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: Google

  • Pattern recognition

    As the saying goes, “those who don’t know history tend to repeat it”. I should have titled this blog, “the art of reinventing the wheel” as I saw familiar patterns reemerge everyday. Avatar for instance. For a moment there, I thought I was watching Jurassic Park and Never-Ending Story put together. Lady Gaga takes Madonna’s…

  • Media shock

    When I was working weekends at the School of Journalism at Penn State, journalist-wannabes would check out Advertising Age, Christian Science Monitor, and of course, the New York Times. And everyone read the campus paper. They even showed Deep Throat on campus (organized by the Student Association). Such was the time. We all lined up…

  • E-memoir

    Mark your calendar. Summer 2010 will be a bookend event. It will be Gutenberg-like. It’s the beginning of the disappearance of Revised Print Edition. It’s Google e-book store, where you can download the latest version of any book. Gone are the paper backs. Or Large Print for that matter. Select your own font. http://www.tgdaily.com/games-and-entertainment-features/49631-google-plans-summer-opening-for-e-book-store Our…

  • On self-repackaging

    The age of frozen self has finally arrived i.e. you either update your web presence, or remain “frozen” in cyber space. Years from now, people remotely connected to you will Google you  and mine all the intimate data about you or written by you. Personal digital archive. At the turn of our century, Command-and-Control model dominated…

  • 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…

  • Reflections on connections

    The medium (social network) resembles Amazon software source code (we recommend to you these people, read their profiles). You have to open a personal account like you would at Harmony.com, and boom, you start the handshakes : “Hello, my name is…”. Personal branding 2.0. Except, when it comes to cross-cultural connection, the First and Last…

  • Soft and sizzled

    Mind you, this is not a new Panda Express dish. Just China exercises its soft power, by sending S&R responders to Haiti (Western Hemisphere, many time zones away from the Great Kingdom). Why China? China has explored Space, Chips, and automobiles (not to mention its recent Bullet train, which should keep the Japanese on their…

  • Heroes in our eyes

    We got some footage about those Japanese astronauts now. This brings me back to those endless summers when I watched all sorts of movies: French, American, Chinese and Japanese. Among the Japanese ones, the most memorable is the “blind Samurai”, who exemplifies the spirit of quiet strength. We self-project, so our heroes tend to reflect…