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: Iran

  • Clancy Clan

    I am sure Mr Clancy who has just died at 66 had many late nights facing the blinking cursor, unsure of where his thoughts and imagination might have taken him. The hunt for the next national-security threat. Cold-war genre morphs into regional terrorism tale. An epitome of story telling. I am a fan. It got…

  • Chemistry: blessing and curse

    Bodies of little ones lined up on the floor (Syria). Little orphans waiting to be fed and sustained (Vietnam – Agent Orange victims) decades after the War was over. Nagasaki and Hiroshima, if we can still recall those localities. Wrong use of chemistry. Shadow effects. Masquerading rhetoric. Just as the Dow finally hit its height.…

  • Unfinished business

    Program lingers on linearly while project has its own bell-shaped form. Beginning and ending. Life is constituted of both programs and projects. Child-rearing is not a project. Schooling them is (until they come back and take over the couch). Warring is a project.  At least when we could get out and not sink deeper into…

  • This side of the curtain

    It would have been stuff taken from” The spy who came in from the cold.” For three months now, I have lived in the alley behind the local police station. My big brother would have fainted just to learn about it. He is a pharmacist, retiring, but still goes to work per diem. He was…

  • Convenience and conservation

    Plastic or paper? Here or to-go? Before we know it, billions of mindless decisions are made everyday. Taylorism (efficiency down to the smallest detail) has found its way into fast cars and fast food. Even into our every-day use of language: just a sec, ASAP, bs. There is no excuse for snappiness. We have stood by…

  • Internet intersects culture

    In China,, teacher Ma was on trial for using the internet to recruit partner-swapping. In Pakistan, they banned Facebook and then YouTube. And in Iran, right after the election, they did not like Twitter. Fast-pace technology collides slow-changing tradition. As of this edit, Kenneth Cole (shoes-man) tweeted about “boots on the ground” as referring to…

  • Decoding America

    It’s a grand title. But the intention is put up some guide posts to mark the new (Lonely) American trail Or else, new comers to America, reading Orientation web sites only, would end up like the Oregon couple who trusted solely on GPS readout, without consulting paper maps. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100102/ap_on_hi_te/us_stranded_motorists We learn and continue to refine…