Day #285 - Mathilde Nguyen

Back in the year 2222 the then French nation decided that it needed a more significant place in the Asian market. To try to set this up they looked at several possibilities but eventual fell upon Vietnam as there were strong ties to their past and a good history between the two nations. Over the next 20 years they developed the first ‘Marriage of Nations’ on Earth, this is where the two economies merged, the Franc and the Dong became the new currency called ‘the Francong’ and the nation became known as Francanam and the people as the Francanamese. These changes were also implemented into the French Provinces of Quebec and New Caledonia. Francanam had become an instant player in the world economy, they had the power and prestige of the French combined with the dogged tenacity of the Vietnamese. The existing French aristocracy always thought that they’d have dominance over their ‘lesser’ countrymen but after the first 150 years they would see themselves reduced to less than 5% of the population. The aristocrats couldn’t breed like their Vietnamese brothers and became the absolute minority. They only place they still controlled to a certain degree was the diplomat roles as they were more readily accepted by other Europeans, but this too change in the next few decades, the Vietnamese language had gone the way of Latin and French was the dominant tongue.

Mathilde was born and raised with the ultimate goal of being the Francanamese Ambassador to the US, she was multi-lingual (as all diplomats needed to be) and was schooled in Paris, from the age of 6 she was schooled in the ways of the office, her mind was based on strategy and bullshit, the two key factors of any diplomat.

Her etiquette teacher (a descendent of the French aristocracy), Dmitri (from Paris himself) taught her the correct manner for all things from high tea to military nous, she had to learn to carry herself like a true Frenchman with, poise, arrogance and a disdain for anything that didn’t better the proud nation(s) of Francanam.

She nailed it and the Francanamese nation maintained a strong footing in the most complex nation on Earth.