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: United States

  • Eventually

    “If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very brave impartially.…

  • Vibration and sensation

    What do you do when you are awaken in the dark, with trumpet sound out “auld lang sync”? (To te con me danh du). Should we forget the time we picked daisies in the field. Yet that vibration created sensation at the early hour here in Saigon. The departed tried to fight traffic to his/her burial ground.…

  • Saigon, smoke and smog

    You got to be stronger, you got to be wiser…. Cigarette companies are employing sales girls to peddle their tobacco here: buy two get a lighter etc… The girls, all well cast to fit the bill. Sampling a product, hooked for life. Best way to break in a market is via Direct Sales: Likeability, Commitment and…

  • Saigon Tech Talent

    It could have been a waiting scene at Acoustics, Saigon Rock Alley. Except for the instruments and the bands. They were CEO’, CTO and Venture Capitalist. Not Bar Camp, nor Web Wednesday. It’s Mobile Monday, held on Thursday night. The cool, the calm and the co-ed. They were all there. Web to Mobile and back…

  • Microphone Sunday

    Yesterday I saw Mike from UK play Bieber-like and adoring This morning I managed to have him in front of the mike at Cafe Vuong Tron Inter-generational and inter-cultural Sunday coffee house at the outskirt of Saigon The featured singer would take a break and Mike went to the mike He just let go “Broken-hearted”…

  • Celebrating Love in Saigon

    Consumer confidence is up. Spending is up. Cards, chocolate and crocodile (over beer). I thought it must be Christmas or Tet all over again. Hunting down a ticket for A House in the Alley took me to two theaters, with the only available seats at 11:20PM. Way pass my bedtime. Oh well, I tried. Supporting Vietnamese…

  • Something in the way.. of Vietnam

    I just viewed a clip about Vietnam during the 40-50’s (French lady riding and reading the papers on a moving cyclo, newspaper boy wearing beret…). Something in the way, she moves… attract me like no other lover… A North Carolinian I picked up yesterday from the airport (for TESOL course) said “there is something about Vietnam I can’t…

  • My 70’s

    Needless to say, my hair was long, my pants were bell-bottom and my shirt shiny. I spent half of that decade in Vietnam, the other half in America. But the youth culture helped bridge the cultural gap: we had already listened to James Talor, Gordon Lightfoot, Neil Young, Elton John before I jumped on to…

  • Papa’s shoes

    When you karaoke in Vietnam, you are likely to hear Papa along with Hotel California and Casablanca. Something ends with an “a”. I have blogged about Mom’s Ao Dai. So to be fair, here is “Papa‘s shoes“. At lunch, I was joined by a boy and his Dad (it’s common in Asia at peak hours…

  • Seasons and symmetry

    Traffic in the past few weeks has come from the opposite direction: country side to city streets. Tet is over. We had joy we had fun we had seasons in the sun. Now it’s time to ramp up, to deliver. There are things that can only be understood in hindsight:  a failed marriage, a single…