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: KFC

  • Mars or marble

    Have you submitted your name to be shuttled up to Mars?  Space and sea travel or your names on Mars and not marble. This is to show our preference for progress over permanence  – technology over religion. While it’s good to sit on one of the benches with our parent’s names “in memory of…”, it’s…

  • This Bud’s for Saigonese

    The Bud‘s Bus is here. Clumsily made its turn around tight street corners, where beer drinkers sat on baby-size stools, surrounding a hot-pot or sea food grill. I saw the Budweiser chariot and horses at the  Super Bowl in Miami. And now, the brand appears here on the opposite side of the world. Still, someone…

  • Vietnamize the franchise

    Carl Jr, Starbucks, Hard Rock Cafe, KFC, BK, MacDonald, Circle K, Domino, Pizza Hut. The age of franchise bull run. When I said I had been to 40+ cities in N America, I actually meant, I have been to only one. The one with MacDonald, Starbucks, Walmart, Target etc… You got the idea. The funny…

  • 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…

  • Luxury brands beach-heading VN

    It started with Gucci and LV. More will be coming to test the warers, from McDonald to KFC , from Starbucks to Burger King.   Everybody is into location, location, location. I look at the city as if it were a big fairground, where interested parties are staking out their prime real estate. Flag and flip. Both…