Final Journal Entry

I think that traveling to Vietnam was an invaluable experience, and one of the best decisions I've made. Not only did I have the opportunity to make new friendships that can flourish when I get back to Pittsburgh in the fall, we also had the opportunity to form some amazing bonds with the Vietnamese students. Vietnam is, I believe, the only developing country visited by the Plus 3 program, which I think made it very unique.

Vietnam is often used for countries in the global economy who are looking to implement the "China plus one" model, that is, to have capital and production invested in China, but also another foreign country, as to not put all your eggs in one basket. Vietnam is a country with a good location, cheap labor, and a very large workforce. While visiting production plants, I was interested in seeing that many jobs which would likely require protective gear as simple as goggles in the US, required nothing to protect the eyes in Vietnam. Companies though, appeared to be very invested in the well being of their employees and providing competitive wages. I think that in order to make use of a plant in another country, you need to be sensitive to their culture, and that the companies who were successful in Vietnam quickly learned this fact.

Based on my experiences in Vietnam, I have a new understanding on what aspects build upon each other to create a global economy. Though Vietnam is becoming more of an open market economy with privately owned businesses, tradition still affects much of their business interactions. I was surprised to learn that even within the country, the north and south still had very different customs. The north had stayed very conservative in business practices, where as the south had opened itself up to more outside influences. There is definitely an amount of social and political awareness a person should have before attempting to do business in Vietnam. I think that American students need to expand their experiences to include knowledge of other cultures. Either by learning about them in school, or by traveling abroad, it will be very important for Americans to not only know the customs of another country, but also to really understand how important they are to the people who live there. Going to Vietnam has resulted in my renewed interest in speaking somewhat proficiently in a language other than English. If all students spoke a foreign language and were required to classes on world cultures, I think that the American student would be much better prepared to do business abroad.

When visiting companies, we had the opportunity to see people with many different backgrounds. We saw people in the US foreign service, Vietnamese who had fled the country and then decided to go back to reestablish businesses, and expats who were in the country to start satellite locations of foreign countries, with the hope that eventually their job would be done by a Vietnamese individual. Most of the people that we met had a background in a field such as business or engineering, and then found ways to apply their knowledge to the Vietnamese market, rather than tailoring their studies around Vietnam. With a strong foundation, I felt that many were still continuing their education on a day-to-day basis, as they interacted with new people and learned new things. At Intel, we learned that they had planned to build the plant within months, but actually needed to train crews on safety, and even provide safe attire to people who showed up barefoot to work on the construction site. Not only are foreigners and foreign companies always learning to things to make their integration into the community better, I think that they are sharing some of the technical and other knowledge they have acquired with the Vietnamese as well.

In Vietnam, people's jobs are considered to be like a second family, whether you work in a family business or for a large overseas company. There was a much stronger connection between home life and work life than I feel is present in the US. Part of this is because of the history of having closed villages, and part is likely because so many people leave their families to find jobs, that when they have one the company truly is their second family. The Vietnamese seemed to be more socially accepting than Americans, but I also felt that on the whole their society is a much more conservative one than ours. I was very surprised though, that the Vietnamese knew so much about America. Many students asked us questions about or made references to American History that I didn't know the answer to, even though I've been in the American school system all my life. They seemed surprised at our attitude towards going to work though-that businesses were not storefronts connected to our homes and that our attitude about working was very disconnected from our attitudes about other aspects of our life.

In addition to learning about how business is done in Vietnam, our group also learned how to work together as a team, both socially and professionally. Though I think it is very unrealistic too keep ten young adults together for two weeks and never expect any conflicts to arise, I think that our group did a very good job of ensuring that they never got in the way of our site visits. In the engineering school, we learn how to work with different engineering students to solve problems, but I found that working with students of a different background required a different approach. It was important for us to realize that we had different backgrounds, and likely different perspectives on things, but also that there weren’t usually going to be one right answer. We quickly learned that it was okay not to understand all the information presented to us, and worked together asking and answering questions to ensure everyone felt like we they were getting something out of the visits. I really enjoyed working with a cross disciplinary team, and sharing experiences that we had all had during freshman year. Similar to the experience we had with the Vietnamese students, it was most important for us to realize all the things that made us the same before we tried to find all the differences between the two disciplines.

