Friday, May 18, 2012

Today was our last day in Vietnam. In the morning we listened to a lecture by Giang Nguyen, who is a Pennsylvania Trade Representative in Vietnam. The Pennsylvania office was established in 2007 and is primarily responsible for providing market intelligence to companies interested in Vietnam and also to match up Vietnamese and American businesses together that wish to have partners abroad. She told us that Pennsylvania exports $42,635,810 USD to Vietnam in products. I thought this was very surprising. I did not realize that we had sent so much in exports to Vietnam. Afterwards, we had language class. We had about a half hour to practice our conversation pieces and then were tested in front of the class. I was partnered with Ricky, and we both received 10/10! I had to pretend to be a customer and order coffee and soup from him and then pay for it. Then, we each had to recite a short piece about who we are, where we’re from, and what we did this week. For lunch, we ate at the Canteen in UEF.

This afternoon, we had a soccer match against the UEF soccer team and some of our UEF friends. Amazingly, our team won! Afterwards, we had a potato sack race as well as a dance competition. It was a fun afternoon, but it was tough to be outside that long because it was so hot. We went back to the hotel afterwards and relaxed a little bit before we went shopping at the Co-Op to buy our favorite brown sugar rolls. Then, we went to KFC (which is strangely one of the biggest fast food restaurants in HCMC) and got a snack before dinner. That evening, we found out that our flights have been changed, so we spent a half hour or so trying to figure out what to do. I’m now flying from Saigon to Hong Kong and then from Hong Kong to San Francisco and then from San Francisco to Chicago and then from Chicago to Pittsburgh. It’s going to be a really long couple of days.

Tonight we had dinner on a cruise ship on the Saigon River. Everything was so classy-looking and beautiful. There was a live band composed of a flute player and an acoustic guitarist. They played a variety of songs, including one that I think we played in Wind Ensemble (Variations on a Korean Folk Song). There were also two girls that gave a short dance performance wearing traditional dresses. They looked like they were having a really fun time. My camera is out of batteries, so I couldn’t take any pictures though. For dinner, we had an assortment of food, including soup, shrimp, noodles, and spring rolls. At night, our UEF friends came to spend time with us for our last night at the hotel. We all hung out in our room and played cards and talked for a long time. Tuan read our palms, and he told me that I was supposed to have a long healthy life. He also said that I would have 1 boyfriend/husband, and he told me that my career line is broken. I thought that was kind of amusing. We took a ton of pictures, and our UEF friends all gave us going away presents. They all made something to remember them by for all of us. Their presents are so sweet, and I will keep them forever. We had to leave at 3 AM for the Saigon airport to catch a plane to Hong Kong. It was so hard to say goodbye to all of our UEF friends at the airport. Right now we are waiting in Hong Kong to catch a flight to San Francisco.

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Today we got to go on a field trip first to Cu Chi and then to Tay Ninh. Cu Chi was about an hour or so outside of HCMC in the countryside. Riding there, we passed fields and fields of rice patties and Vietnamese workers wearing the iconic Non La hats. Cu Chi is a village out in the jungle that was home to many Viet Cong fighters during the war. They build a network of tunnels underground that they used to hide in when American soldiers passed through. They also set bamboo traps and grenades to try to kill soldiers. We toured the area and saw models of bamboo traps and other war artifacts, including a U.S. tank, VC clothing, and weapons. We also crawled through some of the tunnels. The tunnels were apparently enlarged for tourists, but even so I had to crawl on my hands and knees for some of it.

Next we drove another 2 hours to Tay Ninh. We came to see the Caoist temple there that is quite spectacular. I knew absolutely nothing about Caoism before I came to Vietnam, and I still want to research it a bit to understand more about its origin and core beliefs. The temple was covered in paintings of an eye bounded by a triangle, the columns were adorned with colorful dragons, and the ceiling was covered in stars. When we got there, monks were gathering for worship and they came in single file and lined up along the floor. They all kneeled and bowed simultaneously while traditional music was being played. They kneeled and chanted for a long while, and we had to leave before the ceremony was finished. Dr. Berman told us that Caoists believe we are all watched over by an all-seeing eye. The religion takes elements from many other religions such as Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Taoism. Something that I thought was a little peculiar and I would like to know more about is that Victor Hugo, the writer of Les Misérables, is one of the Caoists’ saints. We had lunch at a street vendor in Tay Ninh. We all ended up getting sweet and sour pork with rice and vegetables.

