into other people.

Perhaps rather than teaching only about financial planning or marketing strategy, MBAs should encourage future managers to develop some inner strength, a degree of wisdom and to deal better with their insecurities.

I am sure many managers, especially those who are extroverted or involved in sales work, will rigidly assert that they-already-have-plenty-of-self-assurance- thank-you-very-much. But there is a large difference between feigned self-assurance and real self-assurance.

Real self-assurance is not petty, jealous, covert or negative towards others. Real self-assurance is continually grateful for others and for their help and it is not cocky about asking for help.

Real self-assurance does not pretend to know the answers but instead, is quite happy asking the questions.

Real self-assurance admits to doing wrong rather than attributing other people's feedback to having a "poor attitude".

Real self-assurance is not seeing oneself as being above others. It does not resort to so called, 'excellent knowledge of human nature' or 'psychological skills', to manipulate others....no, on the contrary: that would be called psychopathy, it is a complete absence of empathy and misuse of interpersonal skills to deceive.

My Man Wants a Bub

Well it's no secret that Jason has a soft spot for kids. Whenever we visit relatives, he is regularly assaulted by my little cousins (now 5 and 7). They cheer for him, climb on him, wrestle on his stomach, use him as a guinea pig to play UNO, Legos or Spiderman. They've called him names...let's see, like Muffin Man. That was his name for a good couple of years. But hey, he loves it!

And where do I fit in all this?
Well only about a year ago, when my auntie told her kids that they were going to visit family, one of them asked, "So...is Muffin Man coming too?"
To which my auntie replied, "Yes. He is coming."

- "Is Muffin Man's daughter coming as well???"

Muffin man's daughter, that's me. Even the kids think I looked too young to be Jason's partner. What's the world coming to?

I'm not totally useless. The most fun I have is buying clothes for their birthday. I have an addiction to the girls section in Target and KMart. I could spend hours (HOURS) mulling over little coordinated outfits in pinks, purples and reds. Oh, the Barbie summer dress is to die for!! Oh, check out the little pink cardigan...would she like a coat to go with that...or maybe the mini tartan pleated skirt with the Hello Kitty vinyl belt...etc.. etc...it's fun. I have noticed that Jason doesn't think much of shopping for kids' clothing. Well, until today that is...

Today, I met him in town to buy baby things. It's my sister in law's baby shower this Sunday, you see. So we went looking for newborn bits and pieces. And that's where Jason transformed himself into a real mother hen. His eagerness for his own little bub came surfacing dangerously in the Nursery aisles where he dispensed a litany of advice and recommendations, saying sinister things like:
"I think we should get this suit in a 0 rather than a 000, what do you think?"

He also proceeded to follow me everywhere I went and to make note of each color and size. To make matters worse, he cheered with disturbing enthusiasm everytime I suggested a particular item: "Yes! Get this! This will be so cute!"

On and on it went for a good twenty minutes. I tried to ignore him as best I could since I've always believed that when it comes to shopping for kids, no one should intrude on MY territory. But he was practically dribbling all over the Nursery section.

Muffin Man, you are nuts. But you know what? I love it.

More on China and the Olympics - Boycotting the Planet

I simply had to shame myself, at the risk of being labelled unoriginal, by featuring yet another lazy link to an external website:
Le Figaro, 21 April - Editorial by Nicolas Barré

It's in French by the way. It contains a paragraph which perfectly summarises part of what I believe vis a vis Tibet related manifestations. I hope my English translation doesn't corrupt Barré's meaning:

"No matter how sincere this pro-tibetan mobilisation is, we can observe that it is sometimes accompanied by an anti-Chinese dimension which is not unlike the anti-Japanese animosity of the 70s and 80s. Under the white flag of great principles and human rights discourses, there often hides, here and there, a certain resentment towards a country, which similarly to Japan 20 to 30 years ago, perturbs the world's equilibrium, notably in economic terms: this mobilisation is often stronger when it is fueled by the fear of the 'made in China'. Cloaked in the noble argument of our so called 'universal values' there often exists the stench of racism which lies at the antipodes of those principles that we pretend to incarnate."

So true!

I believe that the entire world is replete with breaches in human rights.
Lucky Draw: Israel's blatant use of white phosphorus to bomb Lebanon in 2006.

To zero in on a single country's infringement of human rights while ignoring all other cases that spring up in the rest of the world, is either a sign of ignorance, moral panic, hypocrisy, economic motivation or racism.