Day Twelve: Friday

Friday morning we all decided to try traditional Vietnamese Pho for breakfast. Its a noodle/soup dish thats actually really good. We had our culture class, where we learned a little more about modern Vietnam and the traditional dress, which is the most fashionable out of any of the Asian countries. Then we had our quiz, which I got a 100 on almost all by myself! I was pretty impressed with it. Afterwards we took pictures with the UEF students and headed to the canteen for our last UEF lunch. :( Instead of the usual bananas we had a different fruit, but it tasted SO good! I'm really going to miss some of the fruits we got to try, they were all so different from the ones we have in America, probably because of the differences in climate.

For our last free afternoon, the girls decided to go back to the market. We thought it was going to be a quick trip, but then it turned into a major event. Having been there so long, we pretty much knew how much things were worth and really good negotiators, except for a few times when we did't feel like bargaining and just paid their price. After the market, we met a few of the UEF kids for frozen yogurt, but I left early because I know how hard it is for me to pack. That night, we had our farwell dinner at a place called tourist village, which was an outdoor resort type area and really pretty! It was similar to our opening dinner in menu, and included a pho dish as well.

When we got back from dinner, we had to settle our bills with the hotel which turned into a huge ordeal. The UEF students wanted to have a party for us with "singing and dancing", and most of the guys had gone earlier. Right as we were about to leave, one of the Vietnamese girls came to the Hotel with gifts and cards for us. It was a perfectly timed surprise. As soon as she left, and we were all outside, a blackout hit! I was so thankful I wasn't stuck in an elevator or something.

We decided to walk to the Karaoke place, which ended up being a bad idea. Everyone had warned us about muggers on the motorbikes, and sadly we had a first hand experience. There was a motorbike with two guys on it sitting on the sidewalk almost waiting for us, and they drove by and snagged Elizabeth's purse. It was horrible, but thankfully she didn't have her passport or anything with her. Saigon is very different than an American city in that you rarely need to fear for your life, but need to be extra cautious about material possessions-as small as what necklace you may decide to wear.

Day Eleven: Thursday

Thursday morning, we woke up a little early so we could go the French bakery again before the soccer match. Its kinda funny we all get so excited about the pastries, since we mostly eat eggs and bread for breakfast anyways. We ended up going to breakfast at the hotel too, since we all wanted to fill up on water before the "big game".

When we got to UEF, we had activities with the English Club. They had games planned so it was pretty fun, and we met a few more UEF students. The soccer field was a bus ride away, so we all loaded up and got ready to win. It felt like 107 degrees outside, but since we were in the sun, many of the Vietnamese were still covered from head to toe, which makes sense culturally, though I was shocked they weren't getting overheated. I was definitely the MVP of the game, even though some of the guys might try to tell you otherwise.

After the game we all had time to take much needed showers and grab lunch before we went to the War Remnants Museum. I've never been particularly interested in history, and have to admit that I don't know much about the war, so I was really confused by the way they displayed some of the information. I knew it was going to be propaganda and out of context, but it was hard for me to know what was real and what wasn't going in with no background. I felt as if they were falsely portraying some aspects, but was truly amazed when I saw pictures of devastated areas next to the way the country looks today, they had truly been able to rebuild themselves. One one of the upper floors was an exhibit on reporters and photographers from the war, and I thought that one was really interesting since I spent a few years doing photography myself. That exhibit surprised me though, because they would say that a photograph was taken on the run or from far away, yet still know the story of all the people in them, so I wondered how much of that information was fabricated.

