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.

  • 10,000 hours

    How many among us actually put in that many hours pursuing one thing?

    Yet studies show it takes that much practice to master a skill or a trade.

    That long to promote ourselves to the rank of outlier : Bill Gates coding skill, the Beatles smooth performance etc…

    Today marks my first 10,000 views of this silly blog, which I started as an experiment, to see if the Recession would break or make me as in Hemingway‘s Farewell to Arms “the world breaks them all…but we remain strong in broken places”.

    I started blogging when I was married, until I am single again for two years.

    It remains my focal point and commitment. To fail time and time again, and stand up if not standing tall.

    I am sure the Beatles learned this lesson. They put it in the lyrics of My Sweet

    Guitar Gently Weeps “with every mistake, we will surely be learning”.

    As adults, we  shy away from trying out new things, meeting new people and going to new places.

    We take the path of least resistance. I have friends who keyed down the karaoke coding for their song list, and started to punch them in while the rest of us fumble through the dirty pages of its song book. Apparently these people just want to stay within their range and comfort zone.

    I understand the fear of the unknown.  I am living it everyday: from motor-biking on the streets of Saigon, to meeting new faces.

    I often found relief, culturally, when going indoor, air-conditioned and culturally conditioned (English-speaking, pipe-in music, and preferably with a menu I can order from without hesitation).

    The American part in me must be the true Quiet American, seeking and embracing the Third Force.

    Neither here nor there. So sometimes, I escape to my cocoon.

    Expats who came here from the Philippines, Singapore and America express similar sentiments.

    They are a bit homesick. Like during this time of the year. White Christmas and Oh Holy Night.

    It gets cool here but not winter cold. I still put on my shorts and T-shirt, sandals and helmet.

    Perhaps it will take a total of 10,000 hours of coming back and living in Vietnam for me to hone my survival skill.

    People seem to go about their daily lives, not in quiet desperation, and certainly, not constituting “the lonely crowd” as David Reisman puts it. I hardly came across news of lonely people commit suicide over Christmas holidays as I had read in the States.

    On Christmas Eve, in Saigon, people just pour out onto the streets, taking souvenir photos, in front of major hotels (using  their decorations as photo-shoot background) and go to the church (Notre Dame du Saigon). The sacred and profane intersect that night like an annual eclipse.

    It’s known as Noel, after the French. And well-off families would gather for Reveillon mid-night dinner.

    Now that part I can relate to. The feeling of in but not of it, alone in the crowd, celebrating but not belonging.

    Something significant takes place in those hours, of the crowd pushing but not hurrying, dressing up but not showing off.

    Just logging in another year, an hour or ten hours toward that something called life experience.

    Now that I have put down my humble and jumble thoughts, being viewed for more than 10,000 times, I hope I can detect a pattern. Some of you are also lonely, but not to the point of desperation. It’s our Christmas and Holy Night.

    Someone important is joining our party. Might not “tenu de soiree”, but wrapped in peasant cloth. To the trained eyes (the 3 kings), it’s a phenomenon. But to us, commoners, our instinct tells us it’s an event not to be missed. Cut through the noise and clutter, we might find the gem. No matter how you view Nativity, Christmas is here to stay. An excuse for us to affirm our humanity and to be validated. Yes, you are still here. I am still here. Mistakes and all. 10,000 hours to go. Starting now. We’ve only just begun. With baby steps. With starting point in the manger or manager office. As long as we don’t lose sight of that child-like fearlessness, of trying out new things, seeing new faces and learning a few more lines of poem, of lyrics or famous motivational quotes.

    The intent of 10,000-hour grunt is not to discourage us. It is rather a reinforcement and affirmation for us to keep trying and fail, instead of fail to try. ( I know the difference between this and the definition of insanity). Persistence is fumble after fumble without losing enthusiasm, says Winston Churchill (I have just learned this quote today). Merry Christmas to you and yours. Never stop trying.

