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.

  • Growing pain

    Tragedy and triumph seem to go hand in hand.

    Past pain could be paralysing yet addictive.

    Those who couldn’t get over it end up going back to it.

    Not for the broken experience but for the context where pain first occurred. When shattered, we threw the baby out with the bath water. In coming back, with time and distance in between, we can salvage the damage tragedy had destroyed.

    Since “baby” and “bath water” were together, we always end up with both.

    Stimuli and response again. Painful again. Bitter pills to swallow.

    I remember my first trip back to Fateful Beach (see other blog).

    Later, a few more times, I could swim, play in the sand and regain that childlike feelings.

    Pain of the past never remains in the past or at the place it first occurred. It stays and grows with us. Becomes part of us. We are all walking depositories of both pain and pleasure (ask our parents how we did come about). When our brain forgets part of past pain, it’s good amnesia.

    So fear not the swim up river. There might still be ambush. There might be not.

    Chances for accident and mishaps to happen twice to someone at the same place is almost nil.

    But in that far corner of our head recedes that creeping fear of past tragedy. Call it Post traumatic Stress Disorder.

    So we close its door, and throw away the key.

    But it’s there, growing. gaining weight on its own. A stranger within, waiting  to be met, to be friended with. To be at peace with .

    It’s natural and healthy for Black Swan and White one to co-exist.

    As long as the duality makes us strong and not weakens us.

    It’s part of life. Pain (past and future) that is.

  • Stories of Suffering

    Unlike America where suffering is well hidden behind locked doors, here in Vietnam, it is in your face: lottery ticket sellers.

    They could be an under-age child, a blind man, or the worst case, a young man who dragged himself (both feet paralyzed) along an extremely crowded street peddling tickets.

    Even the Cu Chi tunnel, once hot and carpet-bombed, now welcomes visitors to its hollow chamber of suffering.  Underground resistance come clean.

    To be here, to see those sites, to feel the heat, the smell, the suffering which might be raw to us, but taken for granted by everyone, is to face reality.

    No pain killers, no aspirin.

    Just raw sewage and suffering.

    And when it heats up, in the middle of the day, you will know what it was like to endure, to persevere and to fight for survival.

    A generation of leaders in politics and media have come of age: TV anchors (now retired) ambassador-nominee (J Kerry), committee head ( J. McCain) all had walked this ground.  One word that sums up Vietnam: HOT. Hot war during the Cold War, hot because of the heat, and now, “hot” is used for Retail during Christmas.

    First-time visitors to Vietnam, from America, would step off the Cruise Ship.

    Checked in an A/C hotel and showed up for tours.

    He/she might find out at nearby bookstores that Vietnamese readers browse all sorts of literature from Russia, France, Japan, Australia, Eastern Europe and occasionally US.

    In short, military powers don’t equate with cultural influence.

    By 2030, studies reveal that Asia blocks and other emerging nations will share the various seats at the table. The dialog and discussions will be diverse.

    The best outcome of America’s experience in Vietnam goes beyond the Powell Doctrine. It’s to produce a generation of leaders whose mindset now look beyond the surface (glossy), to the  suffering.

    Cu Chi Tunnel or other tunnels. They are there to invite searchers and researchers to face and learn about other people, their aspiration and operation.

    I haven’t yet taken that tour, but everyday, suffering is in my face. I shared a table with a blind man this morning over coffee. He stepped off a ten-person passenger vehicle (xe lam), found his way to the usual spot and lit up.

    Then he pulled out a pocket-size radio for background music. I listened to that song (about mid-night mass rendez-vous) and felt what he felt: when your world is reduced to darkness and only darkness, you “dig” your way out of it, via other senses (touching and hearing). He used his fingers to measure the level when pouring his tea, while enjoying his portable music.

    This was just one story of suffering. There are many more. If one cares and dares to face them instead of hiding them behind institutional doors.

  • Crying girl

    I walked by a shop today and I saw a girl holding a knife, crying.

    She was peeling onion for the restaurant.

    Artificially induced tears. Not triggered by sad emotion.

