Well today was SUPER busy! We started the day off with breakfast at the hotel. They had these really good sauteed noodles with vegetables and some sort of meat that I am not entirely sure of but I made sure to take a picture of the sign so when I am out and about I know what to get! They also had really good, sweet cake too.
Anyway, we headed over to VSIP for our company visit around 8:15 AM. Vietnam Singapore Industrial Park is a world class industrial park with locations throughout Vietnam. This thing is massive and is definitely a conglomerate here in Nam. There are so many different companies in this one park, it's nuts! The presenter was very sweet but slightly difficult to understand at times. The brief overview of what she said was that VSIP creates the buildings in the park for companies to use. With this comes a lot of international marketing in order to get a vast array of people interested. There are a copious amount of American companies that have established themselves here and are located in the park including P&G, Avon, Unilever and Kimberly-Clark. There are quite a few competitive advantages to being within the industrial park. For example something really helpful is that the management board at VSIP has the authority to grant permits for the companies in the park. This speeds up the process of waiting to hear back from the city for eligibility, which in America is a major bump in the timeline of construction. There is also a 24 hour security team, sports facilities, restaurants, banks and a post office all on site for workers to use. Some companies even provide housing for their workers similar to dorms.
After this, David the chief engineer from II-VI (a business in the park), came to present. An interesting thing about him is that he is the only employee at 2-6 (in Vietnam) that is American. Another fun fact is that the company is based out of Pennsylvania and Texas and the person in charge of the company is a Pitt Alum (pretty cool right?). II-VI is a material based company and all of their products are built to order. They make things for aerospace, defense, lasers and a bunch of other engineering widgets. Another fun fact (I'm full of them today) is that they make the glass thinggy mabobby that cuts your eye for the Lasik eye surgery & they are the sole source of it. (There ya go Ma). We toured their manufacturing warehouse (which kind of reminded me of a waaaaaay better Bosch, QA and Fab from Airline. I took a bunch of pictures for you Dad to vamp up the warehouse).
It was finally lunch time and we actually went to a Chinese food restaurant. It was soooo good! I had pho with octopus and tofu, really good beef and broccoli. While we were leaving a major rain storm hit and it hit hard! The don't call it monsoon season for nothing! The waiters used umbrellas to take us to the other side of the street (which was literally 5 feet away. It was very nice of them). The streets were flooded and people were still riding their motorbikes (but this time wearing ponchos).
Next we were off to EIU (a different university) to meet with students. Everyone there was really nice and friendly. The student presenter had a British/Australian/Vietnamese accent when she spoke English and she said she picked it up by watching Harry Potter (funny right?). We played a game, similar to pictionary, where we were all divided into groups mixed with EIU and Pitt students. Each group was given a holiday (American or Vietnamese) and the students that did not celebrate that holiday had to draw what it is by the descriptions given from other students. For example, in Vietnam they have Teacher Appreciation Day on November 20th where students go back to one of their previous teachers and give them gifts and flowers. So us 3 plus 3 students had to draw what we thought it looked like. It was really fun.
Around 7:00, the 14 of us split up into 2 groups for dinner. Brain, Jeff and I went with about 10 or so Vietnamese students to a shellfish restaurant. The tables were practically two feet off the ground and we sat on these tiny plastic chairs. To sum it all up I sucked a snail out of it's shell, ate an oyster, had a crab leg, ate a different kind of snail and had an octopus tentacle. It was different but I figured I mind as well embrace the culture while I am here! They then took us on a tour of the city and saw the skyline light up at night. (I tried to take pictures but riding a motorbike and clicking pictures didn't seem like a good idea to me). We then went to a dessert place (however, my motorbike driver and I got there about 15 minutes later because we got lost on the way over. I must be a bad luck charm considering I'm 2/2 for getting lost) and I ate what seemed like leeche fruit, cheese and almonds with sugar water in a bowl. It was actually pretty good, just super sweet! (Hopefully I will not be hovering over the trashcan tomorrow)
All and all it was a busy and fun day!! Tomorrow we go to Glass Egg Digital Media (the company I did my presentation on) so I am pretty excited!
Until next time America...
P.S. Just thought of another fun fact! Vietnamese workers can take off 5 days a month and do not have to tell their boss beforehand. They just don't show up for work. Also, women get 6 months off from work for maternity leave, paid! Nice right?!
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