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: Vietnam

  • the Nguyen

    In college, I could just tell when teachers got to my name: they couldn’t pronounce it. To save time, I just said “here”. This was Penn State, late 70’s, when a name like Carter from Georgia could barely register in Washington Belt Way. Now a random walk on the web tells me the Nguyen have…

  • Tales of a Recession

    Two men were caught on surveillance camera for stealing $2000 worth of Victoria Secret panties. http://www.wpbf.com/news/22568081/detail.html 73-year-old Tampa man was arrested last week for robbing a bank to pay his mortgage. In California, a unionized plumber got laid off, now sleeps in his truck. When the city of Tustin laid off people, an employee, a…

  • Traditions: collide and compromise

    East meets West. New Year and Valentine’s. Families vs lovers. In Vietnam, with a strong Confucian foundation, filial quality stands above all else. So on that first day of this year of the Tiger, sons and daughters are expected to show up first thing at the parents’ door steps. Then, in the evening, this year…

  • Decoding America

    It’s a grand title. But the intention is put up some guide posts to mark the new (Lonely) American trail Or else, new comers to America, reading Orientation web sites only, would end up like the Oregon couple who trusted solely on GPS readout, without consulting paper maps. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100102/ap_on_hi_te/us_stranded_motorists We learn and continue to refine…

  • Forced realities

    “the Network Effect of Nations”. Brazil, the “B” in BRIC, is on course to be number 5 by 2014 according to the Economist. http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=14845197&source=most_commented So, it’s not just the International Olympic Committee which noticed Brazil Rising. Nor is it seen only as the  corn basket of the world (When I hear Brazil, immediately popped to…

  • Gatsby in China Beach

    I thought the USS New York was cool until I read about ex-refugee came back as US Naval Commander in China Beach. http://www.omantribune.com/index.php?page=news&id=58579&heading=Asia Same waters, similar vessels, but context and crew have changed. Just like what we read today about a school teacher walking students on a day field trip to former East Germany. What…

  • New voice new vision

    I browsed the DVD shelves at my local library (North Palm Beach) the other day, and saw Buffalo Boy next to Brokeback Mountain and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid.  It is by fate that the Cowboy and the Buffalo(boy) found themselves on the same DVD shelf, just like those black and white GI’s names…

  • deja vu

    Yesterday I reposted “Invisible Man“.  Today, it’s about “invisible hand“. There is an invisible hand that definitely plays with events in history, and this Adam-Smith-like hand seems to run out of tricks every 40 years or so, so it seems. In Understanding Vietnam (Berkeley Press), we learn that history seems to recycle itself every 40 years…