After we got back to HCMC, we met some of our UEF friends to go to Ben Thanh market again. I bought even more presents, which I will not name yet, and I think I’m finally done shopping. Afterwards, we went to another t-shirt shop and then had dinner. We went to a European restaurant that was famous for beef steak and tiramisu. I got Spaghetti Carbonara because I’ve really been missing pasta. It was absolutely delicious, but it made my stomach hurt a little bit after only eating Vietnamese food for so long. When I get home, I’ll have to watch out for that. For dessert, we all got Crème Brule. It was really good, but it was so rich I couldn’t finish it. I think it’s really interesting how we can still see the effects of the French Colonial period in some of the Vietnamese culture today. For instance, the most popular brand of bottled water here is called La Vie, and all of the music we have heard played here is either American music from a decade or two ago, Vietnamese instrumental music, or French pop music. After dinner we got our suits. I couldn’t believe what a good deal I got on mine. I’m really happy with it. At night, we went back to Lush and danced some more. 

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Today we had three company visits. In the morning we went to the Saigon Newport Corporation, which is a company that provides a multitude of services from their shipyard. Some of these services include: terminal/yard/warehousing services, inland haulage & waterway transport tugboat services, construction and repairing, logistics services, and customs clearance services. SNP is owned and managed by the Vietnamese Navy. We took a tour of the shipyard and walked up to the control deck to get a view of the Cat Lai port. Afterwards, we went to UEF and relaxed in the Canteen for a few hours. We got iced coffee and lunch.

Next, we visited the Quang Trung Software City, which reminded me of VSIP. QTSC houses offices for a variety of software companies including TMA Solutions, CMC Telecom, Worldsoft, and Global Cybersoft. It also includes restaurants, housing, training facilities, and entertainment. QTSC has been operating for 11 years and is owned by the government. Some U.S. companies that are involved with QTSC are HP IT Vietnam, BTM Global Consulting, National Technology Solutions, and IBM Vietnam. We took a little tour of the software park, stopping in the FPT University that teaches IT.

We drove over to the TMA Solutions tower within QTSC after our meeting there. TMA Solutions is a software outsourcing company that provides research and development services and mobile solutions. TMA Solutions was founded in 1997 and now employs over 1,100 engineers. Some of its investors include: IBM, Intel, Nokia, Samsung, Renesas, Foxcon, Fujitsu, Canon, and Panasonic. Some of its R&D outsourcing is from companies including IBM, Microsoft, Ericsson, Siemens, HP, and EA. Their largest clients are Siemens, Nortel, IBM, Oracle, and Ericsson. TMA Solutions has won the gold medal for software export 8 consecutive years (2004-2011).

Tonight, we got ice cream at a street vendor. We all got this ice cream that was vanilla with peanuts and this fruit on top that I don’t think we have in America. I don’t remember what it was called, but the flesh was clear and round with a black pit in the middle. Then, we went to get dinner at a Hot Pot. I don’t know if we have these in the U.S. either, but I know I’ve never been anywhere like it. We all sat down to a long table that had a conveyer belt carrying little plates of seafood, vegetables, and noodles through the middle. We all ordered the type of broth we wanted (I got Japanese), and then we heated the broth on little hot plates that were built into the table. We picked whichever toppings we wanted off the conveyer belt and put them into the broth to make our own soup. I think it might have been one of my favorite meals here so far.