    Real, nevertheless.

    It made me appreciate behind-the-scene people (since I happened to have breakfast with real onion, the same kind this girl was peeling).

    Nickel-and-dime folks make a living by sweat and tears.

    Or those who shed blood for our nation’s security.

    Blood, sweat and tears.

    My friend’s Dad who recently passed away, used to deliver a sermon on Jesus Wept.

    The I-am-with-you gesture only God incarnatel can extend.

    Go ahead and tell the Newtown parents to stop crying.

    Tears from the onion peel might stop, but tears that well from within (induced by tragedy uncalled for) are hard to stop. Ever. They will creep up at unexpected hours, in the dark of the night, or in the middle of a crowded lunch hour.

    I am sure the girl I saw had been doing this for a while, if not everyday.

    She knows when to stop, but then, not stopping too long.

    The mechanical reliability performed by human.

    If only the owner went ahead and bought a machine.

    Then the girl would be out of a job.

    She would then be crying for real.

    Some factory girl in China would dutifully ship the order, my job over yours.

    Blood, sweat and tears.

    We were “cursed” to toil the ground per breaking the contract with our Maker. For now, tears to make a living in Saigon, tears for neighbor’s kids in Newtown, Our Town, and tears in Heaven, as Eric Clapton put it.

    Yes, we need perspectives and point of view to overcome tragedy. We also need help and comfort from one another (in Newtown, strangers gave each other a hug, very needed hug). No man’s an island. Many eat onion, some don’t. But someone got to peel the damn thing. What I saw today was real tears. What I saw on the NYT photos the other day, was digital, but real nevertheless. Jesus wept. Not just Crying Girl, but also Crying God.

  • Tears for Connecticut

    If this blog were written in ink, it would be blotted with tears.

    The photo of a school parent on cell  phone crying says it all.

    Tears over wireless. Tears over space. Heck, I am in Vietnam, and won’t be back after Christmas. But I feel the pinch, the lump in the throat (try to listen to Tears in Heaven, by Eric Clapton, while advancing the slides about Newtown memorial service).

    Who is to be blamed? God? Gun? or (lack of ) Gut?

    The First Lady has been hard at work to improve school lunch (healthier menu). She got some opposition there (how hard is it to add yogurt and sliced apple to the institutional menu? Just outsource to McDonald).

    Now, the job is not to add fresh fruit to the school. It’s to take the guns out of it.

    The upcoming battle in America is not from outside. It’s right there from within.

    Hollywood has taken the path of least resistance (sex + violence =  high revenue).

    Porn sites were even lazier (just upload and watch your own).

    Moralists are definitely not listened to (Cultural Literacy recommends the public to read Chaucer etc…) since they are way out of touch with mainstream conversation.

    That leaves the World Wild West unfiltered.

    In Back to Blood, Tom Wolfe painted an America of the future, with setting in Miami (giant projected porn flick on sail boats).

    Each President got a four-year term, or 8 years max. Policies and politics don’t take the long view. They can not.

    Career officers, of course, just do their jobs (until it changes again).

    Meanwhile, no single person, well-meaning or not, can affect the outcome of the country. It’s natural selection. It always has been since its founding.

    Checks and bounces. On the other hand, it’s this and that. When in doubt, we debate. Once in a while, we listen to Ron Paul, at least, out of courtesy, since it was his last speech before Congress.

    But then, we move on. Short-term amnesia. Until the next tragedy. Aurora seems so far away. Now, it’s Newtown, Connecticut. Then, who could pro-actively prevent Newton, Mass? Wipe those tears away. Then, stand up. (as of this edit, there was a similar tragedy averted in Central FL University).

    Those gun laws were written in their times within the agrarian Frontier contexts. Take the meaning, reframe it in new context. Yes, there are timeless stuff (right to privacy, right to self-defense and freedom of expression; all the good stuff that makes America what it is, a magnet to the world’s braves), but then, would you, as an Iraqi refugee, an Egyptian businessman, a French chef and Australian educator, think twice about coming to America, risking everything, including the young lives of your children? It makes for poor image as world’s leader.