     

  • worthless currency

    Thang Nguyen 555's avatarThang Nguyen 555

    The bus rider paid for the fare in Trillions of Zimdollar. Or else, a live chicken will do.

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090816/ap_on_re_af/af_zimbabwe_zimdollar

    I experienced this back on May 1st, 1975 aboard a Seventh Fleet warship on the way to Subic Bay (thank you President Ford).

    We learned from word of mouth that the South Vietnam currency in our possession (my mom emptied her educator’s life savings two days before) was no longer good! From treasure to trash, educator to invalid.

    But the sales guy in me wouldn’t give up. I ended up selling some of those worthless papers to bypassing navy guys in the Bay

    for souvenirs (their coins enabled me to buy Coke from the vending machine).

    I empathize with the Zimbabwe people. Money is money.

    A researcher in Dartmouth also found US paper dollars tainted more with Cocaine (due to Recession stress??) than found 2 years ago.

    He must have…

    View original post 217 more words

  • Cancer and Career

    At Van’s Cafe Ho Chi Minh City, if you stayed til the end of their second set of music, you would no longer hear Truc Vy doing her closing songs. She performed her set last week for the last time. Despite her late-stage throat cancer, she gave her best with composure and courage. I did not know that at the time. Just noticed how much of that vocal grace could come out from so little of a body. Now I understood.

    Cancer-causing death also took  my friend, an accomplished pianist, two years ago.

    And last week, it started to put down the name of its next victim.

    There is a new singer in that slot now at Van’s Unforgettable.

    The show must go on, like life itself.

    But how many would pause to remember  someone, frail and fragile, now under traditional treatment in the country side.

    They say when someone sings, he/she opens up his/her soul to you.

    Like at the Voice final last night. 4 finalists. Only one winner. But we saw four raw souls on display.

    To the watching eyes of million.

    Truc Vy perhaps won’t go down as a late great Rock singer in the Hall of Fame.

    But her dignity and demonstration of the human spirit actually propels her to the top, however short a time.

    In her end, her beginning.

    Diva she is not.

    But Death is not her enemy either. She seems to embrace it like a part of life, in this case, quite fleeting.

    It lends new meaning  to each day, each note, and each number she performs.

    Now I know where that inner strength was from. From her months of wrestling with the invisible enemy within her.

    Like my friend before her who smiled more than I did when we  met for the last time.

    And who gave me more advice and care than I could him.

    Why does it take that much for someone to wake up, to be more humanized and appreciative of life!

    For me, I notice someone’s absence more than their presence. Call it delay reaction.

    But in looking back to my now deceased parents, whose DNA definitely stay on in me,  I learn one thing: their time with me when their lives and mine intersected, was a gift. I opened that gift and used it. It’s a one-time thing. Unrepeatable and fully appreciated only by looking back. “Your children live through you”, like a line in the last stanza of Paul Anka‘s Papa.

    Life is such a trip that no one seems to get out alive. But while at it, we make the best of that gift, including the gift of music. In Truc Vy’s case, it’s her performance on stage, with voice riding over the loud instruments and clatter of toasting, to reign supreme in a class of its own. No, Truc Vy wasn’t a participant nor winner of the Voice last night. She was perhaps at home, in the countryside, viewing it  on live TV. But at Van’s Cafe, she will always be missed, especially when it’s time for the last set.

    A set is not a set without Truc Vy. Please come back to me….in Casablanca or at the Cafe.

     

  • Next-Gen Leader

    With the passing of Mandela, the world raises a legit question: will there be another one in the horizon of equal moral stature!

    Yes and No.

    This is why. Gen Next grows up digitally.

    Search at their fingertips.

    Conversation has long tail.

    Everyone is well-informed by those tweets (Welcome Pres George H.W. Bush to Twitter). Tweet not Twist!

    They invent services, fix things and carry none of the analog legacy. Instead, they identify more with sports and entertainment figures than WW II heroes like Churchill.

