Student Presentation #1Response

The presentation of politics in Southeast Asia was pretty interesting but confusing too. I really liked the issue with Amerasians because even though I knew there were Amerasians that came from war and events like that, I didn’t know that Amerasians were being mistreated and discriminated. I didn’t know that there were also groups that try to help these people and that America has been colonizing all over the world and making mixed children. It is pretty sad to see how race still plays an important factor in treatment. I’m surprised to see the U.S. taking Amerasian children in only by the color of their skin and features which is such a discriminatory and racist way to judge a person. This topic really reminded me of the “Madam Butterfly” story with Japan and how the soldiers do not care for the women they have been with. It also got me thinking about the mixed children in America and how do they identify themselves as well as the theory that Asian women are more likely to date white men in college campuses. Hopefully, this issue will be resolved to the point where communities accept each other for who they are and just show love to everyone because we all live in the same world, sky, air, water, and earth.

            Michael’s presentation was very short and confusing. I admit that I just skimmed the reading the night before their presentation but I was still confused. I thought it was mostly about how Vietnam is becoming more like the U.S. by having votes for policies and how what should be changed to stop the poverty in Vietnam is to “change the institution” or the system Vietnam has like irrigation. I thought the article Michael gave was interesting after I gave it a second read as it talked about how Vietnam needed to change to match the economy of others and I’m not sure how I feel about that because this article sounds like it came from a racist point of view. Michael’s presentation did not have much in detail and just provided links for us to do it meaning that he probably didn’t put much work into his presentation and I felt that I missed out on something important or that I did not have someone clarify or simplify the article for the class which will be on our final.

            Ricky’s presentation was pretty short too and I expected powerpoints to supplement the discussion not lead it. I did learn a lot from his article and didn’t realize the connection between China and Vietnam. I guess I didn’t have much interest in the topic of China and Vietnam because I only cared about Vietnam and that I already knew that China was doing better in economics than Vietnam. I also wanted to learn more about other countries’ politics like Laos and Cambodia to get a wider view of Southeast Asia other than Vietnam even though the presenters’ strength was Vietnam.

            I learned from their presentation that my group should try to work together and be on the same page with our topic and go into detail of the topic. We should also try to talk about other countries in Southeast Asia too and not have very different topics that could be too much for the class because that would mean more readings and more work. 

-Tri-Thien Nguyen Lam