Posted May 5, 2012 at 10:18am
#13. Understand that happiness is not based on possessions, power, prestige, but on relationships with people you love and respect.
Amen.
Flight 9 / April 17, 2012
CHRISTINE NGO / Risk taker, traveler
Ultimately, all you really have in life are your experiences and relationships. Appreciate each moment, each bite, each sunset, each connection.
Website adventuregeek.tumblr.com / Twitter @gochristinengo
Flight Route New York (JFK) —> Hong Kong (HKG) —> Singapore (SIN) —> Bali (DPS) —> Kuala Lumpur (KUL) —> Siem Reap (REP) —> Bangkok (BKK) —> Chiang Mai (CNX)
Airline Delta, AirAsia, Tiger Airways, THAI, Bangkok Airways
When I announced that I was launching Take Flight at the tail end of 2011, Christine Ngo sent me a tweet telling me about a trip that had just changed her life. Soon enough, we set up some time to talk and it wasn’t long before it was clear that Christine’s experiences involved a lot more than jumping on a plane, and delved deep to the roots of her upbringing. Her family had traumatically left Vietnam during the war in the 1970s to arrive in the US with little more than their battle scars and a strong work ethic to start a small business.
Christine told me that “growing up in a family trying to carve a piece of their American Dream little by little each day taught me the true meaning of a dollar, of sacrifice, and of family. So I worked my ass off all throughout school, got the straight As and valedictorian medal, and earned a degree in finance at one of the top undergraduate business schools in the country.” It wasn’t long before she secured a lucrative finance job and the life that many dream of.
But it was this life and work that led Christine to question it. She mentioned to me that it was while stuck in a bumper-to-bumper traffic jam that she had her ‘a-ha’ moment, while listening to the famous Steve Jobs Stanford University commencement speech. So she swiftly took action, quit her job, and bought a ticket to Southeast Asia for a three-month trip.
She spent time experiencing some of the most brilliant sunsets, befriending and being humbled by locals, and working on sustainable development projects in northern Thailand.
Christine now lives and works in San Francisco, California, where she’s known to go for runs along Ocean Beach, have breakfast with her grandmother, and delve into a world of entrepreneurship, startups and leading an inspired life.
Taking flight, in Christine’s own words
One of my biggest regrets in college was not studying abroad for fear of foresaking future job security. I had always wanted to explore Southeast Asia so after I quit my job, I left on a flight to Hong Kong with no set itinerary, just two nights booked at a guy’s apartment through Airbnb, an open mind, and warm heart.Even though I had left a very comfortable life back home, it was navigating this unknown period in my life that allowed me to appreciate each day for what it was. I felt more alive these three months than I have in the past three years. And it all started with that flight.Hopping around from one adventure to the next meant that a lot of my time was spent in transit. A lot of my soul searching and moments of introspection occurred up in the air, where I had the time to reflect on the string of my experiences and background that had led up to that point in time. A lot of that introspection naturally gravitated towards my family and their story. Being in Southeast Asia was the first time I really saw what grit and poverty looked like first hand. This made me think about my family’s journey from Vietnam and why they had pushed me so much growing up to be successful because they had left a volatile and downright dangerous war-torn area where destitute poverty was a harsh reality of life for millions of people.When my family came to the US, they had all of their former successes stripped away from them. For my family, rebuilding success meant a college education for the new generation, high-paying jobs, and life security. My family rebuilt their lives from nothing and turned out quite alright and it’s with this context that I realized that I could define my own version of success.After coming back from Asia and realizing that I had always wanted to live in San Francisco, I had an “if not now, then when?” kind of moment and I booked my last one way ticket to the beautiful city of San Francisco. I feel alive knowing that I can wake up in a city that caters to my passions of social entrepreneurship, food and fitness, and adventure. The hardest part of my journey was just finding the guts to take action to get myself out of an unhappy situation.
For me, success is measured by the willingness to do something that absolutely scares the shit out of you, the depth and substance of my relationships, and consistently doing something you really want to do each day. I realized that everyday of your life is a choice. Happiness is a choice. Each day, you can choose to wake up where you want to be and you can choose to be happy.
