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.

  • 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.

  • Van’s Cafe pt II

    Last Sunday morning was my first time at the jam session here.

    Today, my second. It is getting better, sweeter and with more substance.

    Thanksgiving weekend with friends and music lovers. It’s game weekend in the US. Or shop til you drop.

    Here jazz music permeates the air we breathe.

    Unrehearsed of course.

    But it flows. The energy, the passion and just a good passage of time together.

    I feel jazz. It’s warm, sweet and penetrating.

    It makes us human. Playful and painful at the same time. The headache and heartache.

    Share it brother!

    Hi five.

    We take a rest to be real audience.

    Forget the bills, the business of life.

    Just celebrate it while living it.

    Being In love.

    Being confused.

    And being here.

    Join me. I probably be here next Sunday. My friend won’t be. He is doing his numbers now, but will fly back to San Francisco, where he plays in the SF Jazz band.

    I am glad he is here this weekend. So I don’t have to be all the way back across the pond to hear him.

    Of course Hung brought his amplifier, and guitar. Dat (blind) on the piano and the KC band on drum and base guitar.

    They play well together. Jam session.

    The audience too. Very selective. Very very much in love with every note, every expression of seeing open soul on display.

    “Sometime when we touch, the honesty too much”.

    I don’t feel alone here, even at an empty table. They are after all up there jamming.

    Beer half-opened and I sip mine slowly, for fear that their number will end too soon.

    The Heineken you can reorder, but friendship and the mutual love for music will never die.

    I wish you can be here. Not the kind of canned “I wish you a Merry Christmas” you hear all the time.

    But I truly wish you an experience as valuable and unique as this one.

    Pop, Jazz, French mix.

    Like the city itself. Old Saigon, always adapting and thriving on chaos.

    I love this city, it’s people and its multiple expressions however unrehearsed and unprepared.

    It’s our best and it’s best in my eyes.

     

  • Content poor

    Latest study pointed to Vietnam workforce skill deficiencies, particularly in critical and behavioral skills (numerical skill was a given).

    This study came not as a surprise. For years, kids have adopted a rote learning, picked up from peers and adults, who in turn, had picked up from earlier generations.

    We are heading toward an era when technological platforms are abundant, but content wanting.

    It is an equal of having all the stages in the world, smoke machines, sound machines, lighting machines, keyboards and sound effects machines, but no singer and composer.

    Take the Beatles rooftop performance of  “Don’t let me down” as an example.

    It was a winter day in England. Who would have thought of going out and holding an impromptu concert on the roof top, with “social proof” crowds gathered on the street and London police kept quite busy?

    According to Malcolm Gladwell, in Outliers, the Beatles by then had played together for nearly 10,000 hours, first in Hamburg strip clubs, then elsewhere (except Japan where they were banned) before that memorable Rooftop concert.

    Michael Jackson did buy all their copyrights knowing those were treasure troves.

    Now, Bill Gates and tribes have risen, with Windows and Outlook for the desktop.

    In short, the nerds have taken over. And there is nothing we can do about it.

    Hardware rules. Until now.

    Someday we will wake up and realize, what’s happened here?

    Since when do we need to turn on the machine first thing as opposed to burning the incense? Bowing at the virtual altar and not the ancestral one?

    Where are our priorities? chasing after the next version of the x-box at Best Buy and whatever OEM  happen to retail at the time?

    One machine that has had some staying power (because it caters to a communal need): the karaoke machine. It cuts out the band (in its original meaning) and allows the mass to pick their own content and lyrics. Voila! instant party.

    Cheers.

    It asks little of us: cognitive skill (knowing which song and how to encode it), behavioral skills (how to take your turn and compete) and of course, numerative skill (tabulating the scores if you compete in teams).

    Back to our skill deficiency alarm. If kids are allowed to explore and exploit their multi-talents, whether it’s in sports (Vietnamese women soccer team might score big this year, World Cup material) or music, designing or drawing, let the thousand flowers bloom. Move them up the chain of values, and not the chain of command (do you want to wage war forever? or else, why do we still behave in cold-war fashion?).

