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

  • 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…

  • White fence to White House

    In-your-face campaign slogans. Last-minute push. Local, State and National level. Voter drive in full drive. From Alfred Smith (Catholic) to Kennedy (Catholic) onto Romney (Mormon). Religion on the fringe, now got NYT full-page endorsement by Billy Graham. I thought the Reverend was supposed to play neutral, and be wise-man to Presidents, Red or Blue. It’s great…

  • Pressing on

    There are days when nothing seemed to go your way. Just have to press on. Then there are days when things converge, in perfect storm with positive results. Just have to press on. Things, people and places. They are what/who they are. Can’t bend them to our liking, for our preferences. Just have to learn…

  • Insights from the inside

    This could also be titled “Full Circle”. We act out that which triggered us from the inside. Stored up commands. Encoded instructions (like our own software version if you will). Years ago, we fled by barge.  FOB. Then when we reached safety, inside secured camp  boundaries, we started to fight our ways to survival: each man to…

  • Memoir yet to be written

    The 70’s was coined the ME decade (Tom Wolfe). I am OK, you’re OK. By now, we should see the ME products on the shelves: from Shirley MacLaine to her brother Warren Beatty, from Rock Hudson to Ron Reagan. Last of the hardback memoirs. Last of generation ME. We now join the world, for WE ARE THE…

  • je pense

    Have you ever looked back at those goals you had set right out of college? Marriage? Career? Health? Then and Now. Perhaps they still remain the same or in reverse order. No one set out with a goal of multiple marriages. Or multiple careers. Yet it has happened, taken most of us by surprise. On a…

  • Imponderables

    Dead Valley is known to be the hottest place on Earth. Yet millions have traveled pass there on their way to Las Vegas. Venture Capitalists are also well versed in what’s so called “valley of death” i.e. when a start-up moved pass its honey-moon stage, and simply cannot sustain the burnt rate. Yet people keep trying. Then,…

  • Alternate Dream

    American Dream has undergone a makeover of late (maybe because the Chinese economy itself was heading for a cliff, so it needed to apply a break on lending). Whatever the underlying reason, America middle class is contracting not because of shrinking population , but mostly because of declining income and consumption. In short, the good old time…

  • 30 years on

    USA Today celebrated its 30th anniversary issue, with bolder graphics and fonts (thanks! we can use larger fonts now). Those papers we pick up outside our hotel rooms when traveling on business  (to be left behind at airport lounges). Anyway. This issue features some “futurists” in each sector: urban architecture, space travel, transportation (Ford), internet (Twitter’s…

  • We can do better!

    We all campaign for our own survival and decency. Our term limits are long, and the road is hard. It was still dark when I got to the park. A guy with backpack barely crossed the street. That early! Then it hit me: the street is his home. He never got out of any house. So…