I can’t wait for what’s next, but for now I’m enjoying each day and each moment.
Inspired by Christine’s flight? Spread your sharing wings on Twitter!
ALSO: Take Flight is now twice-weekly on Tuesdays and Thursdays
You’ll find a whole spectrum of San Francisco riding the muni. On any given ride, you could be sitting next to a Chinese grandmother carrying red plastic bags filled with groceries, the cracked out homeless man muttering prophecies, the urban mom with perfect highlights showcasing her baby in her pouch, or two little boys whispering secrets to each other while playing peekaboo with a delicate, yet prized transfer ticket.
Whether it’s coffee, video games, adventure travel, the internet, inspirational art, screen printing or styling others… whatever it is that you truly love and get excited about can become what you do every day. Think about it. Imagine it. Start small. Keep going.
Exploring the Thai Countryside
Sawatee-ka! So apparently a lot has happened back home. While the east coast was battling mother nature, the global economy self-imploding, and the Redskins rocking a 2-0 start to the NFL season (HTTR), I’ve been living in Thailand! A week before flying out to cavort around Asia, I stumbled upon the website for Warm Heart Worldwide, a grassroots community development NGO in Phrao, a town I’d never heard of located in the Northern Thai countryside. Even though I already had my plane tickets booked, my gut told me to apply to volunteer and extend my trip by a couple of months. And that’s exactly what I did. As someone who needs to around the hustle and bustle of a city, I had no idea what the hell to expect.
Located 96 km from Chiang Mai, Phrao is a small market town with a population of about 55,000 spread out over a vast and tranquil expanse of small villages, rice paddies, and mountains. The town of Phrao itself consists of maybe four or five streets that house a central market, one traffic light, and two air-conditioned 24-hour 7-elevens, where we take recreational laps inside whenever it gets too damn hot, which is almost everyday. My morning routine involves slathering on copious amounts of bug repellent and picking out an outfit that covers my shoulders and knees as wearing shorts and a tank top here is grounds for being mistaken as a prostitute. I’ve gotten used to the ants that crawl all over me all the freaking time, shamelessly rock a killer peace sign for pictures, and inherently append “ka” to the end of most of my thoughts and sentences, even for the English ones. Embarassing-ka!
Despite the lack of comfortable amenities like flush toilets, ant-free food, and a liberal dress code policy that I’ve so taken for granted back home, I’ve had one of the most refreshing experiences of my life living here. Gone is my gym membership as my exercise here involves yoga sessions in our living room or at the local hospital, where Evelind, one of the founders of Warm Heart, offers free lessons to the nurses in an office turned makeshift studio. Instead of running on a treadmill reading headlines on CNN, I weave along the rice paddies that so beautifully line the countryside thinking about anything and everything. I’ve swapped a crawling rush hour commute to a cubicle back home for a 10 minute motorbike ride to the Warm Heart office, where I work in the volunteer command center, an open air room that houses a ping pong table turned communal desk.
Fellow badass volunteers Witt, Divya, Diane, and Hannah.
My work at Warm Heart focuses on its microenterprise project, which involves the production and sale of high quality, locally crafted, and sustainable products such as organic silk scarves and accessories made from ricebags. These projects provide income to the Phrao community at all stages of the production process—from growing and harvesting silkworms to employing local weaving cooperatives to produce the scarves. I’m responsible for finding cost-effective ways to export these products to international markets. A major component of my work involves outreach to other Thai NGOs to research current export options and shipping channels with hopes of streamlining methods to reduce exorbitantly high shipping costs that confront so many other smaller, non-profit organizations such as Warm Heart. Language barriers, bureaucracy, and the slower pace of life (which usually translates to the slower pace of productivity) so prevalent in Thai culture make this task challenging and frustrating, but at the end of the day, my goal is to just do as much as I can to lay the groundwork to develop a long-term and sustainable export strategy. Everyone who works and volunteers at Warm Heart is a character and quirky in their own ways and has their own ambitious/lost/nomadic/uplifting/f*cked up/inspirational backstories.
