Event Report (World Plaza - Vietnam Edition)

World Plaza ~ Vietnam ~

On Sunday, February 16th, Tao, who is from southern Vietnam, and three of his friends gave a talk about Vietnam at the Hashimoto Community Center. They were all dressed in colorful ao dai traditional clothing, and their lovely smiles left a strong impression.

Tao used slides to give us a clear explanation of the situation in southern Vietnam near the border with Cambodia, its culture, customs, traditional foods, greetings, etc. He said that it is common to greet people with a smile. That's wonderful.

It was a very interesting talk, including how Vietnam is plagued by chronic traffic congestion, and how subways have been built in the northern capital of Hanoi and the southern metropolis of Ho Chi Minh City with aid from Japan and China in order to improve the country's traffic situation, how traffic rules are becoming stricter, how IT is being increasingly used for things like resident registration cards, and how internet payments using smartphones are becoming more common.

He also showed us some Vietnamese words that are pronounced similarly to Japanese words and some simple greeting phrases.

After the lecture, everyone played Dakau, a traditional game similar to Japanese kemari and soccer juggling, which was a huge success!