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

  • Stay hungry, stay foolish, keep Searching

    In his 2005 Standford commencement address, Steve Jobs ended with ” Stay hungry. Stay foolish”. Today, we should add “keep searching”. After Google, Bing and Yahoo and Blekko, which promised to keep out spam. Wild Wild West.  More content, more classification, increasing need for trusted recommendation. Part of the reason Facebook is where it is…

  • Halloween in Vietnam? A redundancy

    Young people are out in drove, that is, if they were not already on bikes, racing like mad on weekend nights. This time around, in costume. Halloween costume. In Vietnam, of all places. First, the masks trickled in at tourist and expat hot spots. Then, wider adoption is made possible by cheaper goods from next…

  • All things equal, take attitude

    IT engineers are back in demand. A few years ago, it was the opposite. Labor surplus creates serious contest on “Who wants to be an employee”. All things being equal, I take attitude ( one executive told me, all things equal, he takes the one with the best communication skill –  who could express him/herself…

  • Forced leisure

    MSNBC  interviews a blogger from Good magazine on automation nation. The take away: automation is moving beyond manufacturing sector (e.g. Google test drove an unmanned vehicle in California, or Italian researchers tested a driver-less van, from Italy to China) to service sectors, such as health care . Japan has been deep into robotic technology, a national policy…

  • The bookmark of time

    Recently I ran into a childhood friend, member of the band.  Almost 40 years in between. It were as if I found a cartoon book, with a bookmark which landed me right where we had left off. We could have been like two kids again, with passion for music and all things jr high. He…

  • Rare Earth beats

    If you want to set the tone for the whole day, pop in Rare Earth collection which opens with a 22-minute long Get Ready followed by I Just Want to Celebrate. The name has nothing to do with current dispute between China and Japan for those planned-scarcity elements. Get ready to celebrate. Dream, dream, dream.…

  • Telcom’s waste in Vietnam

    From beepers to printers, from pay phones to city-phones, Vietnam was in a hurry to leapfrog to latest in Telecommunication. After all, there are a lot of territories to be covered, even now, with 3-G. But some attempts stick, others faltered according to an article in Labor newspaper. http://www.bernama.com.my/bernama/v5/newsworld.php?id=538113 It stated that some rural households…

  • Our VHS future

    Beta was more superior. Yet VHS won out. The market (in this case, movies on tape) dictates the terms. At the present time, it wants all things mobile. In other words, our knowledge and skill set need an upgrade (But I thought technologically, Beta gave crisper resolution!?!! Sorry Sony.) While on tour for his book…

  • Third life

    As recent as 60 years ago, a businessman could let his hair down (or hat off) at home, smoke a cigarette or pipe, and watch the news (in black and white). In fact, at the U of TX Austin museum, an exhibition is underway to show you just that: witness to a century. Now, we…

  • Unaffected Halloween

    My 8-year-old decided to dress up as Bat Girl this year. And I remind myself to get ample supplies of candies for Halloween. Something doesn’t change, despite the ups and downs of the global economy (Toys R Us has plans to expand seasonal hiring) e.g. autumn foliage, kids’ innocence and holiday jingles. It’s still “a…