Most of my favorite experiences here have taken place outside of the office. No day is routine. On my first day on the job, I spent the morning at the funerals of three local men who died in their 40s and 50s due to alcohol-related illnesses, which are only one of the major health issues that plague this town. Later that afternoon, I toured the Warm Heart training center and picked silkworms to place in little compartments, where they’re left for a week to spin silk cocoons. Later on, the larvae are extracted from each cocoon to be boiled, fried, and consumed by the local community. Apparently fried silkworms taste like french fries.
Some days I have a family style dinner on the kitchen floor at the Children’s Home, where 24 kids and teens who come from poverty-stricken ethnic minority hilltribe villages live and get an education. They’re so incredibly cute, rambunctious, and disciplined, as they’ve established their own self-regulating disciplinary system based on seniority. And like American kids, they love Lady Gaga, Harry Potter, and Justin Bieber.
Adventure days are my favorite. After day two of learning how to ride an old school motorbike, we ended up biking up a mountain to explore the Huay Paplu Waterfall, a gorgeous and secluded natural waterfall you get to by crossing a few streams and hiking through a short, but peaceful trail through the Thai jungle. It was completely undisturbed and the perfect introduction to the natural attractions that surround Phrao.
Another extraordinary spot is a place we dub the “batcave temple”, which has exactly those two things. There’s a giant reclining Buddha and ancient batcave home to thousands of bats inside. You can’t get any more rustic than this with the air reeking of bat guana and thousand-year old Buddhist scriptures etched on the cave walls.
On one Sunday afternoon at Coffee Green, Phrao’s best coffee shop we frequent every single day, the hardworking owners P’Nut and Auy closed up shop early to take us to explore Dara Dalay Organic Farm. On the way there, we drove by a military tank surrounded by soldiers with machine guns cocked and propped against their sides as they were searching the fields for Burmese drug smugglers. Once we got to the farm, the 70+ year old owner was so friendly and welcoming as he gave us a tour through the farm’s orchards, gardens, and homestay accomodations.
In Northern Thailand, you’re surrounded by hundreds of Lanna style wats (Buddhist temples unique to this area), which are like the Starbucks of religious structures. They’re all beautiful in their own right, but at some point, it gets to the point where I’m wat’d out. Once in a while though, you come to a wat that’s just exceptionally breathtaking. Sitting on a mountaintop, Wat Phrathat Wiangchai Monkol is a magical wat that has a stunning view of the valleys of the countryside and the mountains. Whenever we visit, the monks graciously greets us with water and trinkets and thank us for visiting as we’re usually the only ones there. Each time I go, I stand there mesmerized by the view while hearing only the sounds of the wind and the ringing of the bells and I just feel so blessed to be alive.
Traveling on steroids during my first month in Southeast Asia was an action-packed and adventurous journey, but the trade-off was that I could only experience a watered down, highlight pages of a travel book kind of cultural experience. I’ve experienced Thailand as a tourist this summer, but after being on the road for so long, it’s been a welcome change to feel settled in Phrao, at least for the time being.
At the home of Coffee Green owners, P’Nut and Auy’s, grandparents.
At the heart of exploring the real Thailand is interacting with the people of this community who are just as exceptional as the beauty that surrounds this area. Most of the people I’ve befriended here barely get by each day to support themselves and their families. Though they may lack sufficient income or higher education, they’re rich with kindness and jai dee, my favorite Thai saying, which literally means “good heart.” I’ve met so many kind and friendly people here who have inspired me to live a life embracing the essence of jai dee each and everyday, which is probably the most valuable gift I can bring back home.
For those of you fortunate to travel to or live in Thailand, what have you taken away from your experience here? For those planning to go to Thailand in the future, what would you like to get out of it?
A tourist experiences disconnected sights and sounds and enjoys them without drawing meaning. A traveler roams the earth, digests what he sees and hears, and collects them in a framework of understanding, which he both brings to his travels and deepens with travels. The former is a pleasant interlude in your life. The latter is about life itself.
— George Friedman
A day in the life. I pinch myself everyday knowing that there’s no other place I’d rather be than right here, right now.
Tree Posing in Phrao.
Evelind, one of the founders of Warm Heart, teaching a yoga class to the local hospital staff. You don’t need a fancy studio or lululemon gear to rock a killer tree pose. Namaste!