    Attention is their new currency (Ashton and the hash tag). Wardrobe malfunction is the norm. Instead of avoiding disruption, they build it into the planning and implementing process.

    Everyone thinks different including rival Samsung who opens factories in Vietnam instead of China. The older generation is looked at as having dementia (shut down the government?)

    Morgan, Madoff and not Mandela? Rather, their hero is one who cooks his own meal and takes the bus to work. The new Pope (who just spoke up against CEO salaries which used to double-digit higher than workers, now triple-digit).

    Next-gen leader is currently backpacking in Nepal and Napoly. picking up on the nuances of a globalized and inter-connected world while building and rebuilding homes torn by tornadoes. They play by the rules, but not rewarded for points just yet.

    Burden with school debt, they decide to get our of the box altogether, postponing their parent’s white-shoe

    career for a chance to experience the many shades of grey.

    I hope they connect the dots, and not just cross the t’s.

    My daughter dances with the number one hip-hop team in the US. Her group is composed of multi-ethnic LA (she was a few years old when the LA Riot broke).

    To her, the conversation about race is just as passe as AOL ‘s “you’ve got mail”.

    Kids in the Ukraine and Turkey, Tunisia and Egypt are all aspiring for real change, and not just a phone upgrade

    To them, bigger is not better.

    And the Beatles are still cool.

    If a seventeen-year-old whose cancer death “Clouds”  can rally 5,000 people at the Mall of America for a choir, than we still have hope.

    This time, it’s not going to be a towering figure as we had hoped for. It will be multi-tasking multi-racial and multi-platform leaders.

    Every kid knows how to self-invent, self-promote and seek self-correction (at least the spell check). The Internet with its power growing by the minute will raise the bar.

    Tech language will bind everyone together better than the Queen’s language.

    And the new frontier is out there, in space and under the ocean. New leader looks for role models in influencers and thought leaders whom they trust, digitally.

    You cannot hide but be the truth, the transparency  and the trust they are looking for.

    Their votes will be crowd-sourced and cross-checked, not a replay of Florida in 2000

    Next-Gen leader has emerged on this side of the digital screen. We just don’t know it, or refuse to recognize him, or more likely, her.

    It’s that fast and furious, or common like our Inaugural poet. It’s staring in our faces, from the screen. Next-gen leader has to play both sides of digital divide, virtuality and reality, not both sides of the aisle.

    Ladies and gentlemen, may we welcome our new leader, via podcast and broadcast, via tweets and texts and via whatever platform they will and surely will invent. We just did not know we would someday ride in EV and get stuff delivered by drones.

    Stay healthy and stay tuned (because we are going to live very long life) to be witnesses to change.

    New world requires new leader. Just that they will come in packages we might not like or are comfortable with. In MN, they voted for wrestler and SNL comedian. Someday, our leader might come with tattoos and ear rings in non-traditional places. You might wish it otherwise, but it’s the new reality brought to us by the virtual world we had created in our own image. For now, the Pope will do.

  • The racist that is us

    The world mourns for a beacon that was Mendela.

    It rains in the stadium and inside the heart.

    Racism was an ingrained system up to the Civil War, fought in World War, struggled in the 60’s and onto the 90’s in Apartheid.

    We simply don’t like color folks, first in speech, than in hush-hush, now only in thoughts. Keep it to yourself.

    But if it’s the Huxtables (neighbor, doctor and well-mannered) than it’s OK.

    Recently down in Florida, it still happened when a nephew of a resident got shot in a struggle. Zimmerman got off free, than later, in jail for beating up his girlfriend. A diametrical replay of Rodney King who also got arrested for other charges after the LA riot.

    Man inhumanity to man spreads across the color line.

    What Nelson Mendela did which made him great? He simply went to a ball game (just like Rosa Parks who chose to sit in front of the bus), and not a soccer game, but a Rugby game (lilly-white). He refused to be drawn into a downward spiral, the mean streak of violence piling on top of violence, which eventually destroys both sides. This cycle polarizes us, and perpetuates itself,  inflating the dark side in each of us, the racist part. Studies show that fear passed on from generation to generation, that includes the fear of the bogeyman.

