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

  • Honor roll

    I attended a power breakfast this morning. Neither Presidential nor Congressional. Only elementary honor students and designated parents. Something about “the magic”. New Report System (Most improved etc… as opposed to traditional A,B,C grading). I am proud of my daughter. She exhibits all the traits of an up and coming Asian student (the model minority).…

  • WME

    Weapons of Mass Education. 21st century Sputnik moment America and China in a dual struggle to win the future over Robotic Intelligence. I have yet seen PR pictures showing any President read a book or Kindle. At least Clinton was honest in admitting that he read some fiction for pleasure. (He has written a preface…

  • Never let them go!

    B3, CVA Black and White. Grainy. Shirts and Skins. Friends from junior-high , whom I shared the ping-pong tables and school canteen. We sat through civic lessons, English lessons, Math tests and Lab tests. The photo must have been taken at one of those off-site PE classes. I learned about honor, honesty and history; the…

  • Any distance

    Vietnamese has a saying “Tha Phuong Cau Thuc” which means, go any distance for a job. I did that a few years back, with English Teaching certification in Hanoi, and real classroom hours in the South. On the way back to the US, I ran into some young Vietnamese in transit airport, presumably on their way out…

  • Companies as Curators

    Future companies will exist for only one reason: to be curators of all that is out there and to let their fan base know about them (Amazon). To be selective is to prejudge, a priori. And to prejudge, as social animals, we rely on our subconscious. As David Brooks puts it, “it’ s a loop”. Before…

  • the dot connector

    I am referring to Dr Rustum Roy of Penn State whom I met almost 4 decades ago. I knew then just as I know now that he was ahead of his time. He pushed for integrated studies in Science, Technology and Society. He showed up at a demo of  hologram which is now being worked…

  • Never let go

    14 Vietnamese women were found and freed from Baby101, a Taiwanese outfit operated outside of the law in Thailand. They were paid to be surrogate mothers (artificial insemination or otherwise), whose future babies would be put up for adoption. Baby, never let me go. Newsweek has a piece about anonymousUS.org, an organization which seeks to organize…

  • The trilogy and the tragedy

    Back in September of 2008, the first of the Trilogy (Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) provided us with a perfect literary escape: exotic, foreign yet so close to home. She managed to play with fire and rose from the grave to finally “kick the hornet’s nest”. What a catharsis! You look at the two columns,…

  • Korean’s Blair-Witch budget

    http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2011/0202/South-Korean-film-director-debuts-his-latest-big-screen-tool-the-iPhone 33-min film, using I-Phone in place of Steady Cam. Viewers said they couldn’t tell the difference. All digital. The smallest camera back in the late 60’s was the 8-mm video cam. ENG crew used TK-76 with battery pack and tape deck as accessories. With the light on top, you talk about hauling more than…

  • Predictors of things to come

    People in Northern Vietnam scrambled  inside a purportedly sacred Temple after Lunar New Year to seek favor from the gods. Last year, in Cambodia, a similar occasion resulted in stampede and hundreds of deaths on the bridge. In seeking grace, they found their graves. Our bio-tech century offers different versions for health and happiness. We…