Southeast Asian Officials Coming to Purdue

Officials from several Southeast Asia universities will visit Purdue University on Monday (28 June) for a workshop on government-private sector partnerships and the role of intellectual property as an economic development tool, reports the Purdue News Bureau.

The campus event, hosted by Purdue's Discovery Park, is part of a two-week seminar on innovation and intellectual property (IP) protection and enforcement supported by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The visit will include IP officials from Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.

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Vietnamese Students to Enroll in SPEA

Fifteen students from Vietnam will enroll this fall in the Master of Public Affairs program at Indiana University Bloomington through a new program co-sponsored by the IU School of Public and Environmental Affairs and the Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training, reports the IU News Bureau

The program, called Vietnam Young Leader Awards, will provide full scholarships for outstanding Vietnamese government employees. This marks the first time that Vietnam has taken part in a specific program to send young people to the United States for training in public policy.

SPEA will support the program by charging Indiana resident tuition rates for the Vietnam Young Leader Awards students. The Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training will pay tuition and other expenses.

The first class of Vietnam Young Leader Awards recipients will be selected this summer and will travel to Bloomington for an academic preparation program at IU. The students will enroll this fall in the two-year M.P.A. program, on schedule to graduate and return to Vietnam in May 2012.

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Kernan Returns to Vietnam

Former Indiana Gov. Joe Kernan is making an emotional return to Vietnam, where he spent 11 months as a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War.

WSBT-TV reports that Kernan and his wife Maggie on Monday visited the sites of two Hanoi prisons where he was held after his Navy reconnaissance plane was shot down in 1972.

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Nationalities Council Mourns Victims

Our thoughts and prayers are with the friends and family of those killed and injured in the shooting at the American Civic Association in Binghamton, NY, yesterday.

Apparently Jiverly Wong (Voong), an immigrant from Vietnam, targeted his fellow immigrants in an as-yet unexplained attack on the organization that assists immigrants and refugees with immigration and personal counseling, resettlement, citizenship, family reunification, interpreters, and translators. Like the Nationalities Council of Indiana, the association also seeks to fosters cross cultural understanding for the entire community.

Asian Festival Scheduled for 10 May

The Asian American Alliance, Inc., and Indy's Garfield Park will host the first-ever Asian Festival on 10 May. From 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., you can sample food and buy merchandise from vendors from all over Asia – China, Korea, Japan, Philippines, Vietnam, Burma, Cambodia, Thailand, India and Indonesia – all under one roof in Garfield Park.

Artwork of Asian artists in Indianapolis will also be on display at the Garfield Arts Center. Plus, cultural entertainment and activities will be offered throughout the day. Admission is free.

The festival is held in conjunction with the Asian Pacific-American Heritage Month, the month of May, as designated by the United States Congress.

Vietnam Motors Industry Lures Cummins

Columbus-based Cummins Inc. has signed a Memorandum of Understanding for a joint venture to produce on-highway diesel engines in Vietnam, according to Inside Indiana Business. Cummins will work with Vietnam Motors Industry Corp. Financial terms of the deal have not been set and no timetable for completing the joint venture agreement has been established.

"Stealing Buddha's Dinner"

Stealing Buddha's Dinner (Viking Penguin, $24.95) is a new memoir from a Purdue University English professor, who shares her story about growing up a Vietnamese immigrant in the Midwest in the 1980s and how she tried to be "more American" by consuming snack food, pop culture and music.

Bich Minh Nguyen (pronounced "Bit Men Ng-win") left Vietnam with her family in 1975, when she was 8 months old. They eventually settled in Grand Rapids, Mich. Nguyen's memoir evolved from essays about her family's emigration and culture clashes in that conservative town.

Nguyen received the PEN/Jerard Award in 2005 for the memoir's manuscript-in-progress. She teaches creative writing and Asian American Literature in the Department of English, which is housed in the College of Liberal Arts at Purdue.

For more, see the news release from Purdue.



UPDATE!
The MSM has finally noticed Prof. Nguyen´s existence!

As long as the link is active, you can read a Q&A with her in the 25 March 2007 edition of The Indianapolis Star.