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

This morning we had culture class at UEF. We learned about different religions, customs and beliefs in Vietnam. The most popular religion in Mahayana Buddhism, but there are also other sects of Buddhists as well as Christians, Muslims, and Hindus in Vietnam. There are four sacred animals that were worshipped in ancient times that appear in many works of Vietnamese art and architecture: the bat symbolizes happiness, the carp is for students since it turns into a dragon, the crane is the holy bird of the gods, and the tiger symbolizes strength and power and is believed to drive away demons. Furthermore, they believe that the human is composed of the physical body, soul, and sub-soul (or vía). After death, the vía disappears shortly and the physical body decays, but the soul lives on forever. A man has 3 souls and 7 vía while a woman has 3 souls and 9 vía.

Afterwards, we had language class. Today we learned some more conversational phrases such as, “Where are you from?”, “Where do you live?”, “What are you doing?”, and “Where are you going?” as well as various responses to these questions. We had lunch at the Canteen.

In the afternoon, we visited Glass Egg Digital Media. Glass Egg is a 13 year old company that is responsible for video game production, including the game coding/programming. They have a staff of 189 people and 35 trainees. The company was started by Morgan Interactive and now services companies such as Codemasters, Microsoft Game Studios, Activision, Infogrames, and Electronic Arts. Their principle videogames are car games, including the “Driver” series. Glass Egg was responsible for the videogame art and graphic design of the games. The CEO of Glass Egg, Phil Tran, had a similar story to that of Ascenx’s Tung Bach. Mr. Tran’s great-grandfather was a successful developer in North Vietnam that worked on building railroads and other infrastructure. His family was forced to flee to the South during the rise of communism in the North. Mr. Tran left for California at 12 years old in 1975, went to college there, and then returned to Vietnam in 1994 when the U.S. embargo was lifted. Glass Egg also owns a night club called Lush that we actually had checked out Saturday night.

For dinner, we went to a street vendor. It surprisingly was a sit-down place that had waiters and waitresses. Apparently, years ago the food was sold along the side of the street, but as the city became more modernized, the street vendors turned into restaurants. We ate chicken and sticky rice, which was very good. Afterwards, we went to the New York Dessert Café, where we got cheesecake that was delicious. Then, we walked over to the mall across the street and just did a little bit of window shopping. The prices there were comparable to the prices in the U.S. At night, we went to Lush. The people we met with at Glass Egg called the club and reserved us a VIP table there. It was ladies’ night, so girls could drink most drinks for free until midnight. We all had a really fun time.

Monday, May 14, 2012

This morning we visited the Viet Thai International Joint Stock Company at Highlands Coffee. They treated us all to coffee, and I got a really delicious Caramel Frozen Drink. The founder lived in Seattle during the growth of Starbucks and was inspired to bring this idea back to Vietnam. Viet Thai International was founded in 1998, and it has 3 branches: Super Foods, Consumer Lifestyle, and Distribution. VTI owns franchises in Vietnam of international companies and manages their operations and investments. Under Super Foods, VTI owns the Hard Rock Café, Jollibee (a fast food restaurant), and Pho 24. For Consumer Lifestyle, VTI sells ALDO, Debenham’s, Swarovski, and Emporio Armani. VTI distributes Highlands Coffee, Coors Light, Orangina, and Russian Standard vodka. Highlands Coffee is very popular in Vietnam because it combines the classic Vietnamese coffee with western style, which is considered high-class in Southeast Asia. VTI’s “Winning Formula” is to adopt a winning behavior, create a winning culture (with three pillars: Trust, Boldness, and Transparency), and adopt a success strategy using shared VTI experience. According to the VTI representative, the communist government has presented little difficulties for them. He did say however that, in order to succeed in Vietnamese business, you really need to have a contact within the government that is up to date on licensing requirements, etc. He told us that the government wants to economy to improve so they want businesses to be successful, but not too successful. They will use taxes and other measures to keep you in check.

