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

  • Death-affirming culture

    During lunch time at my first job (Child Welfare Bureau at Indian Town Gap, PA), we threw a football, my first. That was supposed to be my induction into the Penn State culture the following Fall. Here in Vietnam, at lunch time, I walk by a casket store. As equally shocking for foreigners as my…

  • Customarily Bad Luck

    It’s known urban legend here in Vietnam that you do not take a photo with three people. Someone will need to stand in to defy the odds (of bad luck). It is also bad luck that a person in the photo but was cut out. I once saw a family picture which had a missing member.…

  • Slippery Saigon

    Someone told me that the rainy season here would end soon. Yet it is raining still. Outdoor activities like kung-fu class, xe-om, beer stalls all ceased. I seeked shelters . The trick to walk safely here is to step firmly with one foot into the sidewalk, not at its edge (which slopes down to facilitate…

  • Art expressions in most unlikely places

    You would have never thought of running into people ballroom-dancing in the park. But here in GoVap new park, where the young trees are still being nursed, and the lights barely lit up, people came out and did just that. Young and old, male and female, they came out when the heat started to ease.…

  • Traffic turns attraction

    Crunch time in Ho chi Minh City. A nuisance for many yet a photo-op for tourists. Millions in ponchos, helmets, dust masks, sunglasses fighting for every inch (centimeter here) to get  home in the pouring rain, while tourists leisurely strolled the colonial side walks in shorts, sandals and Sony cameras trying to record their trips.…

  • Vietnam, next Hong Kong?

    On my first trip to Hong Kong summer 1981, I was taken in by the energy and entrepreneurial spirit there. A camera shop (pre-Iphone era) next to a watch shop (again, pre-Ipad era) next to an electronics store.  Shoppers from India, Europe, Australia were all there, bustling about. Double-deck buses (still under British colonial rule) moved…

  • Noodle cultures

    Imagine you can slurp a spicy, mouth-watering noodle bowl on a rainy night. Even when it is instant, thanks to the King of Noodles (they even have a noodle museum in Yokohama). Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Thailand and Vietnamese; all love this staple. http://www.bangkokpost.com/business/marketing/259168/tf-eyes-vietnam-for-noodles Take the Korean and Vietnamese samples. Both are known for North and…

  • East-West shopping

    Retailers in Europe figured out a way to push merchandise in this time of austerity: shop in your underwear, leave fully clothed. Meanwhile, a reporter from the BBC went to Hanoi to learn about another way of shopping: buying paper clothing for the dead (old Hanoi, pho “hang ma”). http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00h35lv That’s how different East and West…

  • Paradox, dilemma and irony

    Paradox: doomsday for all is not coming, doomsday for one, anytime (especially when you are old). Dilemma: too big to fail, the book then the movie (might not make it big at the box office). Irony: got to have a job to land a job (hence, the growth of internship i.e. free  labor). Underneath it…

  • Unfortunate guy and the happiest place

    I still remember Sang. He helped me set up sound equipment on the weekend (my attempt to crowd-source and create an open-air coffee-house for refugees), and attended my class on weekdays. Sang was in that transition camp in Hong Kong, on his way to Norway, his new home. I was feeling sorry for him, an…