Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Presentation #1


            There were a variety of topics that were presented today. I thought the presenters knew what they were talking about and were well prepared. It would have been easier to follow the presentations if the topics actually correlated with each other.
            The topic that I thought was the most interesting was the one with policies against Amerasian. I thought the presenter knew what he was talking about and presented it well, even without a powerpoint. Although the article was really long, it was a good read. It just brings more insight at how the United States is always in denial and never wants to take responsibility for its own actions by manipulating messages to the public. As the author stated, these Amerasian lives are greatly affected by the anti-United States sentiments in the places where there were huge United States military presence. I think the author does a great job acknowledging the amount of work volunteer agencies do to help Amerasian.
            I thought the presenter for the economy topic between China and Vietnam presented the topic well. The powerpoint slides helped a lot. I do agree that you cannot really talk politics without having to talk about the economy because a lot of our political issues stem from our economic situations. Political decisions are usually made to benefit our economic needs over anything else. The article was also really long, but it was a good read either way.  I think the author does a great job addressing the gains that China and Vietnam get from joining the major economic markets like the United States. Because western countries like the United States rely heavily on importing from China and Vietnam, so if a crisis ever happens, China and Vietnam will be the ones that are less affected. I also agree that because Vietnam is a smaller and less wealthy country than China, its dependence on China may hurt Vietnam’s economy since resources are hard to find, especially with huge domestic Chinese producers around. I thought the author did a great job in comparing and contrasting Vietnam and China’s differences because while doing so, the author explains what kind of pros and cons impact it has on each country.
            The last topic that was presented was on the politics in Vietnam. After reading this article, I remember a guest speaker in one of my ASA classes and he told us that Vietnam is now more of a materialistic country than a communist country? Because having the latest new gadget upgrades your socioeconomic status in your small social group. The article also analyzes Vietnam’s attempt to “democratize” its state, but the author claims that it fails to do so because of corruption and lack of responsibility from those who lead. I did not like this article as much as the first two, mainly because it confused me. I did not really understand what the role of village leaders were and what role they had in Vietnam’s politics.
            I thought these topics were interesting and all of them were relevant to the politics topic. Because they are all related to Vietnam, my question for the presenters is: How can you relate all three of these articles to each other?

Pajkub Vahchuama

4 comments:

  1. Shoua Her
    ASA150E
    Reflection on Group 1 Presentation
    April 25, 2012

    The presentation had three different topics in relation to the general topic of politics for the week. It was interesting to find out that forgetting the Amerasians in Vietnam was part of the Vietnam Syndrome that followed the end of the war. When discussing on the topic of the Amerasian children coming to the United States, how did they figure out the paternity of the father or rather, did the women keep track of the men or was that totally ignored? I thought it was a little racist how only the children who had lighter skin were more preferable for adoption than for darker skinned children. I think that they should not have a preference because of skin color but because of the time period, racism was still a big deal within the Americans.
    I thought that it was a good idea that the government decided to make policies that would allow American soldiers to send for their children in Asian countries; however, I feel like it was just a cover up for the United States because they lost the war and wanted to “repay” the innocent civilians back for going there in the first place. If they did not do that, they would probably feel more pressure from other countries which would probably cause them to have economic troubles with other countries and the international trade.
    The second part of the presentation seemed confusing to me because it was hard to understand the themes/topics that were discussed. The presenter did not seem to show knowledge of the article hence making it confusing and difficult for me to follow along with the ideas presented. The presenter could have expanded more on the ideas and explain the article a bit more so the audience could understand the main topic/thesis of the article.
    However, when discussing about the topic of the government using formal and informal language to get things done, it makes me think about the United States because I feel that the government officials in this country also do the same thing. They use different types of languages to either confuse the people or they make it sound like it is going to be a good plan when it really is not.
    The third part of the presentation was good because I was able to follow with the ideas presented and the presenter seemed to have a good sense of understanding of the article in which he presented. The presenter did a good job of providing the page numbers for the quotes he used in the presentation so that the audience will be able to refer back to the exact page to reread the section if they wanted to do so. The article was interesting because it allowed me to learn something new about the economic relations between Vietnam and China. Not only was I able to learn something new about their economic relations, I also learned that the West is also benefitting from the Asian countries because they are privatizing the institutions. The group could have just focused on this article that was presented because it was a really interesting piece to read.
    The readings could have been shorter since they used three articles because it was confusing to follow along and the presentation seemed to have been three small, separate presentations that were just put together last minute. They could have just chosen one long article and present on just that one article instead of having three different articles which were also quite long. There could have been more organization so that the audience would not get confused about the ideas or concepts being discussed.

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  2. Pajkub, good job. -Prof. Valverde 4/4

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  3. Shoua, Kind of Pajkub to share her space with you. Next time blog independently. :D -Prof. Valverde 4/4

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  4. Sorry, I kind of thought about it afterwards.

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