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

  • Numbers game

    At any time of the day in Saigon, you might be approached by street vendors selling lottery tickets, snacks. Even Buddhist monks hold a donation box but with fixed gaze in Zen steps i.e. barefooted on hot concrete. Self-punishment. I respect the monks. Their self-control , from strict diet to dress code. Life evolves around 8-fold…

  • Unlikely place

    Ugliness and evil exist in unlikely places. So are beauty and goodness. A vulnerable butterfly dancing in rush-hour traffic, an innocent child on the way home from periodic check-ups. Life offers us not an a-la-cart menu, but a buffet. Fill up not with french fries and jello. Yet at the same time, eat not in…

  • Humble dreams

    Here at UVT, students wear chef uniforms to school. Dressed up for the part. They are to finish their last leg in Hospitality and Tourism at one of the Australian Universities. Humble dreams, yet tangible outcomes. I respect young people who knew what they want to be when they grow up/old. At their age, my family…

  • Rock Rage

    Rage, rebellion and Rock seem to fit together. Gone were Happy Days and the Mamas & Pappas. As soon as we got color television, it were as if innocence had vanished along with the Black- and- White TV sets. Rage against the machine. Against materialism and modernity. Against the wind (symbolically speaking). Rock, or stone, needs to roll. Rolling Stone.…

  • Brain Fiber

    My cholesterol test result was just in. The coast is clear! Two eggs please. I have eaten oatmeal for five years. Fiber here, fiber there. Can’t go near real food, like Soul Food (fried chicken and french fries). Here at UVT, culinary students serve their practiced meals: ordering, preparing, serving and collecting the cash. Long way from…

  • Saigon Skyline

    Like a scene from Cinema Paradiso (when the film producer returned to his village just to find out his beloved movie house demolished for a parking lot) I too start seeing the skyline of Saigon rising, blocking the old bank where my sister used to work. Another one is being planned next to cho Ben Thanh…

  • Lingering

    When honey moon is over, people are faced with bills, kids crawl and cry, temptation to compare with alternate spousal choices. My Dad went through that struggle. I have gone through the same. Lingering legacy. Unintended consequences. The result: my half-sister and me. What to do and what to say. Same chromosome, but with a slightly different cut of…

  • Stress and songs

    The audience sang along, occasionally to the shared mike. We will we will rock you. Tonight gonna be a good good night. Even Top of the World which was a relic from the 70’s. A night at Acoustic, Saigon. A night to release the stress. A night to see Rock rules in a whole new generation. The…

  • Strong in broken places

    I see strength in broken places every day. In people peddling lottery tickets, in pedicab drivers, in xe-om and  conical-hat ladies. They move about under the shadow of high rises here in Saigon. Broken limb and broken dream. Yet I see strength in their struggle. I see resilience where there should have none. Death is in no…

  • Strange shores

    I reward myself with strong coffee after my morning exercise. It had been a month before I found out that Cam Ly, a Vietnamese famous singer – with her signature song “Bo Ben La’ (strange shores) live in the house next to the alley where I had my coffee. Strange shores, strange circumstances. When in…