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: France

  • Shame and Stigma

    Making small talks on New Year‘s morning, I mentioned various distant relatives, among whom a handsome ping-pong playing cousin of mine. I remembered him as 60’s looking, hair, glasses and short shorts. He was later married with kids before got  sent to re-education camp. While he was away, his wife had an affair and made…

  • Flaubert et moi

    Actually this is about the redemptive aspect of literature. Set in 1843, Flaubert‘s character rode the psycho-somatic roller-coaster. The result: Madame Bovary set him apart from his Romantic contemporaries. He started the school of Realism even though he never admitted it. Bovary got married, Bovary got bored, Bovary had an affair and a brush with death but…

  • Still the one (who sings)

    Bob Seger‘s still the same. Shania Twain‘s still the one. And at C’est Moi tonight, the owner/singer (Vietnamese back from France) still carried the show with her energy and charisma, as if she owned the place. When you sing, you have to lift the audience out of the here and now. If they are on…

  • My 555 plan

    Get back to your roots. Eliminate waste and accessories. Differentiate and make it relevant. Actually, 555 is just a self-branding attempt, after a cigarette a friend of mine used to smoke. I had to attach a numeric code to differentiate (sticky and trans-cultural)  my Yahoo log-on ID. Now we hear of 999 plan etc… It’s hard…

  • 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…

  • La vache qui rit

    Forbes recently printed a McKinsey report about the coming consumer society in Vietnam. In other words, we will soon see La Vache qui rit in supermarkets along side real cows which are still allowed to roam free in the country side. Vietnam 2040 will very much resemble US 1950, when the going was good: chicken in…

  • Et pourtant, I think of French bread

    This guy, Thomas Huang, went searching for a chocolate eclaire in Saigon, and ended up having his article in the Dallas Morning News http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/fea/travel/thisweek/stories/DN-vietbread_0711tra.ART.State.Edition1.4fb9c7b.html I sat next to a business man from Dallas on my recent trip to Vietnam. He and his partners were into real estate. And the amazing thing was, while his partner…

  • The larger-than-life generation

    Tom Brokaw‘s coined it “The Greatest Generation” those who preceded the Boomer Gen. This weekend we remember many who fought those huge battles. The way they carried themselves: smoking, shooting and even kissing in the streets of New York (celebrating victory). Subsequent G.I. Bill made possible their going to college (many were into engineering and management, having been…

  • Vietnamese love for French

    When traveling in Vietnam, you can still hear French embedded in every-day culture: fork (fut-xet) , suit (com-plet) and tie (ca-ra-vat). Apparently, they just use the phoneticized versions for lack of dynamic equivalents and use literal translation, such as “Hop Dem” (Boite de Nuit) as last resort. Some old hands can still carry a tune…

  • C’est moi

    Obviously French. Not too obvious that the “tutoye” is permeating a culture predominantly focused on the collective Nous. Weeknight, karaoke with live accompaniment. Weekends, professional singers, one of whom singer/owner I heard came back from France (probably under dual citizenship). This is a hybrid of crowd-sourcing and the old Command-control stage craft. It seems to work.…