- Mekong Delta lecture
- Vietnamese numbers
- Glass Egg Media
- Street Food
Journal
Today we first went to UEF for a special lecture.
Our guest lecturer was Le Quang Minh. He has held many titles including
president of a university. The lecture was about the history, culture, and
economics of the Mekong Delta, or low-lying wet lands at the southern tip of
Vietnam. Some interesting points: the area includes 50% of Vietnam’s rice
production, it was the birthplace of the spring roll, the shrimp and rice
industries compete because shrimp production uses salt water while rice
production uses fresh water, shrimp farming has been devastating to mangrove
forests as well as farmers, the shrimp industry has collapsed twice, the
elevation of most of the Mekong Delta is less than 1 meter and could eventually
drop underwater from flooding, and there is a temple which contains many gods
from religions around the world. In Vietnamese language class, we learned the
numbers one to a million. When writing numbers, Vietnamese people use a dot to
indicate where Americans would put a comma. After lunch, we visited Glass Egg
Media. The company is located near the top of a skyscraper. The office windows
provided amazing views of the city. Glass Egg Media outsources 3D animations of
cars and video game characters. While walking around the workplace, I could see
that employees used 2D pictures as reference points for the 3D models. The
company also owns a dating website for people in Vietnam but hopes to expand it
globally. We listened to Phil Tran and CEO Steve Reid in the company conference
room. Phil Tran and Steve Reid met in Ho Chi Minh City after Phil quit his old
job. Later that evening, I ate street food for the first time. I got to try
alligator and pig’s tongue!