    For me, Mandela was more than a symbol of reconciliation, or racial struggle, or political triumph.

    He was and remains my symbol of hope. Of thought leadership. Our Gandhi. Creative problem-solving, while setting aside personal feelings (and the urge to take revenge).

    27 years of honing his thoughts and feelings in confinement.

    Of nursing the dim light of hope. Of  life-long learning.

    Then, boom! Stadium and podium, concert (Bono) and ball game, Bishop and President.

    Sometimes, in traffic, a minute is too long for us. And when pre-judging someone, 5 seconds are too long.

    The racist in us needs a re-education. Be it 27 years or life time. But start now. To understand and be understood. What if you were born dark-skinned? or white for that matter. The burden is on us to reach out, to say “Hi, my name is….. Good to meet you”. I know a friendly person when I come across one. Don’t you? Because if we don’t, we simply transfer that fear to the next generation, and before we know it, history repeats itself due to our ignorance or inertia. Then, some facist or racist leader will rise (hopefully with another style of greeting if he/she is creative enough) and recycle those stirring speeches we all know so well ” they took our jobs, they come with strange ” costumes” etc…”.

    Then the crowd will nod, and the crowd will call themselves the Majority vs the Other. And mass hysteria will take over

    The right to bear arms etc… and our children will have to do it all over again. I hate that, don’t you. So mourn, but not too long. Mendela would rather see us take action, smile at strangers regardless the size of their bodies or the color of their skin. It only takes a small effort to reach out, to click on the mouse and send a text or endorsement. Recognize the racist that is us, and manually override it. Let not your small inherited fear dictate how you behave in today’s world. I hope that world is full of Mandelas, full of hope and humanity. We got work to do. Let not the small stuff steal  our game of Rugby.

  • Reality bites

    Digital gen won’t know and care that virtual is not real. Being there!

    Thang Nguyen 555's avatarThang Nguyen 555

    It’s Sunday. Jamming Sunday.

    Singer-musician-owner of Van’s Unforgettable was kidding, after a round of live and unrehearsed performances that we should just play a commercially released CD  since we at times failed at recalling certain lyrics.

    He had a point. The age of automation and atomization is here.

    Each of us, with headset and  in private should just entertain ourselves.

    IN THE COMING DECADES WE WILL EXPERIENCE A KIND OF NEUROSES THE WORLD HAS YET  HAD A CURE FOR.  Knowing everything yet not knowing anything.

    Spying on everyone yet not knowing anyone.

    Data rich, content poor.

    Socially connected, but emotionally isolated.

    Like the song by the Foreigner, “I want to know what love is…why don’t you show me”.

    Mobile and cloud computing, with semi and soon full automation assembly, will lower the costs and increase personal computing power. Yet no eye- contact, no time for organic relationship.

    The…

    View original post 401 more words

  • Reality bites

    It’s Sunday. Jamming Sunday.

    Singer-musician-owner of Van’s Unforgettable was kidding, after a round of live and unrehearsed performances that we should just play a commercially released CD  since we at times failed at recalling certain lyrics.

    He had a point. The age of automation and atomization is here.

    Each of us, with headset and  in private should just entertain ourselves.

    IN THE COMING DECADES WE WILL EXPERIENCE A KIND OF NEUROSES THE WORLD HAS YET  HAD A CURE FOR.  Knowing everything yet not knowing anything.

    Spying on everyone yet not knowing anyone.

    Data rich, content poor.

    Socially connected, but emotionally isolated.

    Like the song by the Foreigner, “I want to know what love is…why don’t you show me”.

    Mobile and cloud computing, with semi and soon full automation assembly, will lower the costs and increase personal computing power. Yet no eye- contact, no time for organic relationship.

    The lost art of  the start : “Hi, my name is….”