    With inter-connectedness, mobile platform and dropbox, kids should be set free to pursue and optimize their lot in life. A nation whose policy is to blossom its young is the nation of the future. Take Israel, Ireland and India. What do they have in common? A national strategy and focus on IT talent infra-structure.

    I hope someday you’ll join us. And I don’t think I am the only one.

  • Goodbye Saigon, pt II

    Another friend flew out for Thanksgiving.

    There is no such a thing here in Saigon: oven-roasted turkey, croton and mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce , yam and apple pie.

    Mouth-watering!  children running around and old folks reminiscing the good old days.

    Yes, his destination has a few hallmarks of the American Dream.

    Here in old Saigon, the only thing that changes is new names on old streets and schools (no longer segregation, so it came with a shock as I rode pass the old all-girl Gia Long High to see the new mix of male and female students)

    My friend likes the quote from T.S. Eliot (In my end, my beginning).

    He knows the Earth is round, and that at the end of his short stay in Saigon is the beginning of his trans-continental journey to America and Europe.

    Before meeting him, I carry water and chop wood.

    After meeting him, I carry water and chop wood.

    But he left a vacuum hard to fill. Just like our mutual friend, before him (see Goodbye Saigon).

    They have sons and daughter to attend to, paper work to sign and friends to play catch up with.

    None of us gives up on Saigon. We all think the place deserves a make-over, a second chance (as if it needed our help and opinion).

    Rated as most competitive in the nation, Saigon is quite poised to soar and regain its former glory (Pearl of the Orient).

    Skyline and sea harbor, street signs and shops, all compete for clientele. Back-packers have a hard time configuring  their Google-map routes. But everyone here knows or are supposed to know where they are going.

    Young work force pour over the key board, while street vendors peddle their wares (walking Wal-Mart).

    When my friend was here, we used to sit at one of the ronde’s, French round-about, to feel and feed on the energy of bustling traffic.

    Afterwards, we would retire to his quiet alley just a few feet away to recuperate. It’s exhausting and exhilarating at the same time to live the night life in Saigon. More bikes take up the space a few moments ago reserved for buses.

    Years ago, they stopped allowing tow-trucks to come through before mid-night. So on this Thanksgiving eve, there is no Black Friday here in Saigon. Only window shopping and online shopping. Tourists find it refreshing to stroll the old boulevard, to discover names like Majestic, Continental hotels etc…

    Time seems to freeze-frame here. And we took advantage of this to “re-enter” our past (as if it’s ever possible).

    American pop songs overheard from retail shops can lure you back to a time when you were first in love or discover love.

    Don’t give up on us, baby.

    On the other side of the trans-Pacific flight, my friend perhaps is checking out his luggage, going through custom, with the reflexive greeting “Welcome home, mr Ngo”. I like America. When being addressed by Mr so and so, you know it’s official and that you have paid your taxes and your due.

    Consumer confidence is returning with rising home prices in the Bay Areas. I hope it spills over across the pond. After all, Fukushima tsunami waves got tossed all the way to San Francisco bay. Why not this time around, with rising economic waters from the West. When my friend returns, he’ll know once again, his next stay in Vietnam would just like T.S. Elliot puts it, “in my end, my beginning”. No way around the inter-dependence and inter-connectedness of our 21st-century living.

  • disposable people

    Industrial society once allowed to run its full course leaves behind many casualties: pollution, typhoons, unemployment and crime.

    Kids with early exposure to the I pad and I phone, turn near-sighted if not bi-focal.

    Adults with easy access to porn (free or paid) found real organic relationship something of a burden if not boredom.

    Back in the early 70’s the US and its think tank already realized the limits to growth, disposable society, fail-safe situation…..

