NyoWin

By Edison Paw

 

This quarter BAPS features the story of Benny Tan, who is one of our successful members in business. Born and raised in Burma, Benny graduated from the Rangoon Institute of Technology in 1970 and received his Master of Science degree in mechanical engineering from UC Berkeley in 1973. Mrs. Tan, better known as Angelina, attended the Rangoon Arts and Science University and the City College of San Francisco. They have two children, Tim and Tina. Tina is completing her Master's degree in Neurobiology at USC and will attend a medical school next year. Tim is currently studying at St. Mary's College in Moraga.

Benny and Angelina started out as a small business operator running a single soap and lotions wagon at the San Francisco International Airport. Initially, they kept their full time jobs, managing their business on the side. Their business soared. They sensed the opportunities that would come along with the Airport's non-stop expansion to meet the demands of the increasing air traffic from the Pacific Rim countries and the rest of the world. The next good thing that happened to Benny was the United Airlines' decision to make the San Francisco International Airport one of its three regional bases in the western region. Convinced that they would succeed, against all odds, they decided to quit their jobs and get into business full time. In retrospect, Benny said, "It was really scary to give up our comfortable salaries and go into business for ourselves." Their friends and relatives were skeptical of their plan and tried to talk them out of it. However, they had already made up their mind and went ahead with their plan. As was proved later, with their determination, courage and business acumen, the husband-and-wife team weathered through successfully and prospered in the business world.

Their hard work and perseverance over the years have allowed the Tans to branch out and add new businesses, eventually realizing the "American Dream." Since their tiny operation in 1983, the Tans have been busily acquiring more hotel gift shops and airport concessions. Benny attributed their success to new "concepts" in buying and turning around unprofitable businesses. Their specialty retail operations include a seafood gift store and a number of other stores. These businesses are conveniently located in and around the San Francisco International Airport, the Clarion Hotel, San Francisco's Union Square, the Sunset district and in other prime retail locations.

The Tan Enterprises that Benny and Angelina founded was nominated by the Chamber of Commerce consecutively in 1993 and 1994 for its prestigious "Excellence in Business" award. Also, their company was recently featured in the "Team Licensing Business Magazine."

In their spare time, they travel around or entertain their business associates, close friends and relatives in their spacious home. When she is not too busy, business savvy Angelina tends to her garden of exotic plants and flowers.

If you have a business plan, show it to Benny! He will offer you his insights for free. On behalf of BAPS, we wish Benny, his family and their retail operations the very best in all their present and future endeavors and thank Benny for his continued support in BAPS activities.

Edison Paw

Siemens Information and Communication Networks

Phone: (408) 492-6952 Fax: (408) 970-9790

EMail: Edison.Paw@ICN.Siemens.Com

 

By Henry Lim

We were on the freeway again, which, at any time, could only fit a car, and leave but a few feet to negotiate when facing an on-coming vehicle. Whenever two vehicles, usually overloaded with passengers and merchandise, came close to a point of crossing each other, one of them would have to drive with its front and rear wheels on one side hanging onto the concrete freeway and those on the other side rolling on a dirt path alongside the freeway, kicking up dust that shrouded the entire area behind the car.

At At one point, we saw a silhouette of an animal on the far horizon, and as we pulled closer and closer, the dark image of the animal got larger and larger. It turned out to be a lean, undernourished cow joyfully wagging its tail and prowling about in the middle of the freeway. As we were least inclined to get into trouble with animal lovers in Burma, we asked our cousin, the driver, not to honk at the cow, but to make a detour. By now, our cousin had already been coached by us to be a safe, passionate driver, so he slowed down the car, drove off the freeway, down onto the dirt path, around the animal and back on the freeway.

Driving on Burmese freeways, which had no guardrails, required one to be cautious and alert in order not to run over strayed cows or chickens from nearby villages. We also came away feeling that all animals in Burma, be they domestic or wild, were skin and bones. Yet they bit deep into the pocketbooks of Burmese government workers. During this trip, one senior government lawyer told me, in a whisper, that his entire monthly salary was only enough to buy six chickens. Since the prices of food in Burma have gone up considerably due to inflation, the number of chickens he could afford could have probably gone down to three a month.

Even though the weather was hot outside, we were quite comfortable inside this sedan- turned-modified truck. It had the front of a sedan and the back of a pickup truck with a roof on it. This type of vehicles is very popular in Southeast Asia because the need to install air-conditioning units inside sedans is eliminated.

