Satjadham presents: The Change of Changes. By: Pao Saykao "There are two things that you can be certain about!", a friend told me recently. What are they? He replied with certainty, "Death and Changes". On this occasion, let's talk about specifically about changes. Looking back over my life, there has been some major changes that I have witness. I remember the day in Loung Khouang, a tiny Hmong village in the north of Laos that you cannot locate on any map. From there... the changes began.... One day, there was this unusual roaring noise coming from the horizon. Then one tiny dot appeared and as the noise get louder, the dot got bigger until it appeared like a big black, noisy bird over the sky with the spinning wheel over its top. As it approached the ground, it created a dust storm over the village .... I was told that was a helicopter. As the dust settled down, . The rear opened and big long guns were rolled out... and boxes of ammunition. The village whispered to each others, "We are at war!!!". Since that day, the world has not stopped. As the war widened, so more people were on constant move. I have seen births and many more deaths. One thing led to another until one day in 1975, I walked into an Electra plane in Vientiane. While the plane was taxing to the top end of the run way, I looked through the window and I could see the Vientiane terminal - trying to remember it in detail. I knew then, I could feel it so strongly that it would be my last time in Laos. Even today, that picture is still vivid in my mind. The plane taxied down the runway, passed the terminal on the right hand side, took off and made a left turn. Looking down, there was the runway, a tiny strip. Further to the right, you can see the whole city of Vientiane. It looked so peaceful down there although I know that there were gun shot and bombs exploded continuously just some 200 km north. The Mekong was a winding stream down there... Farewell, farewell to Laos. The next day, I got into a Jumbo jet in Bangkok and heading for an uncertain future in the land down under. There was only a handful of Lao - about 100. It was hard to imagine that 5 years later, our Lao population would increase by 100 times in Australia and 1000 times in other countries. I still remember the day that many Lao officials would pay many thousands to a tiny group of people - just to ensure that their sons and daughters could secure a place to study abroad. Suddenly, the dream of going abroad is no longer a dream, it was a fact of life for thousands of our people. Today, thousands of Lao families have the same opportunities and it is sad to see that many families failed to appreciate the opportunity presented to them. Education achievement among the Lao remains low. This one of the major change that I have witness. For the last twenty years later, I have called Australia home. Here I am, sitting in front of monitor and typing these messages to all my friends around the world. This is another big change. I still remember the day my parents would send messages to other villages to send any news. Then one or two person could write, so we could send news in a letter. I can still picture this: my father would called the person into our house. He would tell the man to write as he spoke as he was actually talking the receiver. The writer would scribble in detail the message and it would take weeks and months before the letter was delivered. Then one day, the tape recorder appeared. It was simply putting a tape in, press record and off you go, pouring your heart to the to recorder. But it still takes too long. Then came the telephone! It was magic that you could talk and hear at the same time. With the advance in satellite and fiberoptic, more and people are connected through the phone. But there is still something missing.... Then came the fax machine. Wow... my phone bill drooped dramatically. I thought, we have it now! But wait... there is more. What can be more? I began to hear people talking about email! What sort of creature is that? Never heard of it before..... Today, we sit here and spend hours looking at the screen, reading and answering emails from all over the world. It is part of our life. What a world that we live in. It is so fast that it took just about one minute or so to get across the ocean and arrive at your screen in the US! NO wonder, the email people call normal mail as "snail mail". But there is still some thing missing with email... What else is missing? The face to face contact. We want to see the face and be able to talk to each other. Teleconference is then next logical step. I can picture now, that over the next few months, many of us would be fishing in the middle of the lake somewhere in the world and we just open our Notebook computer with inbuilt CRRom, modem and camera. It is simply plug in your cellular mobile phone, dial the number and there you are, Kongkeo, what the hell are you doing in Cannada? And Guy, what are you doing in France? And Pan, are you having fun in Vientiane? This will be the day, I can see it. But there will be more....Things get better. One day, we would gather together at the Hilton Hotel to have dinner. As we sit in our table, facing us, there is this huge screen. As we are ready, the screen light up. Ah! Ah! How are you, San Diego guys and girls... We can chit chat as a group and enjoy a fabulous teledinner together. Who will you have dinner with next week? Yes, there are changes and they will be changes. On the personal level, every second that you breath, and ad you are reading these words, your body is changing. Don't you know that you have never stop changing since the day Mom and Dad had their bliss time together? Just imagine this: 98% of the atoms in your body were not there a year ago, you have a new set of skeleton every three months, new set of skin every month, a new stomach lining every four days, a new liver every six weeks. Each thought we have, each thing we hear, see or smell, our brain recorded by making anatomical and physically change to our brain. Even though our brain cells are considered static but they are re-model every year! So the question is what model are you now? And the bottom line question is that we are getting old all the time! Some are just taking longer than others. Another sure thing is that science and technology will continue to changes. Daniel Burrus, one of the US leading technology forecasters, has identified 20 majors new core technologies that are far-reaching, life altering innovations and inventions that has been touching our lives in many meaningful way since the mid 1980's. These technologies will shape the next decade. The list includes Genetic engineering, Advanced Biochemistry, Advanced Personal Computers, Multi-Sensory Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Parallel Processing, Digital Electronics, Lasers, Fiberoptics, Optical Data Storage, Microwaves, Advanced Satellites, Photovoltaic Cells, Micromechanics, Molecular Designing, Advanced Polymers, High-Tech Ceremics, Fiber-Reinforced Composites and Superconductors. So watch out! As technology changed and we can benefit in many ways but at the same time, we have to pay a price as well. One specific negative is in relation to employment. How all these changes have affected our job, our career?. I was reading an article few days ago in the Herald Sun newspaper in Melbourne and there is an article about job movement. There is no such thing as a "permanent position". It is simply a myth in today's world. The article continued to say that "today 1 in 4 workers will be affected by changing job as result of retrenchment, technology, re-structuring and down-sizing". The paper also gives a recent survey of workers with he question, "How long do you expect to stay in your next job?". The answers are: less than 1 year -3%; 1 to 2 years -5%; 2 to 3 years - 10%; 3 to 5 years - 23%; 5 to 10 years - 21%; 10 years or more - 9%. What about you? Bye for now and see you at the next teledinner. Who wants to host it first? Please direct all comment to soc.culture.laos or to Pao Saykao http://www.lexicon.net.au/~drpao/