    The resulting strategies were to outsource, M&A and mass production to shave off  some costs. Every attempt has been either to cope with the irreversible growth of the chip speed (Moore’s Law) or to increase subscriber base by capitalizing on the Network Effect (Facebook and Ebay), economy of scale (Wal-Mart) and logistics (Amazon).

    People and diapers are disposable.

    BPO now talks about Social Mobil Access Cloud.  What can be outsourced will be, first offshoring, then full automation.

    First, cut down on the amount of pollution. Second, on operational costs. Third, mass production process has been much easier, thriving on the 24/7 economy to deeper penetrate foreign markets where the new smokestacks are located.

    For the first time in their 200-year history, N America and Europe face a crisis loom large: the people are disposable economically, while constitutionally, they have more  human rights than any other time.

    There lies the tension, the frustration and lock-jam. To keep up with population and information explosion, we will get to the point, like alcoholic or chemical-dependency people, who start selling everything to feed the habit. The irony of all is when color folks finally get to be heard, their social and economical platforms get shipped online or overseas, first to Mexico and S America, the so-called 2nd world, where Paulo Freire used to call “the oppressed”, then onto frontier and emerging markets of South East Asia.

    Yes, the poverty level has been decreased in countries where BPO  is in full steam. But the industrial waste and social ills have also increased. You may call this a new form of colonization, or selective recolonization. The new bosses are the go-between, facilitating the flow of fund and the hunt for local talent. This is also a problem deserving a separate blog.

    Meanwhile, poverty level is up in the West, especially Portugal, Spain and Greece, where young people are disposable.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/28/opinion/kristof-where-is-the-love.html?hp&rref=opinion&_r=0

    Go East young men. Travel the world in 80 years. Take a bullet train, or bite a bullet. I have seen EFL “teachers” smoke pot in Vung Tau (VN) and God knows where (Thailand, Malaysia). They are the new Missing- in- Action, unable and unwilling to be reintegrated back into western society. Their voices are unheard and aspirations unfulfilled.

    While primitive society disposed people of no or little economic values, in present day there are people who also by choice drop out of main stream. Call them the misfits, outsiders, the beats etc… But if their ideas can be monetized, then suddenly, they are one of ours. Charlie Chaplin first got exiled, then knighted. Sir Chaplin ably made fun of the social and psychological consequences of over-industrialization. His warning had barely been heeded when Foxconn‘s workers jumped from company dormitory. How many more suicides before we realize something is wrong with the way we conduct our lives and business, given all the machinery and software application. We dispose the diaper because it smells. Will we do the same with people once they are deemed undesirable and under-productive? Business leaders are paid to deliver results. At what cost? Empathy deficit disorder? obsessive compulsive disorder? Attention deficit disorder?

    When a business runs afoul, it’s the leader’s inside that is eaten up. Imploded. And of late, there have been a few (JP Morgan 13 B fine, or Obama’s no-show at the Trans Pacific Pact due to government shut-down). Have you had the time to follow-up and see where those “reparation” billions go to? Food stamps? Perhaps not. Dreams crushed, career derailed and families torn apart.

    And the house of cards got rebuilt, bigger than ever (having pac-manned Washington Mutual and a bunch of tier-3 banks).

    It’s like asking Germany to pay for WWII damage done to France, but 2 million lives were somehow eliminated without a small echo from the mass graves. When in grade school,  I kept hearing it on the radio that this president got assassinated, and that the one who gave the order himself got whacked. Then the “I have a dream” orator also got shot. Then finally John Lennon “was not the only one” He was hoping someday we would join in. Then he got a bullet by Mark Chapman whose musical talent was almost nil, but whose name forever got associated with someone whose band once self-pronounced that “we are more famous than Jesus”.

    There has never been a better time to live in terms of comfort e.g. electricity and emerging technology. Yet there has never been a worst time to live as far as managing one’s expectations i.e. we want more but enjoy less, got treated less humanly (try to get in line at a Wal-Mart in Long Island this Black Friday, be sure to bring some pepper spray),  breathe worse air and have fewer or no friends over during the holidays.