After Highlands Coffee, we visited another VTI franchise, the Hard Rock Café. We talked to the manager there who told us very briefly about his business. One thing that I didn’t know was that all of the rock and roll paraphernalia that lines the walls of every Hard Rock all belongs to the main headquarters in Orlando, Florida. Whenever a new café opens, they stock it with items that are stored in a warehouse in Florida. The most expensive article that the Hard Rock owns is one of John Lennon’s suits, which costs $500,000 per year to keep in your café. No one is willing to pay that, so the suit is not on display in a café. After walking around and looking at the different memorabilia in the Ho Chi Minh City café, including a pair of Adam Levine’s jeans, one of Jimi Hendrix’s bandanas, and one of Neil Young’s guitars, we sat down to lunch in the café. We all shared some delicious American food, including nachos, a plate of appetizers (including wings, chicken tenders and onion rings), baby-back ribs, salad, and custard for dessert.

We went to the War Remnants Museum this afternoon. It was originally called the American War Crimes Museum before the relationship between Vietnam and America began to improve. The museum was filled with photographs depicting suffering and destruction caused by the Americans during the war, as well as some artifacts, including tanks, helicopters, guns, and shells. As could be expected, American soldiers were portrayed in a vicious light. The words “U.S. Aggression” were probably printed on over a hundred plates, and there was no mention of the United States’ trying to support the South Vietnamese army. A group of us were walking around looking at the photos and several times Vietnamese people tried to subtly take our picture looking at the destruction caused by our soldiers.

The first floor was filled with photos of protests around the world, including countries such as the United States, Korea, Cuba, Uruguay, Sweden, Germany, Italy, and many more. The second floor was the most disturbing. There was a room dedicated to the effect of Agent Orange, a poison sprayed on the countryside. The walls were full of pictures of children that were born disfigured because either their mother or father had been exposed to Agent Orange during the war. There was one picture of an American girl whose father had been exposed as a U.S. soldier. The worst part for me was a tank of disfigured fetuses floating around. We saw countless photos of Vietnamese peasants’ dead bodies, some mangled almost beyond recognition. There were quotations on the walls in both Vietnamese and English describing the horrors of the war. One quotation that enraged me was taken from the United States Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” Next to this quotation were photos of Americans murdering Vietnamese civilians. It makes me sick to think of Vietnamese children going on field trips there during elementary school.

I don’t know what exactly to say about the whole experience. I suppose it is a lesson on the way people view history differently, how some parts are magnified and others forgotten. The museum itself certainly would be an interesting study on the psychology of war and propaganda. Some of the photos reminded me of the reason why the Milgram Shock Experiment and the Zimbardo Prison Study were conducted and their results. I felt disgusted, angry, confused, and/or horrified by everything that I saw, but I think I mostly felt sad. Sad that such atrocities were committed, sad for those that suffered from them, and sad for those that had to live with themselves afterwards.

Tonight for dinner we went to a Japanese sushi bar. I wasn’t too keen on the whole raw fish thing, so I ended up getting chicken. The restaurant was really classy-looking, and we had to take our shoes off. The tables were low to the ground with little cushions for us to sit on. There was space in the floor where our feet hung down, so we didn’t have to sit cross-legged. We got Sake to drink, which was pretty strong, but good. For dessert, we went to get ice cream at the same shop as last time. I got vanilla with chocolate chips this time.

Sunday, May 13, 2012

Today we had another free day. We took a ferry over to a beach town called Vung Tau south of Saigon. In the morning we got to go to the beach. Tran had different games for us to play on the beach. The first one was a dance-imitation game like the one we played before. The next one involved pairs of people tying their ankles together as if they were running in a 3-legged race. We had balloons tied to each ankle and we had to try to pop each other’s’ balloons while staying in a small triangular area tied off on the beach. That one was pretty hard. The next game had each team lined up 50 or so feet from the water. We had to take turns running to the sea to get water and running back to our team where we had to fill as much of a bottle as we could with the water. Lastly we had to line up again and sit on the sand with our feet hooked around each other to make a chain. We had to race like that to the water. Our team gave up pretty quickly, and we ran into the water. The body of water that we were in was the South China Sea. The water was surprisingly calm and warm. It was incredibly hot and sunny, but somehow I managed not to get burnt.

