Thang Nguyen 555

Cultures on Collision Course

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With relief work in Asia/Africa in and after graduate school, Thang’s 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 has been certified with a CELTA – classes taken in Hanoi for cultural re-immersion.

Tag: China

  • Admired Adults

    As Yahoo News flashes Most Admired Person of the Year, I can’t help reflecting on Adults I most Admired ever. From a teacher friend of my mom to complete strangers in heartland America, from a relief worker in the Pacific to far-away Africa, I remember them not so much for how much they were giving…

  • Cyclo in the time of Google

    By now, you can still see a few weather-beaten cyclos around albeit restricted to tourist quarters. I still remember the sound of horse carriage in the streets of  old Saigon. My kid will be lucky if she knows what a cyclo is. She knows Google though. Paperless and painless search. Now with semantic search. My profile, age in particular, triggers online ads on…

  • Shared dishes

    Suzie Wong. Suzie Q. Lazy Suzan. All the S’s in stereotypes. All boils down to a round table full of shared dishes, each could easily meet  your dai;ly cholesterol quota. Half roasted duck, half chicken ginger etc…. Hong Kong cuisine, served in Herndon (VA). I thought about Nixon’s trip to China, and how many shared dishes he tasted…

  • Same river twice

    This is not about going back to your prom night, or re-entering the job market. It’s about locality and landscape that have been gentrified and occupied by new comers as time passed. I happened to be by the old neighborhood where I used to live 30 years ago: same Peking Duck restaurant, same Post Office. Even a bunch…

  • Retreat, retrench and return

    40 years on since the last US combat boots pulled out of Vietnam. Today, Starbucks lady returns, luring passer-by amidst the town square. Senator Kerry is getting his confirmation while a 40-year-old Vietnamese couldn’t tell an American from a Russian. Vietnam is just a name, like Iraq will be 4 decades from now. Vietnam today has Vespas…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • The normalization of the abnormal

    Some of us who still remember the Cold War remember how easy things were: black and white. Everything else “Third World.” Now, the Third World has emerged. Hence, we live in a multi-polar world. More complicated world. More are at stake. People wheel and deal. Purchasing parity has become less of a parity. Trading up and trading…

  • Spending spree

    Right about now. If the economy is going to pick up, authorities should push spending. Credit card spending. Gadgets are out. Electronic devices miniaturized. Skirts cut shorter even when it says Winter Clothes. Victoria Secret pulled Native American outfit from broadcast. Planned controversy or not, we don’t know. We just know that things are back…

  • Expired Empires

    The Distributed Model has enabled the Rise of the Rest. Capital, talent and market flow where the chips may fall. Apple courting China, China Africa, Japan Rest of Asia etc… Everyone is out on the dancing floor. Dance anyone? The combinations are endless. Permutation and exponential. Hard and soft powers, hard and soft currencies. Exert that…