    Having said that, I wish you Happy Holidays with your loved ones, those kids whose constant companion has been the I pad and I phone. And be sure to have their eyes checked out. Who knows they already need glasses, like, yesterday. Just don’t buy them disposable.

     

  • Brunch w/ a bunch (of jamers)

    It’s my first time at  Van’s Cafe, 46 Pham Ngoc Thach, District 1 Saigon on Sunday morning. And I found myself walking into the door with 2 musicians I know: Mr Hai, on base guitar, and Quoc Dat (blind but extremely gifted jazz pianist, and a student of my now deceased friend.).

    Before I knew it, people with guitars, chains in their jeans, rings in their ears, started to fill the room.

    It’s a very rare place, if not, the only place where everybody knows your name (Saigon version of Cheers) . But you have to shout over their perfectly set acoustic.

    Two sweetest Singaporeans, twice my size, recommended “banh mi bo kho”on the menu (that was before the owner, Khac Trieu, also multi-talented: drummer, vocalist, guitarist, clarinetist and keyboardist, ordered beef wasabi, Van’s Cafe new item).

    The lead vocalist is named Rex, from the Philippines. He sings in English, Korean and Vietnamese (or trying).

    My fear of  being new at Sunday jamming was dissipated, when Quoc Dat, with my help to get to the piano, started his jazz numbers.

    World-renown photographer showed up, with Vietnamese wife and his daughter (who I had eye contact with to help me jump-start my Beatles‘ Imagine number). Other expats followed suit.

    You can never guess what would happen at Sunday Jamming, or at night on the 2nd floor with scheduled Rockers, French singers (BTW, Christophe is in town here in Saigon this weekend), DJ at half time and open-mike jammers at midnight.

    That’s when I met our regular clubbers-turned-friends like Willie and Warren, Danny and Bill.

    And of all people, my friend from childhood also showed up. Apparently all roads lead to Rome for music lovers.

    So come, for the food and the fun, the music and musicians. You won’t be disappointed as I have found out.

    But don’t come too early. Live music starts at 9:30PM 7 nights a week. With Sunday morning, we can call it 8 days a week at Van’s Cafe here in HCMC. See you one of these beautiful sundays or, if you want to dance too, then after 9:30PM 7 days a week.

    “You may say that I am a dreamer. But I am not the only one. We hope someday you’ll join us…..”

  • Red lanterns

    Thang Nguyen 555's avatarThang Nguyen 555

    There is a story on BBC news about an Indian engineer who complains that he only married thrice:

    “why would the Muslims have all the wives, and me, a Hindu, cannot have multiple marriages” he vented his apparent frustration.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8224746.stm

    Truth be told, he was confirmed to have been married at least six times, concurrently.

    This reminds me of a joke . It goes like this.

    Three guys battling around. First guy says ” my girl got a very nice crooked tooth” (in Asia, esp. VN, one crooked tooth is considered exotic and rare).

    The second guy chimes in “mine got them on both sides”.

    The third guy instinctively refuses to lose face “you guys know what, mine have a whole jaw like that”.

    I call this misplaced competition.

    Sure, It’s the survival of the fittest. So nature lends itself to competition in the process of…

    View original post 197 more words

  • Friendship and Fraternity

    At work or at home, we relate to a network of people e.g. parents, siblings, neighbors and co-workers.

    Now, on top of that, we got our online reputation to build and keep up. It’s the new currency. Trust and transparency.

    Amazon and Facebook model are built on that. Delivering what we are promised, on time and every time.

    On Social, we live the illusion of grandeur, having connected with many virtual friends, but having no real and close friends.

    The key lies in your emotional intelligence and empathy.

    Judge not.

    The passing-away of my parents left a vacuum hard to fill. Now, I am like Eric Carmen “All by myself” or  Kazuo Ishiguro‘s “When we were orphans“.