    In the 60’s, the anti-war group was cool “Hell No WE won’t go”.

    In the 70’s, the me decade.

    In the 80’s, the politicization of religious America (as a reaction to Iranian Islamic revolution). The We there was meant for many splintered groups, not just the Moral Majority.

    In the 90’s, chip speed gets faster while at the same time, we  “got mail”.

    So instead of getting inter-connected, we end up with the atomization or re-individuation this time mobile-enabled.

    By 2020, we will have lived in a world utterly foreign to our parents.

    The narcissistic propensity comes in full circle. First, in looking at his reflection in the water that Narcissus felt in love with himself.

    Then, the witch looked at the mirror (who is the fairest of them all).

    Now, it’s the crystal – Samsung or Apple – screen which is our digital mirror or still water.

    People are using mobile phones to put on make-ups, to take pics of themselves etc…

    To “friend” and “Like”.

    Mostly, as a recent study by Solis, to project onto others that which happened to be theirs in the first place.

    Sort of Paris-Hiltonian world. “Nobody f… with my family and gets away with it”.

    She is our new “Godfather” personified:  famous and furious.

    Lethal combo.

    Sex symbol and icon of a new age. The age of virtuality. Of 4-hr work week. Of instant access and gratification.

    The Orwellian world has arrived, except this time, it’s so democratized that you don’t recognize it.

    So put on a CD. Click on play, replay and instant replay.

    Puff, the magic Dragon. No wonder music has also evolved, from Peter Paul and Mary (communal 60’s) to Madonna’sMaterial Girl (greed is good) to Gaga, At the edge of Glory.

    Who cares about attempts at creativity, or our feeble memory. The chips will do all our memorizing and processing. All we have to do is “amuse ourselves to death”. Sit back, relax, and take a pill. Protest not. And even if you do try, you won’t know how. The machine and the men behind it have it all figured out in their races to world’s domination. Wake up checkers in this new attrition war. This time  it’s neither cold nor hot. Just virtuality vs reality. A fight to the death – the mother of all realities.

  • Monk in Wal-Mart

    Thang Nguyen 555's avatarThang Nguyen 555

    God, guns and country.

    Then, a monk, not outside of Wal-Mart soliciting for donation, but inside, at the cashier line, waiting to pay.

    It’s a common sight today.

    But by turning the clock back a few decades, you wouldn’t expect both (Monk and Wal-Mart) to coexist.

    At least, it’s not quite as contrast a sight as a Monk in Rodeo Drive  or Worth Avenue.

    With the growing  Asian American population , there is an increasing need for “homegrown” spiritual nourishment.

    Back then, young Americans would have to be so “rad” before “turning East” (that is, if they did not go North to evade the draft) That tide had been stamped out or overshadowed by the theocratic Moral Majority until the 90’s when the South Asian and Asian American population

    (second generation) started to gain traction, and their parents could afford to upscale their kids to Ivy-league schools.

    Studies show bi-lingual…

    View original post 410 more words

  • Your chance

    Elton John had a song out a while ago. Your Song.

    Newsweek, when it was still in print, had a page called My Turn (that had been before the Internet with immediate comments and re-tweet).

    Now, the Art of the Start‘s author, Guy Kawasaki, asked readers what they want included in his next revision of the book.

    Your chance.

    Your 15-minutes of fame.

    Smile, take the diploma and get off campus.

    We all know that feeling of emptying out the space made for incoming replacement.

    An office, a house or even a car with too many mileage on it.

    We know we have had our chance, or exhausted it.

    Others will see and seize the opportunity differently, from their angle and maybe the timing is better.

    Tina Turner  said that she had sung Proud Mary a thousand times, but the way it was delivered was different each time (largely because of different venue and audience).

    So we have had our chance. Or making ways for new ones.

    As long as we don’t waste our talent pursuing second-best options.

    At work or in life, natural selection will nudge us along the time continuum.

    No way around it.

    Something in the DNA combo that send out signals to the world.

