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: Japan

  • (Shinning) House in the Alley

    Instead of a snow-bound scenario in a vacated hotel, we have  a newly-wed couple of  the House in the Alley The bloody ax, the shattering glass and the medium-rare steak. We were placed immediately inside a rain storm. That fateful night, like in Misery,  the first domino that starts a chain of mishaps: married sex life,…

  • Noodle cultures

    Imagine you can slurp a spicy, mouth-watering noodle bowl on a rainy night. Even when it is instant, thanks to the King of Noodles (they even have a noodle museum in Yokohama). Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Thailand and Vietnamese; all love this staple. http://www.bangkokpost.com/business/marketing/259168/tf-eyes-vietnam-for-noodles Take the Korean and Vietnamese samples. Both are known for North and…

  • Fallible leadership

    Former Google CEO, in a recent interview, admitted that he was too busy to see Social Network coming. Former Microsoft CEO, at the turn of the century, admitted he too missed the significance of the Internet. The Vatican, after years of floundering, decided to settle sexual abuse cases ( as of this edit, Pope Francis…

  • The extraordinary of daily life

    If you look hard enough, you will find them: a Queen wearing Green, a show host wearing “color purple”, bidding farewell to a dream career a black, single mom couldn’t have imagined 50 years ago, or a fairy tale went awry with California Dreamer, bodybuilder that pumped more tragedy to the Kennedy clan than pumping iron. Reports…

  • Nano and Numi

    Tata wanted to launch its Nano line starting at$5000 (when imported to the US, it will need to add air bags etc… hence bumping up the MSRP), taking over where the Excel used to be. Kohler on the other hand is making plans to roll out Numi, smart toilet, at $6300. Low and high-end seating. I…

  • Prosperity and austerity

    We are all into wealth creation. Until the voice of reason calls for cuts. What happened to “you have to spend money to make money?” or mental (muscle) memory (once you reached a certain peak, you tend to recreate the experience to get the same “rush” e.g. venture capitalists in search of another win). Best of times, worst…

  • Delayed recriprocity

    The National Cherry Blossom Parade in the Nation’s Capital.  Washington Monument with cherry blossom in the foreground: picture perfect. Newly arrived immigrants learned that the Statue of Liberty was a gift from the French (who coincidentally lead the Libyan incursion this time), and cherry trees, gifts from the government of Japan (twice, before and after WWII).…

  • Easily swayed

    According to social scientists, any two people are only separated by 6 to 7 degrees of connection. Last week I put it to test. Surely enough, the quake victims in Japan somehow are separated from me by only three degrees. My niece’s friend had relatives who fled Japan and came to stay with them. Two short introductions and a short…

  • The damage of denial

    At least, we heard from the Japanese government that their responses were too underwhelming to match the size of March-11th-2011 quake. Back in 79, officials released piecemeal information out of Harrisburg, PA about nuclear reactors and radiation leaks (I happened to wire the mike and test the sound before the live taping of then Governor Dick…

  • Where’s next?

    In Tech, we ask “what’s the next big thing?” Cloud computing, virtualization, localization, verticalization (BTW, when you can take the online world with you, the distinction between off-and-on line seems to be blurred). But we have been warned by Nature: tsunami, Haiti, Chile and Japan. I am glad shaky videos  by viewer-generated-content keep us informed  (can’t help…