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: Los Angeles

  • If you could read my heart

    In Eastern cultures, one relies on traditional matchmakers to “read” marriage prospects. Online, we’ve got eHarmony.com or Match.com. Over job interviews, we rely on body language, off-guard remarks and (in)consistencies to form an impression and to determine candidate’s culture-fit. If only could you read my heart. How are we to determine his/her reaction after the…

  • Expired Empires

    The Distributed Model has enabled the Rise of the Rest. Capital, talent and market flow where the chips may fall. Apple courting China, China Africa, Japan Rest of Asia etc… Everyone is out on the dancing floor. Dance anyone? The combinations are endless. Permutation and exponential. Hard and soft powers, hard and soft currencies. Exert that…

  • The undercurrent

    Got jolted last night. 4.1 shock. And this morning, some more aftershocks. It reminds me we share a vulnerable surface: ozone layer all around and a sea of lava underneath. While we receive pictures of Mars surface, we are reminded of Earth surface as well. It takes some getting used to, living in California. But…

  • They keep coming

    In a few days, they might put on Neil Diamond‘s America. Voter registration. Organ donor. Vehicle registration. They bring some cash (let’s hope so) and a load of dream. Many had left personal chapters of their lives before boarding that plane. Just like the Irish and Polish a century and a half ago. Except that the ports of…

  • Neon God

    ” People bowed and prayed, to the neon god they made” (Sound of Silence now inducted to the American Museum as Classic American Sound to be preserved). Meanwhile, we spend an average 8 hours per month on Facebook, “the cathedral they made” (same amount of time people attend church services). Twitter is not addictive. Facebook is.…

  • My 555 plan

    Get back to your roots. Eliminate waste and accessories. Differentiate and make it relevant. Actually, 555 is just a self-branding attempt, after a cigarette a friend of mine used to smoke. I had to attach a numeric code to differentiate (sticky and trans-cultural)  my Yahoo log-on ID. Now we hear of 999 plan etc… It’s hard…

  • When truth shows up

    On the list of “cities that might get worse”, many are from California (Stockton, Bakersfield…but surprisingly, San Francisco as well). Even with and despite boosted help from Tinsel Town. My first impressions of Los Angeles were formed back in the midst 80’s, during the commercial real estate boom (remember Michael Douglas and the Japanese gangs, or automobile…

  • Halloween in Vietnam? A redundancy

    Young people are out in drove, that is, if they were not already on bikes, racing like mad on weekend nights. This time around, in costume. Halloween costume. In Vietnam, of all places. First, the masks trickled in at tourist and expat hot spots. Then, wider adoption is made possible by cheaper goods from next…

  • transitory stage

    I once got a 12-hour lay over in S Korea. The airport boasts itself as ” a world best airport hub”, w/ picture of a janitor-on-duty in men’s bathroom. Every hour, there were a  procession of some sort, complete with traditional gowns and ceremonial hats. Passengers-turn-shoppers (the airport was designed as a Mall) paused and…

  • California Dreaming

    TIME spotlights California on its cover this week. As a country, California would be with the G8 ( between Italy and Brazil, thus displacing BRIC with CRIC  i.e. California, Russia, India and China). Yet it has no world-class soccer team (despite having in-shored Beckham) just yet. That’s said, it is one of the brownest States…