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: Beijing

  • Signs and signals

    Jackie Chan delivered again in Chinese Zodiac. The 12 Animals. The East learn to tell fortune from symbols. The West teach others to “read” people. Animals or People. We all want the advantage of foresight the next outcome. People commit to New-Year resolutions: lose weight, take up lessons in this and that, get off a…

  • Confidence

    2.5 per cent. That’s US growth figure. Enough? Confident? Could be better? I am glad we are growing even when it feels like we are running in place. Perception vs Reality. Like how they feel now at Microsoft, at Yahoo. Even at RIM and Facebook. Something is missing. Mojo? Passion and Pride. Exuberance and Exhilaration.…

  • 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…

  • Here they come!

    Chinese buyers, that is. Not a bid for 76 gas station, or IBM hardware (now Lenovo). A GM unit then Symentech. On seeing David Stockman on TV. I thought I were back to the early 80’s. This time, just one just needs to replace the word Japanese, for Chinese (remember Michael Keaton and his gold fish?).…

  • Powerful women

    World’s oldest woman. 115 years old. Oldest man, from Japan, 116 years old. Life expectancy in 1900 was 47. World population has increased drastically. (Bio tech century). At the nano level, we can detect early symptoms of all sorts of disease (nano pharma). Ironically, as the West is more aware of health issues and is taking…

  • Sustainable Vietnam

    The leadership of World Economic Forum met in Vietnam a few years back. Concerned parties already discussed Green Vietnam. http://www.good.is/post/how-vietnam-is-going-green/ These days, if you are late into the Industrial game, at least you can leap-frog in thought leadership and learned from others’ mistakes (China is overtaking Japan as number 2 economy, but it faces Hon…

  • It’s a good IKEA

    A billion+  prospects. Wow! http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-china-ikea25-2009aug25,0,3900096,full.story IKEA in China. More  a  theme park then a show room. They try, they buy. Today it’s the A/C and ambience. Tomorrow, it will be CHIKEA everywhere (not only the font, but spelling change as well!). One thing China does well is to mass-produce these household items on the scale…

  • Fat pipe, fast food

    FIOS in Triple Play, for $79.00 for the first six months. The last time I looked, it was $100 for the Triple Play package: phone, TV and broadband. In China, kids played until they dropped dead (unwilling to lose their seats at the Internet cafe and online, where supposedly, they were up against competitors from…

  • Free but not cheap

    People have paid lips service to freedom, the defense of freedom, and the exercise of free speech. But few put any thought on the price of freedom. Freedom somehow is perceived as being free (i.e. you don’t have to pay anything, in economic terms). Actually, freedom costs a lot. Many lives have been laid down…