Today's activities started with a Vietnamese cultural history class. South East Asains came into existance as a distinct race through a mixing of the Mongoloids who entered S.E.A. from the North and the Australoids who entered S.E.A. from the South. The tall, bright-skinned Mongoloids and the short, dark-skinned Australoids mixed to create a race of medium sized, brown-skinned people. We learned about the historical enemies of Vietnam. The lecturer listed about 8 different nations that the Vietnamese have had to fend off several times each. The Vietnamese relationship with China has historically been one of a big bully neighbor to a small neighbor. This interestingly resulted in a concentration of ethnic Chinese in the South of Vietnam because of discrimination in the North. We were also told a story that was reminisent of the story of Excalibur. Instead of a nymph in a lake it was a turtle in a lake that gave the hero the magical sword that was used to establish a kingdom. It is kind of interesting how similar cultural lore arises independently in different cultures.
The language class was a pretty big downer for me today. I completly dropped the ball in the verbal quiz. The teacher criticized my incompetence, but in a subtle, very Vietnamese, kind of way. We also learned key phrases to use in restaurants.
In the afternoon we vistied Glass Egg Digital Media. The senior executives we met with were very Westernized. This affected the general tone of the meeting in some interesting ways. They were a lot more open about thier alternate motives for inviting us there. I kind of liked that they were more open about their using of us. They were truly good business men who taught us a lesson by using their money making skills on us. They made a pitch for their club, Lush. Learning about how videogames are made was cool too. I learned a lot about how graphics and 3-D art are incorporated into the business models of game developers.
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