Day Ten: Wednesday

On Wednesday, we headed to UEF for culture class and language class! The culture class talked a lot about the yin and yang aspects of the society, such as houses facing east vs. west and how many gates are customary to have out front. It was interesting to me that the direction a house faces could influence it's value, since that doesn't happen in American real estate. I think a large difference between our culture and their culture is that the Vietnamese have so much history, whereas the United States was founded as a “melting pot” and really has very few distinctly American traditions.

Then we had language classes where we worked on learning numbers and phrases, though our favorite is "Mot Hai Ba Yo!" which is the Vietnamese version of a "1, 2, 3 cheers!" type saying. Even though Vietnam is a more sheltered or conservative country, we’ve learned that there is still a lot we have in common with the UEF students.

After lunch, we walked to the UEF administrative building, which was around the corner from the hotel. When we got there, we met with Mark Oakley, who worked for the law firm Duane Morris Viet Nam LLC. He talked about new companies coming to Vietnam and how they go about getting different permits and permissions they would need. It was interesting to me that he wouldn't comment on anything political, even in our non-public setting, as the government in the country was communist and so it's not acceptable to speak your opinion regarding politics. His talk was interesting because he is a foreigner working in Vietnam, so he had to learn a whole new culture for his job. Though he wanted to be considered a southeast Asia expert rather that a Vietnam expert, he was still very knowledgeable about both how the government in Vietnam works and how cultures of different countries can strongly affect business practices.

Day Nine: Tuesday

Before we went to our site visit, we had breakfast at this French bakery we found last week. It’s great because we can get 3 or 4 pastries for 2 dollars! Tuesday morning we went to the Vietnam version of the stock market. They were very busy since the morning was their busiest time, so our visit was very short. It seemed to me as if they had modeled their stock market after the New York Stock Exchange, though I'm not sure if we modeled ours off another country's or not. It was a lot of people on phones sitting in front of tickers watching stock prices go up and down, what I imagine our stock market was when it first started, but more hi-tech. Since we finished so quickly, we were able to spend the rest of the morning shopping and hanging out with some of the Vietnamese students who had come with us.

For the afternoon, we went to a company called Ascenx. It was and engineering company currently being run by expats who also shared their stories of getting out of Vietnam, and then going back to set up a business. Their company was contracted to update electronic parts that were outdated but needed to be repaired, such as replacing an old TV monitor with a new flat screen, though there would be electronic rewiring and such required. I thought it was a great experience, even though the logistics of the company were a little over my head. But I really enjoyed hearing about their stories, since I’ve never heard much about the life of Vietnamese refuges after the war. After the session, the CEO invited us all to coffee, in classic Vietnamese fashion. So we all went down to the coffee shop in the lobby of the building and chatted more. We ended up talking about everything from places to go at night to where to find a good burger in Vietnam. I think it was one of the better company visits because they were very personable and informal, so we really got to understand a different perspective on the relaxed atmosphere of doing Business in Vietnam.

Day Eight: Monday

On Monday we woke up and went to UEF for the culture and language classes. This culture class was about the history of the Vietnamese people, and history has never been a subject I've never been really good at. I found it interesting, because I was spending time in the country and was interested in its past, but the lesson did seem to drag on for a while. After that we had a language class, and I have to admit I wasn't picking it up very quickly. The Vietnamese students help though, so it's not horrible. Im starting to be able to remember sentences, but whenever I get a paper to read I end up even more confused since the letters are all pronounced differently.

For the afternoon, we went to the University of Agriculture and Forestry for lectures on catfish farming. This university was much more of a campus than UEF, but I saw a lot less students around as well. We had three separate presentations from faculty members, but with all the overlap I felt like it all could have been one presentation. The information was interesting, but I didn't know much about fish farming so it was kind of lost on me. We had read about the Catfish Wars as a case study, but I was really interested in hearing all of the work they put into perfecting the catfish production and really getting the best profit margin. After the presentations we went to see some of their research facilities, but there wasn't much research going on so it wasn't as interesting to see. The university was pretty far from the hotel, and a lot of us were dehydrated for some reason, so we stopped for waters on the way back. Some of the guys got cookies and other snacks, so it was a nice bus ride home.

