Religion, Culture, and Art

In lieu of Vietnamese language class today, we visited a Taoist pagoda hidden amongst Saigon's city sprawl. The pagoda, dating back to the 11th century had a number of interesting artifacts including a pond packed with turtles, many wood carvings of warriors, and an old statue who's halo was lit with cheap colorful LEDs. This was an interesting combination of old and new Vietnam and the visit to the pagoda was a nice set up for our lesson back at UEF.

At UEF, we had a lesson on the history of Vietnamese culture. The most interesting portion of the lesson was the discussion of an indigenous tribe in the highlands of central Vietnam. Their culture held females in higher regard than males and valued nature over worldly possessions, such as luxurious homes.

By far the highlight of the day was our visit to Glass Egg, a digital media company that specializes in modeling cars for video games such as Forza Motorsport and Need for Speed. We were given a tour of their facility and got to watch their 200 artists digitally map out supercars down to the nuts and bolts of the engine. Their work is extremely impressive as games like Forza are regularly praised for the beauty of their cars. I remember playing Forza Motorsport 3 for hours on end even though I don't usually enjoy the gameplay of racing games. I played solely to look at the cars. We also met with Phil Tran (CEO), Steve Reid (CFO), and Guillaume Monier (COO) and were able to ask questions after viewing their portfolio. We learned about how Vietnam is a prime place for entrepreneurship since labor costs are so low and heard Phil and Steve's story in building Glass Egg. Phil's story was particularly fascinating because him and his family were actually refugees from the North Vietnamese at the end of the Vietnam War. His father was a soldier in the South Vietnamese military who wrote to a friend in the U.S. Military when he recognized that if he didn't find a way to escape the country his family would be divided and imprisoned while he would likely be executed. This letter was published in the San Diego Times and the publicity pressured the U.S. embassy to evacuate him and his family immediately. Phil was 12 at this time and returned to Vietnam when he was 31. He met Steve, who grew up in Virginia and was visiting the country, and they founded Glass Egg.