    I realize I lost more than a set of parents. I lost my two best friends. Friends who cheer me up when I am down. Talk me down when I was way over my head.

    You can’t get that online, or ordering it on Amazon.

    Then there were friends at work. All of the sudden, when you are out of work, you lost pension and insurance. You lost a set of friends.

    Each of us moved on. Some to better positions. Others worse

    But the pain remains: we will never get back together, like the Beatles.

    Women problems at work are now a popular conversation with Sheryl Sandberg‘s “Lean in”.

    But when one is out of work, nobody sings “Stand by me”.

    Or, “That’s what friends are for”.

    So we keep connecting, liking and commenting.

    TED keeps coming up with cerebral lectures to motivate us. Bill Gates with new products that save the world.

    But deep down, we all know that people are hurt by this economy. The pain and avoidance of pain take on subtle forms: alcoholism, passive-aggressive behavior and withdrawal.

    In other words, what happened out there finally affects what’s in here.

    By severing our lifeline, those intangible values of friendship and fraternity, the powers that be have failed to calculate and factor in those hidden costs. That which injures people, set them back and de-motivating. Smart people have moved on to better things taking a page from a different playbook. But those of us who thrive in togetherness and inter-connectedness can never stay whole. Something is missing. Somebody is not showing up at the Thanksgiving table. Then those defensive mechanisms kick in, to explain away someone’s absence e.g. demonizing the person, writing them off as “weird” or “mal-adjusted”. Yes, nature favors those who are the fittest. Wait until nature calls on you.

    Meanwhile, I feel like tripping over on some neural minefield. I know we are not dispensable like yesterday’s version of Nokia. But somehow, the hidden costs of industrialization e.g. planned obsolescence and disposable society, have taken a toll on all of us. Starting with some line items on Excel down to our co-workers, then friends and families. It’s easy to connect with thousand friends on Facebook than talking to your parents who know you better than anyone else. I envy those who can “bounce it off” their parents on choices for a career or a mate. It’s necessary and it’s human. We pass on our DNA and our stored experience. As Viktor Frankl puts it ” they can take away my body, but not me who resides in this body”. Our genes pass on, but while we “do time”, we cherish those encounters and engagement with friends. Just a few laughs. Passing the time and not judgment. Seeing the world as if we were they.

    I miss my parents this Thanksgiving. They were my best friends who passed on the appreciation for poems and patience with people.

    I didn’t realize then, that I was born into a fraternity, where friends cared. That’s what they are for, in good times and bad times.

    What’s your tale? Where will you be this Thanksgiving? In it’s origin, it’s a simple meal of wild turkey among early settlers and native American. Friendship was fostered and trust built. A nation was born and decisions were made. Gut check and gut call. True-North alignment to create and grow a nation where all men (fraternity) are born to pursue happiness among them (friendship).

  • Spent

    Thang Nguyen 555's avatarThang Nguyen 555

    http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/news/477965/Lotto-winner-Callie-Rogers-reveals-hell-her-pound19m-fortune-brought.html

    You can’t handle the truth!

    Or blew 3 million dollars of lottery winning on booze, boobs and bags of white powder.

    What a boyfriend the 16-year-old lottery winner hangs out with.

    Meanwhile, another couple from Tokyo win the Tango contest, leaving the Argentinians in the dust (another couple from Colombia win Second place).

    Now, that’s winning by hard work and collaboration.

    I can’t help noticing the Japanese influence and presence in South America, just as I have recently about Chinese in Africa.

    The East has produced a few “Columbus” of their own.

    Can’t blame them for wanting to see it up close after years of Hollywood education. Meanwhile,

    America still perpetuates the image of Iowa Jim (Incidentally, Clint Eastwood who directs the movie, also stars in his own Gran Torino which shows sensitivity to the plight of Asian immigrants)

    even as Japan has moved on (signified by the…

    View original post 232 more words