  • How do they know?

    Have you ever wondered how some songs deliver just the right emotion? How do they know what’s relevant and resonating? Chicago‘s If You Leave Me Now, for instance.

    On these blogs, we often mentioned the eccentric, the peculiar and oddities.

    Rarely do we put much effort articulating those feelings and God forbid, meltdown or breakdown (Newtown, Conn).

    This job belongs to recording artists.

    In Advice to A Young Poet, Rilke was referring to being broken, being vulnerable, as prerequisites for being a poet.

    Now, that’s painful.

    To achieve authenticity, you to have to live through it. To pay the price (Eric Clapton‘s Tears in Heaven did not come about without his personal loss).

    Who would be willing? To lose that much to gain that little? MBA candidates wouldn’t choose that route. (I was asked yesterday what’s the use of these blogs?).

    Then, we touted creativity, inventiveness and “out of the box” thinking.

    Serial entrepreneurs and lovers have one thing in common: they both tried and tried hard down that path (risk taking).

    Without rejection, you wouldn’t get results (think of Marconi and Marie Curie).

    Those in Sales know without Cold Calling, there wouldn’t be enough rejection to fill the sales funnel. Seth Godin wrote a bunch of unknown books before he got a hit (Linchpin). Colonel Sanders almost gave up as retirement was nearing.

    It’s the numbers game. The Beatles logged in 10,000 hours bouncing around from Hamburg to Liverpool to become who they were.

    To close : How do they know? They don’t.

    They tried and failed. Then try again. Until they got it just right. It hit the spot . Think of Stephen Bishop‘s It Might Be You.

    Maybe it’s you. “Wondering how they met and what makes it last”. Keep trying. Don’t give up on us, baby. It must be you. One-hit wonder is OK. As long as it’s the Whiter Shade of Pale.

    Try until it’s right. How do I know? I am still trying. It’s only my 900th blog.

  • Traffic dance in Saigon

    First-timers to Saigon are shocked on arrival: the dance of two-wheel traffic.

    Some even had to flag down a cyclo (three-way cycle) to take them across the street. An Ivy-League Math Prof was killed when crossing the street. He was there for a conference on solving traffic problems.

    I have slowly built up confidence and coordination not to fight traffic but to dance with it.  Here are some observations:

    – People ride on survival instinct and years of communal living: negotiating, turn-taking…

    (unlike Western’s right of way)

    – Expect the unexpected (scooters that go the wrong way)

    – Traffic signs are not hundred per cent observed. In short, break all rules

    – At rush hour, people tend to ride more slowly to accommodate heavy volume

    – With the helmet law strictly enforced, there have been fewer accidents

    – Almost everyone has been hit, ran over, or got a scratch. It’s a badge of honor

    – When in an accident, people quickly blame the other party (emblemic in face-saving culture) then move on

    – Buses, automobiles, scooters, cyclos, pedestrians, handicapped people v.v… all have equal right of way, but buses have louder horns and weave in and out of traffic per passenger’s request

    – best way to navigate rush hour traffic is to take a “xe-om” (taxi-scooter) since these drivers know which alleys and arteries for short-cut

    – when it rains, it’s best to stay out of the street, since available surface is taken over by undrained water (sewage problems).

    Traffic don’t just get to be this dense overnight. It’s been built up over time.

    The same with your capacity to become one with it. It takes time. In my case, many trips and trials (got whacked once by a wrong-way scooter) barely got me to be a member of the club.

    After that, your next lesson will be how to stay out of the sun given a few shades left in the city. For now, watch in ALL directions when crossing, not just the designated flow of legal traffic. Survival trumps legality. Be brave and smart. Watch before you leap, but then, he who hesitates is lost.

    If you got in an accident, blame the other party first, then move on.

  • Marconi and Marcom

    In the late 80’s, PacTel Cellular boasted seamless connection from San Francisco to San Diego. That is, if you had a battery pack to power the wireless devices (MicroTac? Motorola).