For dinner, Elizabeth, Rayna and I went to Pizza Hut. I was shocked to see that it was a sit down restaurant that even had escargot on the menu! It was very different than the Pizza Hut's in America. I think I was starting to realize that American food chains had really adapted to the Vietnamese culture of socializing during meals, and that "take-out" didn't really exist in the country.

Day Seven: Sunday

On Sunday we took a “day off” and went to the beach! We took a boat--a hydrofoil—to get there and it was about an hour and a half ride. I was expecting something flat and with no roof for some reason, but it was arranged kind of like an airplane, with assigned seats and everything. We got to the province where the beach was; we stopped for a short break before hiking up this hugeeeeeee hill to see a Jesus statue. I actually wasn't very impressed with the statue up close, but the view from the top was AMAZING. The hike was full of benches donated by different states, so it was great to find ones from Philadelphia, New Jersey, & other places I have friends from.

After that we went to a lunch that had really good seafood, and then to the beach. The actual beach wasn't too impressive, and lot dirtier than I expected. The water was greenish and murky, and we kept finding random things like plastic bags floating in it. Nonetheless it was really fun, and after laying out for a while we had a pretty exciting game of catch in the water which was fun and refreshing.

I was surprised to see that even at the beach the Vietnamese stayed in long sleeves, and paid more for chairs that were under tents and blocked for the sun. But when they were in the water they suits that were very cute, but quite conservative compared to what I’m used to seeing.

On the way back, our hydrofoil got a bamboo root stuck in the engine. We were going upstream so it was already a longer trip, and then we had to stop so they could dive and get it out, so the ride seemed to take forever.

Day Six: Saturday

Saturday we went to the Mekong Delta, which was one of the longest car rides we've had since we've been here! We've been hearing about a new bridge that had been built to make it easier to get there, and it was exciting to go over it even though I'm paranoid about bridges.

Once we got to the delta we visited a Cocoa farm, which tied back in the presentation we had on friday. The fi

rst place we visited wasn't a farm, rather the company who bought the beans from the farmers, and fermented/dried them to be made into chocolate. We could see (and taste!) the beans at all different stages of production which was interesting, but the fresh grown beans definitely don't look OR taste like chocolate. After fermentation they look like the cocoa beans I'm used to seeing, but they still taste bitter and not sweet at all.

For lunch we went to this beautiful outdoor restaurant. The food was good and the fruit in the delta was fresh and wonderful. After eating, there were hammocks set up so everyone laid down and relaxed before finishing up the day at a nearby cocoa farm. They were using the "cocoa under coconut" method of growing, which we had heard about during Friday's presentation.

Day Five: Friday

On Friday morning we visited a plant that Intel just built in Vietnam that hasn't even started producing yet (they will sunday). It wasn't very interesting to see the production lines since they were empty, but it was cool to see the facilities and learn about what went into planning to build the new site, actually contracting local workers, and setting up the factory so that it could begin producing.

We visited a nonprofit organization that works with farmers in the Mekong Delta who are CoCoa farmers, by teaching them the best/most efficient ways to grow the plants. It was interesting because I had no idea how much work went into getting fermented cocoa beans...or that they even needed to ferment and dry before they were even chocolate-y.

Day Four: Thursday

Thursday morning we had a lecture about the Mekong Delta and different issues such as damns being built upstream, mainly by other countries, or climate change that may be affecting it. It was also interesting to learn how the requirements for different uses of the delta, such as catfish farming or growing cocoa require differences as specific as weather there’s salt water or freshwater. I thought this was especially interesting as we're going to see the delta on Saturday, and I really had no idea what to expect until now.

