From: hylam@soda.berkeley.edu (Hy TrUoNg LaM)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.vietnamese
Subject: [trueStory]: The Cups of Life. Part 2
Date: 11 Apr 1992 09:23:03 GMT
Organization: U.C. Berkeley, CS Undergraduate Association
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: soda.berkeley.edu

Dear Readers,

I am not a story writer but shamelessly I wrote one anyway.
I hope you enjoy it.
--------------------------------------------------------------
[Part 2, a continuation of part 1]

Chapter 3:

I returned to the United States with my empty cup; but I was happy.  Many
sleepless nights I stayed awake thinking very hard to find a way to mend the 
broken cups and to cover the hole at the bottom of their cups.
------------------

Chapter 4:

The more I tried to find solutions to a problem, the more I found...
more problems.  Each of the problems I thought I solved, many more multiplied!
That is only one problem of many problems in Vietnam.  If there's only one
solution to one problem... No problem.  But if one problem multiplies into
many problems, then !?!#*!@^!.  Worse yet, it's not multiple but factorial!

The problem is that the hole is at the bottom of the cup.  
Only if the hole is somewhere half way around the cup then at least they could 
use the bottom half to contain water.  The reality is, it's at the bottom;
Can't go lower than that.

So, I thought of 3 ways to solve the problem.

First solution:

I could ignore the holes and keep on pouring water into their
cups at a very very fast rate.  With patience and determination and love for
my family and relatives, in time, I hope I will fill up the cups.
I was tired and didn't want to think any more so I sighed a relief 
and smiled, satisfied.  However, my smile of satisfaction soon disappeared
when I suddenly realized that it wouldn't work, period.  Why, below the big
cups there are smaller cups, with holes!  And below the smaller cups there 
are, or there will be more smaller cups...  Now, if I pour my water into the
first cup, the water will leak out of the bottom hole and go into the second
ones below.  The second ones, in turn, leak into the third... and the third,
into the fourth and so on and on.  "How many generations will this sort of 
pouring and leaking, last?", I asked myself.  Surely some day I will "create" m
more cups of my own in the United States (?) and I wonder if my 
children-cups will be willing to supply their water to their cousin-cups 
back home!  I don't know.

GIVE a man a fish and he'll eat for the day.
TEACH a man how to fish and he'll eat for the rest of his life!

Oh, by the way, did I mention about this BIG UGLY GIANT CUP that has a BIG
hole at the bottom also?  Yup, that's the one.  Unfortunately, all other cups
are NOT below but inside this big cup.  When this big cup leaks, water won't
go into the small cups because none were below it.  Worse yet, there is
something very scary about this cup.  It has a BIG spoon which constantly dips
water from all other cups.

Anyway, there goes my 1st solution, into emptiness.  Here comes my second one.

Second solution:

Cover the holes first.  Then, pour in the water.  Sounds easy but...

Oops!  Gotta take my niece and nephew to the fair!  It's at Laney College,
in Oakland.  Sorry.


(To be continued...)

-Hy