    Remember this was pre-Twitter days.

    Now it’s 12/12/12 and the Mayan’s calendar is soon running out.

    Back when Marconi was experimenting with sending signals across the Atlantic, skeptics had a field day (light and signals traverse in a straight line, and thanks to Columbus, we know the Earth is round. Good luck Marconi!).

    Those guys obviously did not play pool (angling and bouncing).

    Putting all these elements together. We got Marcom.

    The art of positioning your company, your brand and image for the longer term.

    Many-step flow. Diffusion of innovation. Crowd-source and users’ Likes.

    It takes time for people to adopt.  When MCI tried to attach a piece of equipment to the ATT network, it got stalled and deterred.  Jack Goeken did not give up.

    He was trying to help truck-to-truck short-way communicate from St Louis to Chicago.  And in Marconi’s case,   ships-to-shores communication. Both faced hard resistance (today’s equivalence of “Who killed the EV?”).

    That was before peering, inter-operability and other engineering agreements.

    Currently, we still have to “unlock” an I-phone.  People were put in “voicemail jail” etc… Technology and man’s freedom.

    IP issues and the trajectory of human achievement and advancement.

    Think back to the age of gramaphones. And fast forward to the i-pod Shuffle.

    Then you can see the full sweep of tech (just in sound recording and reproduction).

    Marconi sent signals across the pond. Bell asked “Mr Watson, come here“.

    Now we got Youtube and “Concert for Sandy Relief“.

    Put together a Marcom plan for yourself, your family and your company.

    It’s our modern-day equivalend of yesterday’s black/white photo albums. Our heritage in the making.

    Enjoy your Christmas wireless experience. Don’t forget those trailblazers. It’s heart-throbbing to finance those expeditions, today’s equivalence of Tesla and Virgin’s space tourism.

    But then, without the likes, we would still be listening to each other from those gramaphones.

  • On “Fraction of a Whole”

    We are not invited into this dysfunctional family of three generations, all 750 pages of it.

    Crime fiction, social commentary and extremely hilarious saga.

    I stayed up late last night for its racing conclusion.

    A year and a half ago, I read Freedom by Franzen. As engrossing as Fraction of a Whole.

    This family questioned everything, but centrally, they wrestle with Death inevitable (committing suicide is to take the wind out of “natural” death’s sail).

    From cover to cover, we learn to think and reason like Martin, Terry and Jasper Dean (Father, Uncle and Son), given ample details for contextual understanding. On the way, we learn to like the women in their lives as well. The settings took us from Europe to Australia, to Thailand and back.

    I know a few Aussies. But this book took me deep in the woods, where to warn his family of imminent danger, Jasper had to resort to telephathy.

    Terry Dean later resurfaced as huge as could be. With the locals taking the law into their own hands (machetes etc…), it reminded me of a scene from Apocalypse Now “horror, horror”.

    It’s Jasper Dean who played memory keeper. He had his own set of problems: trying to find as much as possible about his deceased Parisienne mom.

    This book  raises an important question: are we 100 per cent ourselves? How about our neighbors? Perhaps we all try to blend in, interacting with the lowest  common denominators (in the age of carefully crafted image on social network). If so, then, let’s turn the page and hear Martin Dean’s speech on the night his grand idea got implemented (making the population of Australia all millionaires).  Even fools sometimes got a point. And for someone whose debut got a finalist vote on Man Booker‘s prize, this is as good a read as can be. For me, it’s a rare treat,to follow the Deans in Vietnamese version. Fraction of a Whole. And that “whole” will soon be 9 Billion souls by 2050.

    Each with a story to tell. In Deans’ case, a fraction turned out to be quite a hand full.

  • When dreams are gone!

    A few blogs ago, I wrote about Noel Decoration in Saigon.

    A few weeks from now, the glitters will have been all gone.

    Party is over.

    Then, it’s a long grind. 2013.

    The quants have already crunchedl year-end data: sunk costs, margin, consumer behavior (irrational at times – hint: sell spirits over the holidays).

