Vietnam study abroad 2015

Safety in Vietnam

During a reflection period with the whole group the topic of safety in Hanoi was discussed. A few specific examples that were talked about were the ways in which people drive, as well as the interaction between pedestrians and motorists. After having this discussion I became more aware of safety in Vietnam, and paid closer attention while walking or biking around Hoi An. There were many things that really stood out to me in Hoi An in regards to a lack of safety. These include the streets, the working conditions as well as food safety.

Much like Hanoi, the streets in Hoi An were very busy with motorbikes, cars, trucks and buses, but this time we were apart of the traffic. On our bike tour around Hoi An I quickly realized how dangerous the roads were. An example of this is the obvious disregard for traffic rules. Many times I saw people blow through red lights without hesitation, while beeping incessantly to let anyone around know they were coming. This was shocking to me, because in America the traffic rules are for the most part followed and strictly enforced for the public’s safety.image

Another moment that stuck out to me in terms of safety is the working conditions. While on our Ecotour we passed many construction sites all of which having one thing in common; the workers were barefoot while working. This moment both shocked and confused me, because although they did not have shoes on, they did have hard hats on. I could not understand why they would take safety precaution in one way and not the other. The only reasoning that I could come up with is that there is a law for hard hats therefore they wear them, but nothing stated about shoes therefore they do not find them necessary or boots are just too expensive. This is something one would never see in the states, because it is such an obvious safety issue.

The third thing I noticed about safety had to do with the preparation of food at restaurants. While at the organic farm, Minh mentioned that Vietnamese people are becoming more health conscious and worried about what they are putting in their bodies, thus the increase in organic farming. Although this is becoming more of a concern the conditions of restaurants completely negates the effort to protect the people’s bodies. Many times while eating at a restaurant, I had to walk through the kitchen to get the the bathroom. This only contributed to the uncleanliness of the kitchens. I found it very ironic that so much effort was put into clean farming for the benefit of people’s health, only for it to go to waste in a dirty kitchen. I am very interested to see if and how the safety precautions change as we move into a more westernized part of Vietnam.

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Prominence of Religion

After exploring the city of Hanoi, and visiting the Temple of Literature, it became clear to me that religion is an extremely prominent aspect of Vietnamese life. This tourist attraction was dedicated specifically to showcase religion, therefore displaying the important role it plays in traditional Vietnamese culture. However, as we travelled to Hoi An, I expected religious symbols and sites to be much less apparent throughout the town. At first, this seemed to be the case. Much of our time was spent biking through town, and exploring the many shops and the market present there. It was obvious that Hoi An relied heavily on tourists as consumers for economic stimulation. However, while we were shopping around, I couldn’t help but notice small religious altars present in many of the shops, and several of the restaurants. In every case, these altars had been presented with offerings, and many were burning incense. While not prominent, as they were often located in the back corners of the shops, these religious symbols were a constant reminder of Buddhist influence in Vietnamese life. The presence of these altars seemed to suggest the immense importance of religion to nearly all of the Vietnamese. They felt the desire to display their spirituality in a public place of business, rather than keep it hidden at home or contained in a temple.

 

On our free day in Hoi An, myself and several others decided to explore the historical sites and attractions found in the Ancient Town. We found ourselves visiting Assembly halls, old Communal homes, and the Japanese Covered bridge. As we visited each of the attractions, I was shocked to see that every single site we visited had been transformed in some way into a place of worship. Both the Japanese Covered Bridge and the Old house of Tan Ky were previously sites for business and trade. However, they now have elaborate altars, with opportunity for worship through kneeling, and the burning of incense. It was incredibly interesting to me that these two buildings, which previously focused on economic affairs, had been altered to display religion in such a prominent manner.

 

The obvious emphasis on religion that I have witnessed throughout Vietnam, and specifically Hoi An, has especially struck me because it differs greatly from the ways in which we treat religion in the United States. Emphasis on religious tolerance in America has led it to become a more privatized manner. Since we have a melting pot of religions, people often shy away from the subject of religion so as not to offend anyone else’s beliefs. Therefore the prominent displays of religion seen in public locations in Vietnam, would not be displayed in such a way in the United States. Additionally, it would be rare to see the change of historic locations into places of worship as they have been in Vietnam.

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Going into the trip to Vietnam, everyone I talked to raved about Hoi An and spoke so highly of the tailors who work there. I thought tailors was a random thing for a city to be known for and assumed there would be a few tailor shops here and there. As we went on our bike ride through town, looking down the street, every other shop was either a tailor or a leather shoe store. I was intrigued and went into Bebe tailor shop with a few of the other girls on the trip. I was immediately overwhelmed, the sales women surrounded us. They were throwing iPads, catalogues, and fabric swatches at us and pulling out sketchbooks to draw up designs. It was all too much for me to handle so I went back to the hotel, found pictures of the dresses I wanted and returned the next morning.

