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

  • Unintended use

    Charlie Chaplin uses lamp post for support, ladder for weapon and shoes for breakfast. When it comes to everyday use of common objects, there is no end. Here is my Top Ten: – shopping cart as walker – golf cart as janitorial vehicle – hand dryer as hair dryer – food freezer as mortuary (Libya) – ammunition…

  • Faustian bargain

    Most of us don’t face life-and-death decision everyday (gaining the world but losing our soul). Leave that to Caligula or Gaddafi. Yet, a less wealthy Syrian, whose background had been oblivious even to himself, still got some press. Steve Jobs can still sell some books. Like you, I was curious. So I browsed his biography. One snippet about Steve: he…

  • Faith in humanity

    A graduate of Penn State, I related well to the scenes from the Deer Hunter, set in an industrial town of Pennsylvanian. Smokestacks on the slope, familiar faces and friends and the “Welcome Home” sign for returning soldiers from a distant war. But unlike other wars before and since, this one was controversial.  It showed when the main character,…

  • The more the merrier

    Next week, we welcome Earth’s 7 Billionth baby into our human family. When I was born, relatives came to the hospital to visit (as commonly observed even today, in Vietnam). B/W photos were taken and sent up North for our extended families to “take notes”. The more the merrier. Nobody cared who Malthus was. If you…

  • Voice & Video

    Via camera phone, satellite uplink and YouTube upload, we got pictures and sound of the upheaval in Libya up to the minute. The golden gun (its now-deceased owner must have watched James Bond’s Gold Finger), the Club Car and female bodyguards. When I was growing up, we were cooped up inside the house (curfew) while news of…

  • Sand bag Body bag

    A Thai monk needs to lay more sandbags to stem the flow of water, while Libyan fighters can now lay down their guns since the Colonel was finally in the bag, body bag. One country exports rice, the other oil. Back in 1997, Thailand’s rising real estate bubble nearly took down neighboring Asian Tigers with it. This time, its rising waters will surely drive…

  • Let them visit

    In “Imagined in America“, Friedman reminded us that 30 years ago, Hong Kong used to be a manufacturing colony. Today its economy consists of 97-percent service, with a booming tourism industry (mostly visited by Mainland Chinese). The second point was, America too can become a tourist Mecca that lures 300 million cash-hording middle-class Chinese. Already we saw the influx…

  • Screen and Self

    Long ago, we lived in the oral culture. Orators would speak for hours on end. Now we communicate in short bursts and sound bites (injected with acronyms, see OPP blog). In between, we had enjoyed the print culture, the Morse code, radio, film and TV , before we got to the Internet with  SMS,  touch-screen and voice-activation. I was…

  • OPP (other people’s problems)

    We live in a world full of acronyms e.g. PPO, OPM (Other People’s Money), SOP, CDO, COD etc.. In big companies, Customer Service reps just get through their day, throwing around acronyms to feel they are on the inside, without thinking about “touchpoints” (problems as opportunities to upsell). My cable acted up two days ago.  The…

  • Clothes and costumes

    Just about now, we start thinking Halloween costumes. We have tried on cotton, polyester, paper, fur, animal skin (leather) and raw meat. At work, the dress code has changed as well since IBM went “soft” (ware). Gone are the blue suit, white shirt and red tie. Who wants to upstage their CEO’s at Facebook, Google, and…