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: Asia

  • Saigon Central (Ga Saigon)

    The track is still there. So is the prominent display of coal locomotive. Hard to get there though, tuck in the back of winding District 3 streets. I checked out the logistic and lay-out: upstairs for ticketing, and downstairs with hamburger stores. My sister loves to take train to Hanoi. She grew up reading the Hunchback of…

  • Leaving your heart behind

    Home for the holidays. For my students at least. For me, 37 years ago, I was feeling on edge. One-way with no return. Yet, it has been possible for me to return and work here in Vietnam. To see students prepared for studying abroad. But their leaving has a promise of a return (two-way). Many…

  • Mua Saigon (rain on tin roof)

    Out of hundreds, emerged one. Winner of the throne. Winner of brand simple. Vua Hung Vuong, Vietnam‘s first King. His campaign? Neither communication skill, nor combating skill. But culinary skill. Simple dishes yet full of meaning: square bean cake representing the Earth, round one the Moon. Harmony without and symmetry within. Bingo! The throne is yours.…

  • Past lives

    Alpha-Omega or reincarnation? Steve Jobs didn’t believe all those talents would disappear in a flash. Many here in Asia believe the same. Hypnotism brings back deep-seated memories in the brain, recalling multiple past lives . Duyen No. L’amour and Debt. No coincidence. Just virtuous or vicious cycle. Spin it baby. Make your choices. Think you are in control?…

  • Vibration and sensation

    What do you do when you are awaken in the dark, with trumpet sound out “auld lang sync”? (To te con me danh du). Should we forget the time we picked daisies in the field. Yet that vibration created sensation at the early hour here in Saigon. The departed tried to fight traffic to his/her burial ground.…

  • Saigon Tech Talent

    It could have been a waiting scene at Acoustics, Saigon Rock Alley. Except for the instruments and the bands. They were CEO’, CTO and Venture Capitalist. Not Bar Camp, nor Web Wednesday. It’s Mobile Monday, held on Thursday night. The cool, the calm and the co-ed. They were all there. Web to Mobile and back…

  • 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…

  • Flowers on concrete

    Flowers on concrete

    It’s time to celebrate. Harvest time. City folks here in Vietnam go home where beer and Banh Chung (Bean Cake) are waiting, while country folks truck in their flowers and fruits in the opposite direction to sell in the city. This year, we don’t see the return of H5N1. So eat on. Chicken and ducks. A…

  • Vietnam’s outsourcing factory

    I have heard about TMA Solutions new building in Quang Trung Software Park, but I have never got a chance to stop by, until yesterday. 1,200-strong, TMA begins to look like an army of engineers (my friend and guide showed me a beehive behind the building, after we had toured their lobby where Vietnam‘s historical artifacts…

  • Long’s last laugh

    My friend had a square jaw. When he laughed, his features became more pronounced. Already taller than most, he carried himself above the fold. Not all kids in my school went to the Conservatory. You had to have talent. For that brief year in 7th grade, he joined us at music practice. “Can you play…