My salesperson was named Lien. She drew up my designs, helped me choose fabrics, and took all my measurements. As this was happening, the manager of the store came up and was talking with us. He was ecstatic about our huge group that was ordering everything from dresses, to suits, and shirts. We managed to work out a deal with him, 2 dresses for $100 which when he agreed threw the sales women into a frenzy. He later explained to us that they work off commission which is why they were upset. I assumed they still made okay money though based on how busy the shop and the tailoring industry was and didn’t think much of it.

Three days and four fittings later I had three new friends: Lien, Lina, and Yen. Over the numerous trips to Bebe I had learned more than I ever expected about these women from their jobs to the families. Working at Bebe they made 4 million dong a month (approximately 188 USD). They worked from 8 am to 10 pm most days and only got two days off every month. I later did the math and found out they were only making about $7 a day; and they aren’t even the ones working in the back making the clothing. I imagine that the seamstresses make even less, but none of the women knew. Lina wore a blazer over her Ao Dai uniform everyday and it had been made at the tailor; when I asked if she got a discount she simply laughed and shook her head no.

These women worked so hard and attended to our every need with a smile. As I learned more I realized how vital we are to their livelihood, without our business they would be making even less monthly and I felt guilty for bargaining the price down so low. My dress was finally finished and as I checked out, I gave Lien a $5 tip as I hugged her goodbye. She jumped for joy and hugged and thanked me. The women around who saw were all making a commotion and hugging her and congratulating her. I never expected such a response and realized that while $5 to me was nothing more than a Starbucks coffee, to her it meant so much. The amount of work these women do for so little shocks me and makes me grateful for the $8 minimum wage in America. I wish them all the best and hope one day they make the money they deserve for all the hard work they do and talent they have.

Lien, Lina, Vincent, and I.

Lien, Lina, Vincent, and I.

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Discovering New Realities

After experiencing the hustle and bustle of Hanoi and boating along the serene Halong Bay, my travels to Vietnam have been surreal. This experience has continued to surpass all my expectations and aspirations for what I wanted to gain from this study abroad program. Each location has been more fascinating and breathtaking than the other. My favorite destination so far has been Hoi An, which is a charming, quaint town located on the coast of the East Sea.

In Hoi An, we visited a silk factory and tailors where I bought custom made silk robes and dresses that perfectly fit my body. I enjoyed using my bargaining skills to negotiate the prices of these items. Despite my interest in bargaining and admiration for the work displayed, I felt uncomfortable witnessing the working conditions for making these products. In the US, we constantly hear about the tough work conditions, long hours, and low wages in Asian countries such as Vietnam; however, you can never be prepared to actually witness these conditions. The tour guides were very open and explained step by step of how textiles were produced. Especially in the silk factory, it was evident how hard they worked and the level of skill required. While going into these shops and businesses, the workers were always excited to see Americans and looked forward to having us come back for our fittings. Their work is incredibly meticulous and it was inspiring to see the high quality textiles produced. This experience has put life in perspective for me. We face stresses daily whether pertaining to school or work, however we sometimes overlook how lucky we are for all the opportunities provided.

I have been surprised and pleased that the Vietnamese are so friendly towards Americans. I did not anticipate that they would be so welcoming to Americans, especially since the Vietnam War ended only 30-40 years ago. Whether visiting the bamboo shop of the Vietcong or boating along the river, the locals have been so enthusiastic towards us throughout our stay. As our guide Vo conveyed, the Vietnamese love Americans due to the fact that we have a positive effect on the Vietnamese economy. Vietnam has increasingly become a popular tourist stop for Americans, which has helped Vietnam develop into a growing and competitive country.

After studying Vietnamese business and culture during this past fall semester, it has been amazing to have the opportunity to immerse myself into their lifestyle. I have one week left on my trip, and look forward to experiencing more of Vietnam!

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Survival of the Highest Rated

Before I arrived in Hoi An I was told one thing; I must buy hand-tailored clothing and shoes before I left. As an avid shopper I would never say no to custom clothing, so I started looking for tailors as soon as we left our hotel for our first biking tour of the city. Little did I know, tailors and custom shoe stores were everywhere. On a street of 6 stores, a minimum of 4 belonged to spaces filled to the brim with every color, pattern, and material I could ever want or need when designing an outfit. Everywhere I looked I could find men and women willing to make whatever I wanted, even if all I had was a picture of a similar style or an idea in my head. Needless to say, I was thrilled!

Once the fog of excitement began to dissipate, I realized that there was a fatal flaw to the textile-focused city. With the same exact tailors showing the same exact sample dresses, suits, and shoes, how were all of the stores able to receive business? There was simply too much competition to ensure work for every single store. In America, business owners are hesitant to place their shops within walking distance of another similar store, but in Hoi An identical stores line every street and are constantly fighting for the same customers.

My biggest curiosity was how each store was able to attract customers when the store sharing the same wall had the same goods. The answer: online ratings. As soon as I purchased my beautiful dress, the tailor was giving me cards, making me promise to write a review on TripAdvisor, and making sure I was willing to write a 5 star rating. Stores with higher ratings would even place signs in the windows or hanging near the products advertising their online scores! The method to beat competition was not to have the better product, but simply to have the best possible rating that could show tourists that they were the store to chose. The online score was a mark of pride for each store, and every tailor we visited was determined to get a good review out of each visitor.

