My name is Tung Tran, but I go by Tyler. I was born and raised in Saigon, Vietnam and moved to Portland, Oregon a bit over 3 years ago. This is my first year in UO and I will probably choose advertising as my major. In my free time, I enjoy hanging out with my family and friends. I also play tennis and love thrift shopping, and I’m thinking about taking a sewing class so I can start designing my own clothes. Music is another big interest of mine, as I listen to music all the time. Some of my favorites are Tyler the Creator, Asap Rocky, and Kanye West.

I’m a huge fan of Asian pop culture, especially Japanese culture and anime. Some of my favorites are Slam Dunk!, Bleach, Attack on Titan and Detective Conan. As an immigrant, I also find it really intriguing about the high school culture in Japan, or East Asian as a whole, as to how everyone is so polite, and there are different social classes in a school. The high school in East Asia, high school is regarded almost as a family-like system, while in America, it’s more of a public place where people mind their own business and there is not as much of a school spirit.

I’m really fascinated by the evolution of each language. I’m Vietnamese, and as far as I know, Vietnamese was very much like Japanese and Korean in the beginning. We also used Chinese characters originally, then developed our own language, called Nom, later on. This is until we invented our current language that we use today, inspired by the Latin language. The teaching method of this course is different from what I was used to in high school, as I have to do a lot more reading outside of class, but I think it’s better for me as it encourages me to be more disciplined with myself. This course is very interesting for me as it deepened my understanding of East Asian culture. The class definitely changed the way I think as I know a little bit more about each language and their culture