    I am here.

    I exist in the now.

    Come and get me. Find me. I want to be found, to be validated and to be heard.

    Some need stroking more than others. But all of us need and deserve a chance to make our marks.

    With current almost-bounced back economy, here is our chance. Once again, to “see the good side of the city… on the riverboat Queen”.

    The fact that we are still here is a testimony to everyone’s resilience. I might not write as smoothly as Tom Clancy, look as husky as Paul Walker, or think as different as Steve Jobs. But I am still here, blogging along. So are you. Go celebrate life. Explore and exhaust all your chances. Chances are, there are still plenty , unexploited and begging to dance (to quote Jackson Browne ” Opportunity likes to dance with those who are already on the dance floor”). “I hope you don’t mind, I hope you don’t mind, I wrote down…these lines”.

    Albert Einstein once said ” the saddest tragedy in life is a wasted talent”. Along that line, I would say, the most disappointed thing in life is to miss your Andy Warhol’s 15-minutes of fame. So walk up there, take your diploma, and smile at the camera. And one more for your mom. It’s a digital age now. Don’t worry about those wasted shots way back then, when each of us was rationed with only 36 shots on a roll or  the weekly My Turn. In Marketing class, we used to dream of inventing deodorant to sell to the billions in China. Now, we got 14 Billions eye balls ready to peruse our pitch, 24/7. Turns out that it’s not the lack of opportunity on the dance floor (or the floor itself for that matter). It’s our feet which are reluctant and us recluse. Frogs-in-slow-boiled state. Don’t know where to start? Tell Guy Kawasaki. Your chance to have input and insecurity dissipated.

  • Repatriation

    You can take a boy out of Texas, but you can’t take Texas out of the boy.

    This happens to me, not once, but twice. Culture shock upon culture shock! until I feel numbed.

    I jog on the street full of motorbikes (nice people would say “Co len”, bad people would try to run me over), or tell jokes at music jam session, oblivious to the fact that half of the audience barely catches the meaning, much less the punch line.

    So I made a few mistakes upon repatriation.

    Mistakes I have had to pay for dearly, monetarily or otherwise (just stop short of  becoming a social stigma since it’s more acceptable to backpackers to come across as free and loosed, not someone whose outward looks exactly like locals).

    There are Viet Kieu, and there are Viet Kieu.

    The former, tourists – waving their US dollars , and the later, expats – hiding their VN dong.

    Or, as I often joke: the real Viet Keu would react “OUCH!” when got slapped, while the fake ones “UI DA!”.

    But it depends on where you go and spend your money. If a place rates you on how thick your wallet is, then it will throw you out the next time when you are a bit short .

    Back to my jogging across the round-about. Quite challenging. In the rain, and in the thick of Saigon rush-hour traffic, I had to tap dance, jog in place or run in opposite direction like a running back at the starting line of another down in football).

    I do miss my time at Penn State. Just like when I was at Penn State, I missed my time in Saigon. You can take the boy out of Saigon, but you can’t take Saigon out of the boy. At Penn State, I simply wished for a meal surrounded by my extended family, or to hang out with friends, some smoke, some play the guitar. Now, I am back, repatriated. With some new friends who smoke, some play the guitar. Then all of a sudden, I wish for that 8-shaped trail which wraps around the University Park golf field. There, I wouldn’t get run over by two-wheel bikes, but then, I wouldn’t hear “co len” by complete strangers either.

    More than once, I have let the outside affect what’s inside. Now, after taking so many punches, I counter-punch by let the inside affect the outside. Like telling a joke in English to an audience of mostly Vietnamese . The experience was diametrically opposite to the time at Penn State when I was trying to blend in without  “getting” the punch line (since I was unprepared for a completely different conceptual frame of reference ). Exile to expatriaton.

    At the end of all travel, one returns to the starting point and know the place for the first time. It has happened to me. Like a newborn again, taking in and embracing everything. So familiar yet so foreign.