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: John Lennon

  • Softer side of Soft Power

    In the end of A Christmas Holiday, our Somerset Maugham‘s character went back to his middle-class comfort zone but quite aware of his “plastic” existence. This was right after he had spent a week in Paris, meeting Lydia, a Russian gypsy whose suffering life was nothing Charlie had ever imagined. I couldn’t help think of…

  • je pense

    Have you ever looked back at those goals you had set right out of college? Marriage? Career? Health? Then and Now. Perhaps they still remain the same or in reverse order. No one set out with a goal of multiple marriages. Or multiple careers. Yet it has happened, taken most of us by surprise. On a…

  • The guitarist

    A Quoc Tri could be heard at Cafe Vuong Tron, GoVap on Sunday morning and M-evenings. Other nights, you can catch him at Cafe S, near Du Mien, in Phu Nhua District. This morning his band mate commented him on letting his hair out, and not pony-tailed. We even took an I-phone pic of him, with LOVE on black…

  • Play element

    We seem to have lost touch with the play aspect in life and work. I am thinking of John Lennon and Steve Jobs at the moment. Both pursued their passion, and both were dead. One married interracially, the other just loved all things simple (even foods). They were famous, and still are, although they could not…

  • My left eye

    A speck of dust hit my left eye. It’s all red and feels painful. Then I thought of my friend from Junior High. He was drafted and went to war. Just to come back with one eye left. We have hung out at cafe, more than any other classmate since that time. Just a few nights…

  • First, learn respect!

    After transitioning from a French elementary school to a Vietnamese middle-school, on my first day of school,  I saw “First learn respect, then learn literature”. My brother’s generation at the same school had been from the same mold (his classmates are still staying in touch). No wonder they showed up at my Mom’s funeral in a…

  • Time, on whose side?

    Just like an old-time movie, friends met yesterday to rehash. We mentioned briefly the passing away of our friend’s brother: nerdy, good old boy and an ATM machine service man and family man. In short, the least likely candidate to die young. Yet, he had been long gone (by now 3 years). Earth, Wind and Fire…

  • Random meet

    In Vietnam, don’t be surprised when you are placed  next to a complete stranger, who knows someone who knows your host. It happened to me at Christmas party this year. Next to me was a Vietnamese-American returning from multiple tours in Iraq. He was here to fly his wife out. She had flown in as…

  • Faustian bargain

    Most of us don’t face life-and-death decision everyday (gaining the world but losing our soul). Leave that to Caligula or Gaddafi. Yet, a less wealthy Syrian, whose background had been oblivious even to himself, still got some press. Steve Jobs can still sell some books. Like you, I was curious. So I browsed his biography. One snippet about Steve: he…

  • Never let them go!

    B3, CVA Black and White. Grainy. Shirts and Skins. Friends from junior-high , whom I shared the ping-pong tables and school canteen. We sat through civic lessons, English lessons, Math tests and Lab tests. The photo must have been taken at one of those off-site PE classes. I learned about honor, honesty and history; the…