By ANNE BALL, Times Staff Writer

Published January 31st, 1982 – Los Angeles Times

Minh Thai’s blessing was also his curse: the 17-year-old Eagle Rock student won the 1981 Cubathon, the national Rubic’s Cube championship-but he was told to keep it a secret.

“I couldn’t tell anyone that Id won for two weeks. It was hard,” admitted the Eagle Rock High School senior.

In just 26.04 seconds, Thai-a Vietnamese refugee whose family fled Saigon on a small boat in 1978—tri-umphed over more than 10,000 contestants in matching the colors on all sides of the mind-boggling toy cube.

His record-breaking time beat eight other young finalists

—including a nervous 9-year-old who almost cried-in a Nov. 13 taping of the television show “That’s Incredible,” but the participants, audience and promoters were asked to keep the winner’s name a secret until the show aired on Dec. 7.

That victory-including $2,000 and a trophy-was especially satisfying to a youth who four years ago could not speak English.

Mathematics and science are his favorite subjects, but “even in al-gebra, you need English,” Thai said. He learned the language because he had no choice:

“There weren’t a lot of Vietnamese here. That’s the reason I learned it faster -be-cause I had to.”

Foreign-born people who associate only with others from their country have a harder time adjusting to the American life style and lan-guage, Thai said. “You don’t have a chance to use what you learn.”