TADIOTO

and happy to revive this website. 

I’ve been back to the US three times since moving to Ha Noi and have neglected this website.  

It’s been great to be at the San Francisco Int’l Asian Am Film Fest (back in March) – and see kind friends there, in Los Angeles a few weeks before, and on my recent trip, in Seattle.  I also was able to be at the fabulous wedding of yogis and photographers Aaroon Deemer and Mimi Kuo in Beijing, and see some wonderful art shows too, including Forged Realities – curated by Pauline Yao who left San Francisco to do research of the art scene in China.  She and the super-talented and super laid-back Rania Ho and their friend Wei Weng have great projects in China with “The Contractors , a multi-media installation that probes the fantasy life of building contractors.”  Check them out on my links area. 

One night, Rania, her husband Wang Wei, and parents graciously hosted a terrific BBQ at their cool apartment.  I walked home at midnight through some of the old hutong’s.  Having had a few beers, I thought things looked great in the dark.  

None of the photos I took turned out so great. 

Back in Ha Noi, I remember again how popular this city is: I’ve had many visitors from Seattle, San Francisco, Phnom Penh, Los Angeles, New York, Paris, London, Beijing… journalists, writers, art collectors, etc.  Ravi Chandra, San Francisco psychiatrist, Asian American Film Fest’s top fan, is arriving soon, having gone through retreats in India and Thailand, and now in Cambodia. 

I continue to be involved with Pacific Time and will go to Hong Kong in a couple of weeks, so will report from there. 

Meanwhile, the heat in Ha Noi has kept me mostly sitting inside my fridge, but I will occasionally emerge at 5 am when the beer cans are all empty and update this site.  Actually, as I write this, it is raining and it’s so nice to have all your windows and doors open while it rains: this is Asia. 

Annoyed-in-Ha Noi item # 421: even at 4 a.m., I can’t record a piece for Pacific Time without motorcycle engines and karaoke singing and dogs barking in the background.  Apparently there’s a bird here that has learned to sound like a motorcycle.