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

  • 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…

  • Living in horror shop

    This Valentine Day, Vietnam dating scene will be scary! That is, if they picked  “House in the Alley” for a date movie. Dan rented a house in District 3, and during the course of trying to find the right film treatment, discovered something about the house in the alley which he had rented (French villa).…

  • 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…

  • First, learn respect!

    After transitioning from a French elementary school to a Vietnamese middle-school, on my first day of school,  I saw “First learn respect, then learn literature”. My brother’s generation at the same school had been from the same mold (his classmates are still staying in touch). No wonder they showed up at my Mom’s funeral in a…

  • Moon Alley

    Last night, when I got back to my alley, I thought they had turned on extra lighting. Turned out I did not notice that it was full moon. No wonder people were going to the Temple, buying and selling fake dollars for the dead. It was supposed to be the second important date on the…

  • 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…

  • Convenience and conservation

    Plastic or paper? Here or to-go? Before we know it, billions of mindless decisions are made everyday. Taylorism (efficiency down to the smallest detail) has found its way into fast cars and fast food. Even into our every-day use of language: just a sec, ASAP, bs. There is no excuse for snappiness. We have stood by…

  • Fateful beach

    When I heard that the beach (Vung Tau) was overcrowded during the long Tet holidays, I tried to imagine the sand, the surf and the separation (forced) I endured years ago. We drove through neighborhood barbed wires and violated curfew, the day before Saigon fell, to spot escape routes. I tricked my family into stopping…

  • Teen boys’ dreams

    It’s all there on my friend’s web site: the seating lay-out in the classroom (three jr-high students to a table) I drew up 40 years ago. When you click on a name, it pops up a few byline and that friend’s mushy words about “summer time” or “we will never be this good as a…