One of our cousins who were accompanying us is a bit of a wag and a great storyteller; his jokes made us laugh our hearts out. Everyone in the car had the fun of their lifetime catching up with each other after a long separation of 35 years. It was the first time in many years that we really let ourselves loose, acting like a bunch of carefree, rowdy children. We felt so happy and enjoyed the trip so much that we even forgot to check the much-revered American chocolates that we brought along inside our duffel bags under our seats. Only when we arrived in my hometown Thaton four hours later and unloaded our bags, did we notice that they were completely melted by the heat inside the inconspicuous place and had become sticky, out-of-shape chocolates. Though I felt immensely sorry about giving a less-than-perfect gift to the children of my hosts, it was much of a relief for me to realize that my thoughtfulness in bringing them their favorite food across the Pacific Ocean and over half a dozen countries more than counterbalanced the ugly condition of the gift. Fortunately, one of my hosts happened to have a refrigerator in his kitchen that brought the chocolate syrup back to their solid state, yet their original shapes could not be restored. What a bummer to these innocent, playful kids who crave for things American and, in their young minds, almost always think everything from America is nice and perfect!

Traveling at a speed of about 50 miles an hour, we had covered quite a bit of distance and saw the Sittang Bridge standing approximately 800 feet before us. We slowed down and stopped our car in front of a wooden structure that served as a shelter for soldiers posted there to guard the bridge. A soldier carrying a rifle, to which a bayonet glittering in the sun was attached, was pacing up and down the dirt path near the bridge. The bridge was built for trains to cross the Sittang (Sittoung) River, not for vehicles or pedestrians to go on it. The soldier came over to our car and asked for a fee of two Kyats, which he said was imposed on all cars using this section of freeway. Apprehensive of dealing with someone heavily armed in this remote, isolated countryside, we had no desire to question his authority to collect the fee. We paid him and were handed a receipt. No sooner had we taken the receipt from the soldier, a group of four neat-looking folks carrying deep, round silver bowls came alive from where they crouched and chatted, approached us and asked for donation that they said would be used in pagoda repair. Thinking about the merit to be gained from such donations, we complied with their request, too. As we traveled further and further later, we came to realize that whenever one came close to a village, three to four people with silver bowls were a common sight along the Burmese freeways. Had we known this before we set out on this tour, we would have had kept tons of Kyats handy to buy our passage to the Mon state.

>To be continued in the next issue of this newsletter.>

By Jonathan Shu

Nowadays everyone knows that one should have an e-mail account to keep in touch with others in global networking and to stay ahead in this information age. So the question is not whether you should sign up with an e-mail provider, but with whom? Some people might even have three or four e-mail accounts, and yours truly have at least five e-mail accounts. As you know, there are tons of different internet companies offering free e-mail accounts, such as Yahoo, Excite, Lycos, Hotmail, Rocketmail, Juno and so on. All these e-mail providers brag about very similar features that you could find in each of them.

There is one company whose web-based e-mail account will blow your mind. That is http://www.collegeclub.com. As you will notice, College Club e-mail isn't just an e-mail, it is a complete voicemail system that allows you to hear your e-mails through the phone, TOLL FREE! The machine will read your e-mails and the cool thing is you don't have to read them. And it's all FREE. FREE is always good! And of course, you may probably be wondering "what is the catch?" There is absolutely no catch! Advertising income that College Club receives makes this free e-mail service possible.

Don't you hate it when you check your e-mails or your voicemails, only to find messages that were left hours (or even days) ago? Now you'll never get outdated messages again! If you have a pager, you can have College Club page you whenever you get a new e-mail! (Or whenever you get 2 new messages, or 5 - you decide!) The paging feature of College Club is actually part of the Premium Plan that the company offers, but all members get 1 month of free pager notifications (up to 150) to try out the service. But this feature doesn't really work quite well yet.

Another reason that you should sign up for this e-mail account is that you don't need to own a computer to have the College Club e-mail account. We know that not everyone owns a computer yet, but everyone understands how efficient e-mails are. My point is that this e-mail account will definitely benefit people who do not own a computer at home. At least everyone owns a phone in his/her home.

The College Club e-mail account offers a big advantage to those of you who can not live without e-mails for even a day. Let me give you an example. If you travel to New York or anywhere in the United States, you could use TOLL FREE number to call and listen to your e-mails.