Aug.19 2014

Today we learnt about the history of Okinawa and also in and out of Asia. It was mind blowing for 2 reasons. The first one is our guest speaker was not remotely Japanese, he was in fact American. And his knowledge about Okinawa and Asia was admirable. He approached problems in easy and interesting ways so we could keep track with the lectures. He gave us cookies for each correct answer to encourage individuals. The way he talked was so passionate too. The second reason why I loved this lecture was its content. I never did research about Okinawa so everything turned out fresh and new. Okinawa has so much potential geographically, culturally and economically since day one. I also learnt about Okinawa’s traditions and the emperors’ wise strategies when trading with the Chinese. Unlike most other countries at that century which paid tributes by slaves ( meaning real human- beings ) Okinawa never once traded the people, but instead, they used horses. I think that was extremely impressive.

In the afternoon, we moved to OIST ( Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology ) At first I was not that excited because I had deemed that this was going to be another campus tour where one would baffle about how amazing this university was. But in fact, it really was amazing. The first thing that struck me was its unique architecture. The glass buildings and the shapes really represented a technology institute. As I walked through the halls, I was literally blown away by all the inventions and photographs of research process that the subjects were no one else but OIST’s own students. OIST also supported equal gender rights. Women can work in science and technology fields! The environment was strictly professional and everyone respected each other. I had heard a lot about other ingenuous institutes such as Harvard, Stanford ( The communication dept manager was actually a Stanford alumni himself ) but his mind was really ahead of all that prestigious institute. OIST was a science place but everything felt friendly and very much at home. Now that was really precious. I’m actually so into science now even though I’m from Literature class. That’s how good OIST was in inspiring people.

ID: G1-4
Name: Tran Linh Chi
Country: VIETNAM