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

  • churning, down the river

    The foreclosure process has still been at work, churning homes back on the market in CA or FL. Behind the statistics are people bewildered and shattered. As a nation and the world, we are faced with two choices: – pretend it never happened, and rush out to shop – acknowledge that it happened, and rush…

  • Kindness of strangers

    Years ago, my roommate invited me over for Thanksgiving. The ride from Penn State to Lancaster was a long but memorable one. It’s predominantly Amish there. And I remember discussing with his Dad about “Turning East” by Harvey Cox (the subject I took that summer). Years have gone by. While Western consciousness has yet turned…

  • Thought acquisition

    Chinese shoppers and students are coming. Here is the list of top 10 countries whose students are enrolling in the US. http://www.saigon-gpdaily.com.vn/Education/2010/11/87223/ The stats also shows Mexico at number 9 (CIVET’s countries predominantly present). Rodeo Drive and Las Vegas aside, I want to play campus tour guide. First, the weather. Deal with it. It is…

  • half-life happiness

    The concept of half-life (radioactive) , if could be applied to soft sciences e.g. happiness, can go on to infinity. In today’s term, it’s called austerity: scaled-down cars, DVD nights, and local trips. During the Clinton years, we had a good run. The Japanese had theirs in the 80’s. Now, it’s the Pacific Century. Chinese students…

  • our team always wins

    In three hours, Penn State is going up against Ohio State. We are…. I have had a down morning, until I remember what’s like at tail gate parties: blue-and-white everywhere, strangers cheering you up  and Joe P our god eternal. My spirit is always lifted when the marching band runs into the stadium to lead…

  • Boiling point

    I was often jolted by the two popping pieces of toast, or when my coffee started to boil. That last degree in Celsius makes a difference. Conversely, a frog in slow warming water loses its reflex. The consequences of an over-industrialized world are over-production, and surplus labor/consumers who can’t afford or absorb excess production. “Boiling”…

  • Listening across the cultures

    Listening is hard to begin with (just ask a psychiatrist). Listening across the cultures is doubly hard. It requires an extensive grasp of the others’ frame of reference. As technology enables the world to shrink, more groups join the globalized market. (The PM of Malaysia was on GPS telling Fareed that in the 60’s, Malaysia…

  • Powerful women

    World’s oldest woman. 115 years old. Oldest man, from Japan, 116 years old. Life expectancy in 1900 was 47. World population has increased drastically. (Bio tech century). At the nano level, we can detect early symptoms of all sorts of disease (nano pharma). Ironically, as the West is more aware of health issues and is taking…

  • Rare Earth beats

    If you want to set the tone for the whole day, pop in Rare Earth collection which opens with a 22-minute long Get Ready followed by I Just Want to Celebrate. The name has nothing to do with current dispute between China and Japan for those planned-scarcity elements. Get ready to celebrate. Dream, dream, dream.…

  • Juxtaposing

    It just so happens that I am reading Matterhorn and Love Like Hate one after another. The former depicts the Vietnam War from a GI‘s perspective, the later from a Vietnamese viewpoint. Coincidentally, people depicted in both novels came across as victims of an uncalled-for conflict and whose lives were disrupted and devastated. I found glimpses…