Thang Nguyen 555

Cultures on Collision Course

recent posts

about

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: Vietnam

  • 10,000 hours

    How many among us actually put in that many hours pursuing one thing? Yet studies show it takes that much practice to master a skill or a trade. That long to promote ourselves to the rank of outlier : Bill Gates coding skill, the Beatles smooth performance etc… Today marks my first 10,000 views of…

  • Cancer and Career

    At Van’s Cafe Ho Chi Minh City, if you stayed til the end of their second set of music, you would no longer hear Truc Vy doing her closing songs. She performed her set last week for the last time. Despite her late-stage throat cancer, she gave her best with composure and courage. I did…

  • Content poor

    Latest study pointed to Vietnam workforce skill deficiencies, particularly in critical and behavioral skills (numerical skill was a given). This study came not as a surprise. For years, kids have adopted a rote learning, picked up from peers and adults, who in turn, had picked up from earlier generations. We are heading toward an era…

  • Goodbye Saigon, pt II

    Another friend flew out for Thanksgiving. There is no such a thing here in Saigon: oven-roasted turkey, croton and mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce , yam and apple pie. Mouth-watering!  children running around and old folks reminiscing the good old days. Yes, his destination has a few hallmarks of the American Dream. Here in old Saigon,…

  • Brunch w/ a bunch (of jamers)

    It’s my first time at  Van’s Cafe, 46 Pham Ngoc Thach, District 1 Saigon on Sunday morning. And I found myself walking into the door with 2 musicians I know: Mr Hai, on base guitar, and Quoc Dat (blind but extremely gifted jazz pianist, and a student of my now deceased friend.). Before I knew it, people…

  • Positively positive

    Same set of situation, variety of readings. Rashomon effect. In Vietnam, if you ran into a funeral, it’s luck. Wow! Positively positive. The deaths live on in the family, albeit high up on the altar. Part of one another forever. Unlike in the US, health care for all is health care for none (shut down). Negatively…

  • To beat a dead horse

    Even to this day, people still using the Vietnam War as a figure of speech: “Syria will be another US‘ Vietnam” etc… It was meant to be the new Boogeyman. To scare off the children. To conjure bad imagery and bring back nightmares. In Rambo, Stallone’s rare line was “where they call Hell, I call…

  • Mac Miracle

    My friend kept listening to Roger Waters‘ It’s a Miracle, whose lyric includes “they’ve got MacDonald in Tibet“. Now, they’ve got MacDonald in Vietnam. More miracle! Thomas Friedman put a spin on an old geo-political theory, which states that any two countries, with a MacDonald, are least likely to engage in an arm conflict. In…

  • Caught in the thick of rain

    It’s not Les Parapluis de Cherbourg , or Catherine DeNeuve with her trench coat. Just anything over the head to stay, well, less wet. We got out of the pool, just to be wet all over again. Tropical summer. Impeding traffic and time planned. Here in Vietnam, it takes a lot just to stay cool…

  • Summer Sadness

    Some kids revisited their Summer 1942. Coming of age. Others, say in Vietnam, are ready for bigger stage. A Linkedin connect started her SQUAR in emerging Myanma, just core viable product, to be perfected as time goes along. Summer separation and sadness. Summer also brings reunion and reassessment. It’s Q3 for business people. Abenomics or…