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.

Tag: Andy Rooney

  • With a smile

    Long ago, when we still used snail mail, the lyrics went like this ” and seal with a kiss” (w/ lipstick marks). That’s analog. Now it’s digital. How are  we going to add that something special? smiley for non-verbal? Communication has been intrusive and impersonal if not dehumanizing. No way around this. We sign off with…

  • Lost art of typing

    The BBC has a piece on Japan Love Affair with the Fax Machine. Older population has gotten used to that technology (which allows for hand-writing). For years, I have used email except for  Thank-you notes in writing. I can reasonably predict that even typing (as we know it) will be a lost art (speech recognition will…

  • Machine run

    When I logged in, it’s auto-filled. The Machine says, “if it’s routine, let me handle it”. It’s permeating: embedded in the chip, in the code and in the company. This morning, I saw a group of photographers with long-lense cameras, shooting what appeared to be a lotus (Vietnamese Buddhist Temple in Orange County, CA).  At least,…

  • Something in the way.. of Vietnam

    I just viewed a clip about Vietnam during the 40-50’s (French lady riding and reading the papers on a moving cyclo, newspaper boy wearing beret…). Something in the way, she moves… attract me like no other lover… A North Carolinian I picked up yesterday from the airport (for TESOL course) said “there is something about Vietnam I can’t…

  • Beyond Hero

    On Easter, the networks dutifully searched their archives for larger-than-life movies like Ben-Hur to fill their air time. From the Beat Generation to the Beatles, anti-hero started to emerge, like in “Rebel without a cause” (the knife-fight at the Observatory between leader of the black leather gang and James Dean in white T-shirt). Since then, anti-heroes, like at My Lai Village,…

  • In the mirror

    Among Dylan’s many memorable lines is “you don’t need the weatherman to tell you which way the wind is blow-in”. Even without the weatherman, we can feel that things are at a boiling point. Like in the movie “the Network”, people start to open their windows and bell out “I am mad like Hell, and…