Next, we had lunch at this little restaurant that overlooked the sea. The architecture and decorating was stunning. There were birdcages all around the restaurant, which was sort of different. They served a lot of seafood, including these little squid that still had their tentacles and everything all attached. I decided to skip those. After lunch, we went for a little hike. Vung Tau has a massive statue of Jesus with his arms outstretched at the top of the mountain, just like Rio de Janiero. We climbed a whole lot of steps up to the top of the mountain to reach the statue. The walkway was absolutely beautiful. I think this is my favorite thing we have seen so far. The mountainside was covered in trees and shrubbery with white, pink, and orange blossoms as well as palms. As you ascend, there are white marble statues of different biblical scenes, such as Moses holding up the Ten Commandments and Abraham with his son Isaac. I tried to take lots of pictures because it was difficult to appreciate just how lovely everything was while climbing up all those stairs. The last statue on the way up was one of Mary holding her son after the Crucifixion. The final stairs led directly to the massive statue of Jesus. At the base were golden carvings of scenes from Holy Week, such as the Last Supper and Jesus’ trial before Pontius Pilate. Surrounding the statue were gardens with gorgeous flowers and more statues. My favorite was one of Mary holding baby Jesus. She was standing in a pond with lily pads and more flowers. There were dragonflies flying all around. There weren’t very many people at the top of the mountain, and most were being quiet and respectful. Looking out onto Vung Tau, there was a beautiful view of the beach and all of the little fishing boats that are iconic of Vietnam. People were able to go inside the statue and climb onto observation decks that were on Jesus’ shoulders, but we didn’t go inside because it was expensive. Climbing back down the mountain we had a little more time to look around and take pictures.

Restaurant for Lunch

Jesus Statue

View from Ferry

Last night, we had dinner at an American restaurant called Black Cat that Mr. Bach recommended to us. We all got hamburgers with fries and a Coke. It actually made my stomach hurt since it’s been so long since I’ve had anything with grease. It tasted so good though. Afterwards we went to a rooftop bar called GO 2. There were a lot of Americans and other foreigners there just relaxing and having a good time.

Saturday, May 12, 2012

Today we did not have class or company visits, so we got to do fun stuff around HCMC all day. First we went to the Reunification Palace. It was originally built by the French during the French Colonization period as the Norodom Palace, and then it became the Independence Palace when the French were defeated in the battle of Dien Bien Phu. The president of South Vietnam lived and worked at the palace until Saigon fell in 1975. When North and South Vietnam were reunited to become the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, the palace was renamed the Reunification Palace. We got to go inside the palace and see all of the different meeting rooms. In the basement, we got to see some historic maps and also technology (such as radios, telephones, and projectors) that was used in the war. The front of the palace is supposed to look like bamboo because it is a symbol of Vietnam. Also, the shape of the bamboo rods catch the sunlight and make the building very pretty.

Next we rode over to the Post Office and Notre Dame Cathedral. Both are very pretty buildings that we took lots of pictures of. The cathedral was closed when we were there, so we just went inside the post office, which has a little market in it. I bought some little gifts in it, which, again, I’ll keep a surprise. Afterwards, we drove to a Buddhist Temple. The architecture was that of a traditional pagoda, but it was made with all new materials. While we were there, an art class was sitting outside sketching the temple. Before we went inside, we had to take our shoes off. We lit incense and prayed. The temple was filled with flowers and gifts for the dead, which reminded me of El Día de los Muertes in Mexico.

Afterwards we went to lunch at the hotel and cooled off a little bit in the pool. We met up with our UEF friends to go to the market. I walked around with Tam, Wen, and Alex, and Tam helped us find good bargains. She was very helpful. I bought a ton of stuff, which I am really excited to bring home. The market was a little less crowded this time, but it was still very overwhelming.

Next, we went to dinner at a Karaoke Bar with our UEF friends. My friend My told me that she would sing a song if I would, so the two of us sang a Backstreet Boys song together. It was pretty funny. We ate beef with noodles, which was pretty good. We were able to get a private room at the Karaoke Bar that could fit our whole group. It was really classy looking, and I couldn’t believe we were able to get the room. It had one long booth that curled at both ends, so we all squished in. The wall opposite us had a big flatscreen TV where the music video and words showed up. I had a really fun time!