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

  • Christophe…et j’ai crie

    My youth was largely occupied with his top hit,…”sur le sable mouille”. War-time Vietnam: coffee shop, coffee shop and coffee shop whose attendants would change their AKAI reels with Lobo (side 1), Christophe ( side 2) then others. Followed the 80/20 rule, 80 per cent of the time, the top two ruled. French language languished,…

  • Give me an “F”

    Since early age, we were told to fear failure, to avoid it and to hide it. As loathing as it was, I had a few run-ins with it , yet none “failed” to produce positive results. First time I failed was at the entrance exam to a public high-school: limited supply, high demand (three students…

  • Rotten not forgotten

    It’s more than likely that one day I will be rotten than recycled. That I will end up inside an urn while not earning. It’s OK. All spent. No new lease on life. Just joining those gone before me. Unmarked grave and unknown soldier. So far, during covid-19, that number has grown to twice the…

  • Guitar brother

    Guitar brother

    I woke up by the alarm: my brother called back. He tested negative (for the coronavirus.) Good news! He is my big and only brother. When I started school at age 4, he was 21 – at the School of Pharmacology (he fainted at the sight of blood, hence, no Medical School option!). Growing up…

  • Nobody to lean on

    “Lean on me, when you’re not strong….” “I love rock and roll”… They are a dying breed as a new breed emerges: COVID-19. All that living. Now all that dying. “We all need somebody to lean on”. My nephew often had his white gloves handy at family funerals, a series of them over the year.…

  • Serpentine Alley

    Serpentine Alley

    The summer of my 8th grade, I took up Hapkido. Had to keep up with my classmates, who, one by one, held Tae Kwon Do and Judo titles; who, when horsing around, often used my face for target-practice It took some arm-twisting for my mom to sign the Release Form and open her purse my…

  • Yellow Peril & Backlash

    While we are looking at various modeling to assess the damage caused by Covid19, we inadvertently create longer term damage with labels like Kungflu and Chinese flu etc…From Harlem to Houston the nearly forgotten Yellow Peril’s 1982 Vincent Chin somehow get a new re-mix. This time, it’s not because of Detroit slip and slide (Japanese…

  • Crisis and luck

    Crisis and luck

    Eyewitness account “To see a World in a grain of sand And a Heaven in a wildflower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour”. – Auguries of Innocence – by William Blake 1945 2 million northerners died of famine 1954 Partitioning of Vietnam at Ben Hai River 1963 16,000…

  • Candles and Carriages

    Before Edison and Ford, people used candles (for lighting) and carriages (for transportation). What did these 2 C’s have in common? slow and unpredictable (horse manure). People took a stroll on Sunday, along the river bank and at the park. For the well-to-dos, a road trip in the country side. There wasn’t much of a…

  • The Count and the closure

    Among Dumas treasure was Count of Monte Cristo: the betrayal, the incarceration, the transformation and finally the reward/revenge . All neatly packaged and followed the sequences we wish we had in our own life. But life as it turns out, has its own foreseen conclusion imbedded at birth. Closure is a psychological concept. It entails…