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: New York

  • Census in our mind

    1976. Washington D.C. Belt-bottom pants and boom-boxes. The city was predominantly black. 2011 Washington D.C. Gentrified, half-black and half others.And that’s just one stat in the 2010 data. Asian population in Arizona, Texas and elsewhere like Philadelphia should surprise any demographer. While America went to war in Europe, European ended up at America’s shores. Then…

  • Calling on Leaders

    Mongolian Khan, upon his first day out of jail, jumped on the horse to lead his nation to new height. Lennon and Yoko still purchased full-page ad in the NYT to run the same poster as they did 40 years ago “WAR IS OVER, if you want it”. With the new digital order, thought-leaders emerged…

  • The larger-than-life generation

    Tom Brokaw‘s coined it “The Greatest Generation” those who preceded the Boomer Gen. This weekend we remember many who fought those huge battles. The way they carried themselves: smoking, shooting and even kissing in the streets of New York (celebrating victory). Subsequent G.I. Bill made possible their going to college (many were into engineering and management, having been…

  • Amuse ourselves to the next level

    Neil Postman didn’t see the rise of game online when he penned “Amuse ourselves to death”. But he was on to something worth discussing: we are heading toward becoming a couch-potato nation or in China, Internet-addict camp. When Chinese kids get sent to these internet addict camps, we witness another unintended consequence of our high-tech…

  • strip tease

    A Canadian lady, on her insurance-paid leave for mental distress, walked into a bar. Not just any bar, but a male strip tease bar. And she posted her excursion in Facebook to share with “friends”. Among the uninvited  “friends” was the Insurance adjuster. So, her insurance checks stop coming. Reason: “we have joy, we have…

  • deja vu

    Yesterday I reposted “Invisible Man“.  Today, it’s about “invisible hand“. There is an invisible hand that definitely plays with events in history, and this Adam-Smith-like hand seems to run out of tricks every 40 years or so, so it seems. In Understanding Vietnam (Berkeley Press), we learn that history seems to recycle itself every 40 years…