Tran Sy Ich

Born in Gia-Dinh (Saigon) in 1743, Tran Sy was Tran Vy's fifth son. He was only four years old when he and his parents regained the village where his ancestral home was located.

Early Struggles

At nine, he began to attend school. In his youth he possessed a sickly nature which proved ruinous to the quality of his studies. He was given the name "Ich" by one of his uncles. One day, this same uncle took him aside to encourage him. He said:

"Everything that belongs to your father, belongs to you; ensure that it prospers such that it becomes as useful to you as possible."

Following this interview and after conscientious efforts in an exam, Sy Ich had to come to terms with the fact that as of yet, he had not completed a single action to honor his parents. This tormented him deeply.

As a result, Sy Ich further concentrated himself on his studies. He became especially attuned to the older generation from which he would acquire precious knowledge that he hoped to pass on to his children and he abandoned himself wholly to the study of literature.

Adult Life

When he reached working age, his efforts were rewarded. He found a job as an administrator for the imperial court and obtained the court title "Noi-Han".

Tran Sy Ich shared his life with three women and they gave him a total of 13 children:

Cao Chung Truong (1752 - 1785) was First wife. She had 6 children including 4 boys and 2 girls.

Tran Thai-Duat (1752 - 1823) was Second wife. She had 1 boy.

Tong Xuan-Qui (1758 - 1819) was his concubine. She gave birth to 6 children including 3 boys and 3 girls.

Consequences of the Tay Son Uprising

The Dai-Viet had since been ruled by the Nguyen lords in the South (based in Hue) and the Trinh lords in the North (based in Hanoi) who controlled the figure head emperor. But in 1770, the Tay Son brothers namely Nguyen Nhac, Nguyen Lu and Nguyen Hue, led a political rebellion against the Nguyen army. This was called the Tay Son rebellion.

During those times, my ancestors were from the mandarin class. As such they would probably have been known as corrupt and oppressive. To what degree they were corrupt, if at all, I will never know. But given the rife corruption in the imperial court, it was essentially for the peasant cause that the Tay Son brothers led their revolt.

In 1778 after having defeated the Nguyen army and murdered the entire Nguyen family except for Nguyen Anh, who escaped, the Tay Son brothers were then locked into battle against the Trinh lords in the North and then later, against the Manchu army from China who had come to restore the figure head Vietnamese emperor.

It was following the Manchu defeat, when the youngest of the Tay Son brothers, Nguyen Le, proclaimed himself emperor of unified Vietnam under the name Quang-Trung, that my ancestor, Sy Ich, refused to serve the usurper and promptly gave his resignation to the court. He was not the only intellectual who refused to serve Quang-Trung.



Nevertheless, there were some interesting changes to arise from Quang-Trung's reign.

The new Emperor distributed land to the poor peasants, encouraged the artisans that had been suppressed, allowed religious freedom, re-opened Vietnam to international trade and abolished Chinese as the official language of the nation. The new official language was Vietnamese written in the script called Chữ nôm.
- Wikipedia, Tay Son Dynasty

I wonder how my ancestors, who probably prided themselves in their Chinese literacy, would have taken the official language change.

When Quang-Trung died, his young successor was quickly toppled by the legitimate Nguyen heir, Nguyen Anh. He became the very Confucian orthodox emperor, Gia Long (1762 - 1820).

At this point, my ancestors, being the Confucians they were, would have breathed a sigh of deep relief. And so in 1802, when Gia Long ascended the throne, Tran Sy Ich proudly regained his post in service to the court.

Honor Your Parents

Sy Ich eventually did honor his parents.

To begin, the excellent quality of his court service, his honesty and his charitable manner were highly praised by all the Lords and souveraigns that he served in his lifetime.

In his spare time, Sy Ich pursued his father's Gia Pha and wrote several biographies.

When he died in 1814, he was given the cult name On-Muc Tran Sy-Ich.

And later, when emperor Tu Duc was in the 32 year of his reign, he conferred Sy Ich with the posthumous title of:

Gia-Nghi Dai-Phu Thiem-Su-Phu Thiem-Su

Similarly, his first wife, Cao Chung Truong, was accorded the posthumous title of:

Chanh Tam-Pham Thuc-Nhan


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Tran Vy

It is to Tran Vy that my family owes much of the research and integration of the first elements constituting the Tran "Gia Pha".