    The monks look on Christmas helplessly. They wait their turn (Buddhist birthday).

    Girl friends are hoping loudly for gifts, employees for bonus.

    After all, it’s Christ‘s birthday.

    The author became a character in a  play he had created.

    Empathy. Homelessness. Rejection. Illegitimacy (ask him for his birth certificate).

    Our consumerist society has co-opted and corrupted every single occasion to sell merchandise. Together, we build “brand”.

    The dream goes like this, “it’s Christmas, the season of giving. So borrow and buy, first for your miserable self, then for those near and far, like them or not. Ship them, don’t like them, then return them. We will send something else, or give you store credits to shop some more”.

    Many of these “gifts” end up in the closet along with next year’s wrapping papers.

    And dreams just don’t stop there. New Year’s Resolution, ranging from vocational training, weight loss program, and cosmetic surgery. We keep trying, because after all, “life’s a moment in space” with a few surprises around the bend (hopefully they installed mirrors around the curves).

    “When dreams are gone, it’s a lonelier place”. In a few weeks, those same hot spots where decorations are now up, will be desolate.

    The crowd will have moved on, from Bethlehem to Babel, from cashier to customer service. Next! Return or exchange? 2013, long grind.

  • From Mandarin to Model (Lung Dai-Chan Dai)

    My generation have been a betweener one: from Mandarin to Mobile phone system, from French Colonial to Fashion TV (with Asia Next Top Model).

    The saying goes like this “Vong Anh di truoc, Vong Nang theo sau” i.e. when a man passed the King’s exam, he went home to the village , with his lady in tow. Now, it’s the Model who get the gusto.

    The Mandarin was supposed to quote from literature (like the old Hamlet), his back elongated from years of reading lying down. Now, it’s the Model whose legs stretch out on catwalk. Hence, from Lung Dai to Chan Dai.

    Something is happening in Vietnam, very subtle and sensitive. Women assert  and insert themselves into traditionally male arena: homosexuality, clubbing, gang fighting, adultery, cougars, even robbing (as accomplices). Just stop short of having female wrestling.  The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo got translated and sold here.

    Conversely, some guys went to Thailand for sex change.

    It’s one thing to turn blind eye, in praise of equality. It’s another to acknowledge that with new-found freedom, Vietnamese women have yet figured out what to choose from the menu. The other night, I kept inhaling second-hand smoking from two young gals in an extremely crowded club (thankfully, those trendy cigarettes were slim).

    Career? check. Stress? check. Marriage? no.

    Kids? impossible (very cramp and tight space in Asia). Cosmopolitan? check.

    In trading up their aspiration, they down-grade traditional mores.

    Something must give. Tension abides in their climb to the top. Boy friend from the country side? Machismo? Spouse abuse? Out. Sugar daddy? Negotiable. Sugar Mamma? All the better and safer, with less complication.

    Those who went abroad acquired sophistication and success (cosmopolitan). Those who stayed behind in the bubble, followed their instinct and insisted to have the cake and eat it too.

    Change could go three ways: up and down in class, sideways when country side collides with city life, and speed of adoption ( women adapt more quickly with modernity than men.) With overseas travel, cable TV and internet,  the flat world pronounces mercilessly who the winners are (and the rest can just pack their bags, as in Next Top Model).

    Vietnamese women, and counterparts around the world, walk the tight rope between: how to keep up a sense of self (motherhood and womanhood) in face of change (technology enabled and a more tolerant environment).

    Don’t blame them for banding together for mutual support. (as of this edit, I am not sure Sandy’s book, Lean In, would soon be translated into Vietnamese).

    Knowing this culture shift, one no longer is in shock when seeing women main-dans-la-main on the streets of Saigon. And those manifestations are just the tip of the iceberg.

    The funny thing is, Mandarins are slow to catch on to this trend. Lung Dai-Chan Dai shift presents a dilemma. A very painful and irreversible one. Welcome to Mars, our next frontier for men and women. (Moon was mostly men’s discovery).  From here on out, it’s a two-way street for all.