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: Youtube

  • Whiter shade of HP

    “The crowd call out for more…” Procol Harum’s one-hit wonder, with his indelible organ solo, still mystified many on YouTube. Legacy companies in a mature industry such as HP, have moved too far away from their roots, hence, at great risk of being irrelevant or turning into wax (Icarus paradox). In HP’s early days, Bill and Dave…

  • Web and Cable experience

    In the early days of the Web,  I asked my friend what he did online. The answer: ” I just browse from one magazine to the next (static), and listen to ethnic radio channels “. This was pre-YouTube era. We have spent an enormous amount of time curating content that is put out there: radio signals,…

  • The future, never in past tense

    Peter Jennings took a smoke break, his first in years, from 9/11 live coverage. It was the beginning of his end. The Canadian co-author of “The Century” must have studied the Wright brothers, whose invention could lift itself up into thin air albeit for just a few blocks. But he had never seen anything like the two planes…

  • Starting a joke

    50 years ago,  you would have been chased out of the pub had you painted these scenarios: the US can’t wait to open off-shored manufacturing centers, Gaga as a mermaid on wheelchair, and 90% of the population will shop at Wal-Mart, stocked with 99% Made-in-China merchandise. Dude, in the 60’s, we were living the American…

  • Choppers that chop the seas

    The news of Premier Nguyen Cao Ky passed away brought back a long time passing. In my youth, the sound of hovering helicopters was as common as street vendors’ chants. On the war’s last day, ambassador, flag, ground-keepers, pilots and anything that moved, tried to get out to International Waters . Buses, barges and yes, choppers. Lone…

  • Ole friends as mirrors

    We finally met, at Starbucks. 3 classmates. 39 years and a huge ocean in between. We could have just waited. Starbucks is opening up in Vietnam soon. But there we were: the skinny, the fat and the ugly (me). Past, present, past. Time interlacing. No preset agenda. No chronological order, or Robert’s rules of order.…

  • This side of doom

    Doomsday prediction did not materiale. On this side of doomsday, Southeast Asia is no longer a war zone. It’s the new fun zone (with young and upcoming demographics). LinkedIn IPO gone through the roof while IMF Chief couldn’t check in at any hostel in NY (I did not mis-spell “hostel”). Whether you live in flood zone or…

  • 3D and 4G

    At the most elementary level, we got the chip set. That is about to change, from “flat like a sheet of paper”” to 3D chip, announced Intel (which made Applied Materials jump to its 3.9 Billion acquisition of Varian Semiconductor to keep pace). Our world is about to change once again, not to the tune…

  • Easily swayed

    According to social scientists, any two people are only separated by 6 to 7 degrees of connection. Last week I put it to test. Surely enough, the quake victims in Japan somehow are separated from me by only three degrees. My niece’s friend had relatives who fled Japan and came to stay with them. Two short introductions and a short…

  • the dot connector

    I am referring to Dr Rustum Roy of Penn State whom I met almost 4 decades ago. I knew then just as I know now that he was ahead of his time. He pushed for integrated studies in Science, Technology and Society. He showed up at a demo of  hologram which is now being worked…