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

  • The run-away decade

    Back in 2000, if you told Mark Zuckerberg that he would be TIME ‘s 2010 Person of the Year (once nominated Hitler and last year, Chairman of the Fed), he would probably LOL. The decade started out with a Palm Beach vote (mis) count and ended up with the BP Oil Spill. The last time…

  • Super shoppers

    Super computing power arms super shoppers on Super Saturday w/ price updates. Retail outfits such as Best Buy might have to be renamed the age of Dollar Stores. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704694004576019691769574496.html?mod=WSJ_Tech_RightMostPopular Tri Tang of Orange County was holding up his Smart Phone to do some comparison shopping in real-time. Faster chip speed (compressing more data into less…

  • A Face w/ a name

    A few years ago, TIME’s Person of the year got a face with a name. In fact, he manages to drag in a billion faces and names with him. The last time someone wearing pajamas in public yet got that much publicity was John Lennon (who invited the press into his honeymoon suite). Mark was…

  • Filter builder

    Building up our filtering capacity does not mean firming up our prejudice. But no matter what we do, we can only watch an average of 4 hours of TV and a few hours on the Web, mobile or stationary. So we rely on thought leaders. Two-step information flow. Except this time, information flow through a…

  • Where have they gone?

    Subtitle “Time to remember”. When I was in high school, the consumer society began to take shape in Vietnam: beer, cheese, cigarettes, toothpaste and vinyl music albums. Then we moved on to AKAI tape. By the time I got to the US, the first item I purchased was a portable cassette recorder (to record music…

  • Act 2

    At the gym, I couldn’t help notice two guys with Mountain-Dew T-shirt. We can still have “black swan” scenario in our life time e.g. the US rises again from the depth of deficit (muscle memory), or someday a Hispanic president will seek a M&A with Mexico (will not be the first time the US offer…

  • Time to change

    Change bears a different connotation to different people. In the 60’s, change threatened the status quo (Hell No, we won’t go). It’s inevitable that we need to adapt (from jukebox to boombox, from paper-back book to e-book).  A few years from now, we would rather be dead than getting caught carrying  a hard-back book (today’s…

  • The Bond elements

    I like Bond, James Bond. Unlike Batman, Bond shows his face, grace under pressure and yes, his penchant for “work hard play hard”. But don’t ever doubt his loyalty and commitment to serve the Queen. The franchise still commands a huge audience with formula that works: Bond got a mission, Bond got captured, and finally…

  • Vantage point

    The cut-aways (filmed after the interviewed subject had left), the backstage steady cam sneak peeks, the studio bird-eye-view shot showing anchors walk away from the set while credits roll and music fade out…. We are a society privileged with multiple vantage points , given us the illusion of omnipresence. When film and television cameras were fighting…

  • South-South emergence

    A Vietnamese film director, a Japanese novelist, a Beatles title (which I read the Vietnamese translation bought in Hanoi)= Norwegian Wood. http://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/film/norwegian-wood-film-a-labour-of-love Indian telecom companies bought out Middle Eastern counterparts to target mobile market in Africa. China beefs up its investment in construction and rare earth mining in S America, Australia and Africa. These are…