Over 2000 years ago, imperial edicts in Vietnam required that local administrators establish family registries in which they recorded all names, marriages, births and deaths within a family. Known as gia pha (family history), such registries have their origin in ancient China and are found elsewhere in Asia, including Japan. [..] Family registries are more common in the northern and central parts of the country.
- Insight Guides, Vietnam, APA Publications

Early Life

After the death of his two older brothers, Don Tinh Tran Than (1699 - 1758) and Nguyen Luan Tran Tiem (1703 - 1751) together with their descendants, Man Truc became the head of the family. He became responsible for ensuring the continuation of the family lineage and for presiding over the ancestral cult.

Man Truc was actually only a three months old foetus when his father, Tran Ton died of cholera in 1714. He lived with his mother until the age of 8 until one of his paternal uncles adopted him and sent him to school. He was such a poor student that even his older brother took note of his poor aptitude for studies.

I find this last note interesting considering it betrays the relative importance that the Tran family placed on education and intellectual prowess. It also implies that Man Truc along with his brothers were expected to fill their father's shoes and become equally apt scholars.

Would Man Truc succeed in overcoming his initial childhood lapses to fulfill family expectations? Read on.

Coastal Merchant

Man Truc did what many people do to escape self-fulfilling prophecies. He changed his environment, away from negative pressure. At 17 years old, he decided to leave his family and go far away...by way of the ocean to the south of the Dai-Viet, in Gia-Dinh (Saigon).



In Gia-Dinh, Man Truc began a commercial enterprise. After saving enough capital, he invested in the construction of junks which in turn, were critical to the operation of his commercial activities.

I assume, based on what is to follow in this fairy tale account, that like his great uncle, Tran Hong, Man Truc was also well versed in traditional medicine.

I also assume that at this stage, he took the name Tran Vy. This is the name that the account uses from now on.

The Healer and the Crow

One day, a crow with a shell inside its beak came to land on the prow of one of Tran Vy's junks which were moored along the port. Seeing this, Tran Vy tried to shoo the bird away. According to Vietnamese scholar Huu Ngoc, in Vietnam, crows herald a bad omen and are symbols of evil. But in China, the crow is the bird of the sun and brings light on earth.¹

Keen to protect himself and his business against any bad omens, Tran Vy tried all he could to persuade the bird to fly off. But all his efforts were futile: the bird remained perched obstinately on the junk. It would not budge.

So our ancestor decided to lead a small enquiry and soon discovered that the bird in question belonged to an old woman. This woman suffered from a affliction that none of the doctors she had consulted so far, had been able to treat. In time, she had learnt that the junk owner, Tran Vy enjoyed a certain reputation as a healer. And so she had found no better means to attract his attention than to send her crow. This was how the dark bird had come to perch itself on one of Tran Vy's junks.

Her stratagem succeeded. Tran Vy was soon persuaded to visit the old woman and to administer a medical treatment. The medication that he prescribed turned out so efficient that the old lady soon regained her health. To thank him for his attentive care, she gave her daughter, Trinh Thuan Cung Nhan, in marriage.

Tran Vy's 19 Children

In the course of his life, Tran Vy shared his life with four women comprising two wives and two concubines.

His first wife, Trinh Thuan Cung Nhan (1719 - 1757) who he married in Gia Dinh, gave him 9 children including 7 boys and 2 girls.

His second wife, Duong Thi Nhu-Nhan (1737 - 1770) produced 4 children including 2 boys and 2 girls.

His first concubine, Thi Nho-Nhuan (1743 - 1801) produced 5 children including 3 boys and 2 girls.

And finally, his second concubine, Le Thi Nhu, gave birth to 1 boy.

I suppose that Tran Vy must have been very wealthy in order to be able to afford this many women. I wonder whether the high male count among Tran Vy's children was natural or if it was brought upon by female infanticide or foeticide as a result of the preference for male heirs in this family's patriarchal culture. This I will never know.

Return Home

At 26, some time after marrying his first wife and having already had several children, the successful merchant Tran Vy, confident in the sense that he had now fulfilled, if not surpassed, family expectations and perhaps longing to regain his roots, finally returned home to his natal village.

Tran Vy lived until the old age of 80. Much of his spare time was employed in the research and compilation of the Tran Gia Pha.

When Tu Duc (1829 - 1883), often regarded as the last independent emperor of Vietnam, was in the 32 year of his reign he gave Tran Vy the posthumous title of:

"Trung-Thuan Dai Phu Han-Lam-Vien Thi-Doc Hoc-Sy"

At the same time, Tran Vy's first wife was given the title:

"Thanh Tu Phan Cung Nhan"


¹Huu Ngoc, As the Crow Flies, So Does its Meaning, Vietnam News - The National English Language Daily, Jul 2004.


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