Thang Nguyen 555

Cultures on Collision Course

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With some short-term relief work in Asia/Africa and long stint in Telecom, Thang also earned a B.A. at Pennsylvania State University. M.A. in Communication at Wheaton Graduate School, M.A. in Cross-Cultural Communication at Gordon-Conwell Seminary, Boston. In addition, he earned a CELTA – classes taken in Hanoi for cultural re-immersion.

Author: Thang Nguyen 555

  • Joy of randomness

    We move between chaos and control. For those who experience Saigon traffic, the dance takes it to another level: randomness. A tour bus made its final stop in front of a hotel. Tourists stepped down, immediately, with cameras (little did they know, traffic like this is all too common). Rain and randomness. Control and chaos, coexist. That’s just one aspect…

  • Reading Idea Man

    What would you do if you hit the PowerBall jackpot? Paul Allen, Idea Man, had several ideas: space travel, mind mapping and music. What would you do if you had no money at all? You would day-dream (travel inside your mind), visualize what you would do if  you had money (like Charlie Chaplin, leaning out of the…

  • Turn, turn

    Just as soon as it is unbearably hot, it rains. The season turns. All we are is Dust in the Wind, sings the Kansas. But before that, one more stanza. Take it to the limits. What are the chances for some friends to turn to the guy sitting next to him at a random cafe,…

  • Feminism Vietnamese way

    I have seen them in Ao Dai, on scooters. I have seen them in Ao Dai, holding child, on scooters (perhaps on the way to childcare) before work. I have seen them with child canvassing the street selling lottery tickets. Perhaps I used to be that very child my teacher mom in Ao Dai used…

  • Saigon’s nearest beach

    From Saigon, with Russian-made fast boat, you can be in Vung Tau (literally Ship Harbor) in an hour and a half. I made that trip yesterday. Poor man’s vacation. Peace-time R&R. The neighborhood used to be a hang-out place for GI’s, Australian, and every major news agents and double agents. Now the fight has moved on to…

  • This side of the curtain

    It would have been stuff taken from” The spy who came in from the cold.” For three months now, I have lived in the alley behind the local police station. My big brother would have fainted just to learn about it. He is a pharmacist, retiring, but still goes to work per diem. He was…

  • toss-up

    Theme from Mahogany has a line “so many dreams just slipped through our hands”. Then “do you know where you’re goin to, do you like the things life is showin you”. I first heard that while drifting on Wake Island  summer 75. Back then, I had one thing in mind: departure for the US. Now, the table…

  • The guitarist

    A Quoc Tri could be heard at Cafe Vuong Tron, GoVap on Sunday morning and M-evenings. Other nights, you can catch him at Cafe S, near Du Mien, in Phu Nhua District. This morning his band mate commented him on letting his hair out, and not pony-tailed. We even took an I-phone pic of him, with LOVE on black…

  • Saigon alley

    I left W Palm Beach where some called “paradise” for Saigon alley. Going from beach to bunker, I got a bump up in  the Happiness index. Costa Rica for example has led this chart for quite sometime. Vietnam, according to latest survey, ranked behind Costa Rica. In fact, having moved up on the Happiness  Index, it is de-listed…

  • My edu-tour to Vietnam

    When you are on a tourist visa, you have to keep renewing it every three months. Each stamp was like a certificate of completion of my self-education. I learned that: – my friend’s music students, blind or bright, respected and adored their dead teacher – dead people, in casket, still get his/her last chance to bow…