U.S. President Barack Obama said interacting with young people during his three-day visit to Vietnam makes him optimistic about the country’s future. In some remarkably personal exchanges with young audience members at a town-hall style event in Ho Chi Minh City Wednesday, he confessed that he was not always very serious in his youth.
The president spoke to some 800 members of the Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative Network, who welcomed him enthusiastically with loud cheers, American flags and a standing ovation. YSEALI is Obama’s signature program, launched in 2013, to strengthen leadership development and networking in Southeast Asia.
The president began by saying he had spent part of his own youth in the Southeast Asian nation of Indonesia, and that the region has shaped him.
One questioner asked the president for advice on how to become a great leader, to which Obama said the young crowd members already appear better prepared and organized than he was their age.
“First of all, let me tell you that when I was your age I was not as well organized, and well-educated and sophisticated as all of you. When I was young, I fooled around a lot, I didn’t always take my studies very seriously, and I was more interested in basketball, and girls. And I wasn’t always that serious,” he said.
There are many ways be to be a leader, and advised young people to find something they are passionate about, and pour all their energy and effort into it.
You can change the world to reflect our best values… and change the region in positive ways,” he said.
The President also took questions on the arts and the hotly general elections coming up in the US.
Vietnamese citizens lined the streets to get a glimpse of President Obama, who said the United States and Vietnam are embarking on a new 100-year journey together.
The next stop for the president is Japan, where he will meet Wednesday evening with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