Afterwards, we had a Vietnamese culture lesson. I wish we had this one earlier in the week! After understanding the historical context of why the Vietnamese culture is the way it is, I found it a lot easier to understand their actions. I think that over the past few days we've misinterpreted some things people have done, such as the random "hellos!" we hear as we walk down the street, which really are supposed to be friendly! I also learned that in Vietnam, it's usual to be asked questions about your age, whether or not you have a boyfriend, or whether or not you have children. Sometimes I wondered why the students were asking such personal questions, but in their culture they are polite questions to ask.

We spent the afternoon with representatives from US consulate at their second office, discussing economics and US/Vietnamese relations. I thought the topic was interesting, but a lot of it went over my head because it was very business oriented. They talked about the benefits of trade between the US and Vietnam, and how a US company would go about using the consulate to establish relations with companies in Vietnam.

Day Three: Wednesday

On Wednesday morning we had a site visit at Vietnamese Singapore Industrial Park (VSIP). Because it was an industrial site, I thought it was going to be something very dirty, but it was actually a very clean and beautiful park. The park held the factories for many different foreign companies, both American and other. I was most surprised by the fact that a large number of companies from the BVI's had invested in the park. Though we had learned that the city had no emissions laws, the industrial park did, in order to keep the area clean and to make it appealing to future investors.

We had the opportunity to visit one of the factories in the park, owned by II-IV, a Pittsburgh based company. The plant manufactured lenses and computer parts, the making of both involved things I had learned in physics, so I found the processes interesting. We also got an inside view on hiring and retention of Vietnamese workers. Many of them live outside the city and move to the city to work and so that they can send money home to their families. Because of this, many of them go home for Tet, the lunar New Year. II-VI found that after the holiday, many employees simply did not return. In order to decrease this loss, they implemented different bonuses, the most effective of which was a bonus, half given before the holiday, and half after. They found that with this incentive they had 100% retention after the holiday, and that though one woman was planning to get married, she came back to tell them that, rather than just staying home.

In the afternoon, we visited Glass Egg Digital Media, a company we had read about in our case studies pre-departure. I was particularly excited to hear about how the company had evolved in the two years since the case study was written. Unfortunately, the CEO was stuck in a meeting so we met with other heads of the company, and it felt very much like they were blowing off questions we had thoughtfully prepared. Even though it wasn't the best site visit, it was interesting to see the portfolio of video games they had done the graphics for.

Day Two: Tuesday

Tuesday morning we had a guest lecture at UEF. Du Quoc Tan, the Chair of the Department of Urban Management Research at Ho Chi Minh City Institute for Development Studies (HIDS) came to talk to us about urban planning in the city of Saigon. Even though we had only spent a day in Vietnam, we already found that there was a lot about the city we did not understand because it was so different from an American city. We learned that the city had been built by the French, and that they had never estimated the population to be so large, which is why the streets were often so congested with motorbikes. Also, the country had no emission laws, which led to the masks worn by a large portion of the population who walked the streets, and that the Vietnamese didn't want to appear dark, so they wore long sleeves and pants when they were outside during the day, even though that is when it is the hottest.

We had lunch at the school's Can tin again and then went to Phu My Hung for the afternoon. It was a very long trip, so we could tell that we were going far from the center of the city. I had no idea what to except from this developmental company, but assumed that it would be similar to a housing company in America, possibly similar to my interactions when I was younger with Toll Brothers, since we built our house in a new development.

We saw some of their architectural plans, and I was shocked to discover that Phu My Hung was essentially building what I considered a city within the city. In the area known as South Saigon they had cleared wetlands and were building new residential areas to attract people away from the overcrowded city. Since we had learned about the overcrowding and its consequences earlier in the morning, I understood the necessity of minimizing the congestion. I had never really seen a project of this type in the US, so i thought it was especially interesting.
Not only were they building a "suburb", they had ensured that within the community, everything you would need was within walking distance. I saw a correlation between this process and my archeology class, because ancient societies have also been found to get all of their resources within a certain distance from their homes. Though it was supposed to be an area to accept spillover from the city, I felt that the affluent people who moved into South Saigon would really have no reason to leave the area and to go back into the congested city.

