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

  • Suddenly

    Suddenly

    You can be up at 30,000 feet one moment, then find yourself buried in the jungle right after that. Sheer physics. Gravity. Mechanical malfunction. Death by design or default? But death, nevertheless. To be searched and recovered along with plane wreckage and black box. China Eastern flight. No survivors. No more hopes, fears and dreams…

  • Silent and sidelined

    President Zelensky is not alone. But he feels utterly alone, from the look of it. Silence is complicit. Russian are now swayed into believing Russia needs to invade for its own survival. One side got silent treatment, the other feels sidelined by NATO and ROW. Take the physical and emotional toll of war out of…

  • Pre-dead People

    We all are. Existentially self-evident. Yet we posture and pose. When millions are watching, we ask “intelligent questions” to show the questioner is smarter than the one being asked. I had a college friend who wanted to do a PhD research on how people are behaving differently when the camera is turned on and aimed…

  • Grief and grievances

    Grief and grievances

    Happy Friday. To All. And I mean “all”, Ukrainian refugees included. While at it, might as well send my “Happy Easter” ahead of time. We’ve lost a bunch of good folks of late. Let’s hope the next wave of folks that are now washed ashore carry with them bigger and better dreams: a future for…

  • Maimed and not marinated

    Maimed and not marinated

    I woke up this morning – still under the effect of NyQuil – thinking of the 3 million newly minted refugees. I am one. So I know. Where to pee, what to eat (if any) and where to place your belonging (watching it like a hawk eye). I started out with two sets of hurriedly…

  • Re-habitualize

    Re-habitualize

    Betty Ford clinic? Too late. We need to press re-start. From the beginning. Again. No way in this world, this time around. Yes, if Putin, the bully, had his way, he would push all the way to “ends of Earth”. His self-appointed “Great Commission”. He should have been toilet-trained more properly: put the trash here,…

  • Prison of self

    Prison of self

    Even with doomsday scenarios unfolding, we should note that self-imprisonment is also hard to bear. For instance, one of Putin’s excuses for war was “de-Nazification”? What’s that? we had to google it. We thought it had been put to rest as an WWII ember. Yet it is making a comeback, even here in the US…

  • Let it rain

    Let it rain

    Growing up in Asia, I often had to stay indoors, since it was either rainy or dry season. Downpour forces you to activities e.g. reading, singing and playing an instrument. I often looked out across the alley, past a curtain of waters, and watched a Franco-Vietnamese family of 9 playing among one another. Being the…

  • Of all the Presidents

    Of all the Presidents

    President Ford. Pardoned Nixon, brought an end to Vietnam (got us scrambling elbow-to-elbow for a space on a Saigon blood-stained barge). Since when does number 3, unelected by popular votes, preside over the fate of a nation and the world. On this Presidents’ Day weekend, we celebrate their memories. Chevy Chase used to play President…

  • un-clogging

    un-clogging

    With all that has been going on, that’s what we need: un-clogging. It’s Friday. Folks are into “Happy Friday”, “Happy Hour” etc… But it’s not at this time. The funny thing about Ukraine is that US is more worried e.g. will inflation get worse, how about BA2.0 (new Omicron variant) and Wall Street is rattled.…