Thang Nguyen 555

Cultures on Collision Course

Author: Thang Nguyen 555

  • I was crunching, when the PA system announced “free pizza at Planet Fitness, 1st Monday of the month”. Might as well. Indulge.  After all, it says “No judgment zone.”  Get fat, get fit. Carrot and then Stick. In a blog I recently subscribed to, I found : ” the extent that we help fulfill other…

  • http://www.ukti.gov.uk/de_de/uktihome/pressRelease/117708.html?null Among the top findings from an UK investment survey (Economist Survey Unit – above), Vietnam, India and China (VIC) are the top three to watch. Other findings by HSBC came up with CIVETs (remember BRIC?): Columbia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey and S Africa as stable political markets (as of this edit, you can take…

  • The verdict is in. Marketing folks all know by now that top of the list reigns COKE. My first wage (selling Vietnamese worthless currency in Subic Bay on my way to the US a few days after the war had ended) was spent on Coke, from a vending machine. I remembered til this day the…

  • I was privy to not once or twice, but thrice, work  in non-profit capacity with displaced Vietnamese. My first time was at IndiantownGap, Pennsylvania as a Child Welfare interpreter. Later, in Hong Kong as a relief worker. And latest was in 1983, in the Philippines, where Cambodian and Vietnamese awaited their flights to the US.…

  • Yesterday, I saw Monique Truong on the Poets-and-Writers cover. The author of “the Book of Salt” was launching another title : “Bitter in the mouth”. Meanwhile, I still am awaiting the shipment of “East eats West” by Andrew Lam. What’s going on here? A Renaissance in publishing by Vietnamese-American authors? Top of my head, I…

  • There are some positive upward movements today. Brought to mind Joseph story i.e. recovery from the seemingly bottomless pit (put there by who else but his own brothers). But Joseph managed to press “reset”, reinvent himself (befriending the warden), to eventually rise to be Chief of Staff. What did he have ? Persistence, ability to…

  • Huffington Post picks up a piece from Vietnam news, featuring used book shops in present day HCMC. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/13/used-bookstores-vietnam_n_714522.html If you don’t know, you would think the city was on wheels. But in some quiet corners, you still find students and researchers actually reading and browsing just as you would find at a B&N here. The…

  • Cat Stevens could just roll out a new album for this decade with above title. It just happens that California governor is touring Asia, seeking bids (and financing) for SF-LA tracks. If the Chinese won the bid, it wouldn’t be the first time Chinese help lay train tracks for America (during the last century, it…

  • I channel surfed last night. C-SPAN 3 covered the Memorial in PA for flight 93, those unsung heroes who diverted terrorist plot 9 years ago. The uncut shot kept panning the vast expanse of Pennsylvanian field, future home of Flight 93 Memorial. Graphically speaking, it was boring. MOS (mid out sound) since the mike did…

  • Huffington is coming out with a book titled “Third World America”. As she makes the case for America’s shrinking middle-class, I can’t help notice a striking contrast with Vietnam (Third World which wants to become America), whose nascent credit (system) and (middle) class are almost non-existent. Yet it made the top list of World Happiness…