Day One: Monday

The trip to Vietnam was my first flight overseas so I was no where near prepared to be that bored for such a long time. When we finally got to the hotel on Sunday night, the last thing I wanted to do was sleep, but knew I had to because Monday morning was when all our trips were going to start bright and early.

On Monday we woke up and went to the hotel's buffet breakfast. I had heard that the food was different from last years students, but really had no idea what to expect. There was a lot of rice, which didn't surprise me tooo much. I'm not very adventurous, so i stuck to mainly toast & fruit, but hopefully by the end of the trip I'll have tried more. After breakfast we went to the University of Economics and Finance for an opening reception. The 45 minute bus ride there was the first time we got to see the city in daylight. The traffic patterns are crazy, people ride motorbikes more than do they use cars, and everyone is weaving in and out of each other constantly. Even in the van, I was afraid we were going to hit someone, or be hit. It was also really interesting to look at all the storefronts on the street, the sidewalks seemed to be almost impassable because everyone was sitting in chairs in front of the stores.

Once we got to the University we were greeted with a banner hanging outside the school. After walking up 7 flights of stairs, we got to a classroom full of the Vietnamese students, and everyone was so excited to see us! We all sat next to students from UEF and heard speaches given by professors from both programs, and they gave us all gifts of shirts that say "UP-UEF" and mimic the ones worn by the UEF students. One of the girls sang the song "Rockstar" by Hannah Montana, which was really fun. It took us all a minute or two to figure out where we knew the song from, but I found it really interesting that they had Hannah Montana in Vietnam! I really had no idea what to expect, but I didn't think they would be that modern in their music. I think my favorite part of the morning was when we all sang "Heal the World" together. The song choice said a lot about their attitude towards the future. Knowing that the country had been through a devastating war recently, I didn't expect them to be so optimistic. The whole first meeting with them left me very excited to get to know the students and their culture.

For the rest of the morning we had a language class. Thankfully, the Vietnamese students were there to help me or I would have been so confused. It's a tonal language, so theres a lot more than a new alphabet to learn, and they pronounce some letters totally different, so it's very hard to follow along reading what she says. It was hard to pay attention though, the Vietnamese were really excited to get to know us and kept asking us questions during the lesson.

We had lunch in the Can Tin, which is their dining hall. It was rice, soup, shrimp, and surprisingly, french fries. The meal was served family style, and we all got our own bowl and chopsticks to put food into. It was different, but a nice introduction to Vietnamese food.

During the afternoon we had a tour of the city and went to the US Consulate. During the tour we saw stopped outside of the reunification palace, and then went to one of the local markets. We were all in business casual attire, so it was really hot. It was interesting to me that we couldn't walk by a stand with out the shop owner asking was what we wanted to buy or telling us to look at something, even when I go shopping in NYC on one of the streets where you can bargain or a flee market, you can feel free to look at things without being harassed too much to buy. We all quickly learned to avoid eye contact so we didn't get asked to many questions.

We went to the US Consulate, which was a very valuable experience. Firstly, we had to go through security and give up all our cell phones and cameras, so it was interesting to see how secure the building was. We then had a briefing by Charles Bennett, the Chief of the Consular Section. He talked a lot about how he got into the foreign service, and about the duties of the consulate compared to the US embassy in Hanoi. Not knowing much about the duties of US foreign officers, I thought it was all very interesting. We also learned about the process of the Vietnamese applying for Visa's into the US, and the different regulations in place to prevent large amounts of immigration both around the world and the US. We also had an opportunity to tour the consulate grounds and see the memorial plaque to those who lost their lives protecting what was then the embassy, during the Vietnam war. We also saw the plaque that the Vietnamese had commemorating their fallen heros during the attack. I thought that seeing both views of the war was an interesting yet somewhat distorted juxtaposition.