Never had I been requested to write reviews so often, and I honestly felt guilty not providing a good score for the tailors that worked so hard to make the perfect item for me. Maybe my happy reviews will help attract more customers and beat the competition, but I can only imagine what a poor review could do to a business. Until next time Hoi An, and may the reviews be ever in your favor.

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Tourism Keeps Hoi An Running

The next stop on our journey through Vietnam was Hoi An. I had no idea what to expect when I got off the plane but the thing that stuck out to me the most about Hoi An was the “touristy” feel to it. For example, the restaurants felt as if they were targeted to tourists more than the ones in Hanoi as almost every resteraunt we went to had Western food on the menu. Even the hotel we stayed at was more touristy, as it was more of a resort with a pool and spa. Another general observation I had was that much more people spoke English, which was helpful because it made navigating the streets much easier but also added to the idea that Hoi An was more touristy. Because of this touristy feel to it, I felt much more comfortable in Hoi An because it was more like what I am used to when I go away.

I am still constantly amazed by the attitude of the locals towards Americans. Whenever we walked by a group, they would smile and wave and ask where we are from, and are intrigued that we are here as a huge group on a school trip. They always seem to excited to talk to us, and to have our business. For example, at BeBe tailor, almost every person in our group got at least one piece of clothing custom made, and it was obvious that they were ecstatic with the amount of business we brought them as a group. One woman who worked there even came up to me and asked when our group was leaving, and when I told her we would be leaving the next day, she looked so disappointed. This really hit me because it made me realize how much Hoi An relies on tourism to keep their economy going, and helped make sense of why the town feels so touristy; they want to draw us in as our consumption as tourists is vital to the economic success of their businesses. I also noticed how important this was through bargaining as you could easily tell how desperate they are to make the sale to us because they would chase us down the streets after bargaining just to make the sale, which shows they would rather go below their asking price than lose the sale as a whole. This just reinforced how much they rely on tourists to make purchases to help their business thrive.

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Trip Advisor’s Impact on Hoi An Markets

After leaving the hectic city of Hanoi, we arrived in the smaller more relaxed town of Hoi An. Though less chaotic, Hoi An is a town that thrives on tourism and its effects are immediately noticeable. The streets are lined with shops with competitive vendors trying to convince you to buy from their shop, insisting that they will give you a “special price” because it is “happy hour.” Whenever a store owner said it was happy hour I would immediately respond “Oh, so it’s a two for one deal!?” Needless to say the shop owners did not find this response very amusing.

 

When I entered the first shop in Hoi An to look at their inventory, I saw the rest of the family in the back room of the store. This first encounter was very powerful for me because I realized that this shop was the family’s soul source of income and their livelihood depended on a sale. Making a sale was the difference between going to sleep hungry or full. After walking through the streets and seeing almost the same shops selling similar products, I began to think how a certain shop could gain an advantage over the store across the street in this seemingly perfectly competitive marketplace to better support their family. I thought to myself that I would not open a shop because it would not be very successful because no shop had a particular niche that differentiated itself from the rest.

 

Then walking a few more streets, I saw a shop that had a giant poster that said Trip Advisor and beneath it were reviews that people had given the shop. Although they sold the exact same goods as all the other stores, it gave tourists confidence to buy from their shop because a well-established source recommended it. When I purchased items from these stores, the owners always insisted that I write them a good review on Trip Advisor to help their business attract more people in the future. This intense competition between the stores sparked innovation for one store to gain the advantage over the other and help better support their family. A simple promotional method like a Trip Advisor sign made all the difference; I thought it was genius!

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All You Need is One

Another week done, so many more wow moments. I have two moments in particular that stood out to me the most as we traveled through Hoi An. On our last night there we had a group dinner at Trip Nguyen. It was a very small, but welcoming environment. I had actually eaten lunch there with a few of my friends there earlier that day, however I didn’t have the same appreciation of it until we came back later for dinner. When we first arrived there for lunch the main guy, presumably the owner came over to us and had a small conversation with us and asked if we were in Vietnam with a whole group. He was extremely friendly and cheerful, which made me like the place even more. The food was very good and the people were extremely nice so I was excited to go back there for dinner. While we were having dinner I needed to use the restroom and asked where it was. The guy pointed to the back of the restaurant so I proceeded to walk back there. This is when my wow moment occurred. As I walked to the back of the restaurant I reached the kitchen. At first I was extremely shocked that the bathroom was beyond where the kitchen is, and at second glance I noticed that there was only one cook. One cook, cooking four dishes each for 25 people. That’s roughly 100 dishes in the matter of about an hour. I was astonished at how hard this guy was working. As I waited to use the bathroom I watched as this guy cooked without skipping a beat or blinking an eye. He was a machine. After we were done with our meal, the owner sat down with us and he looked exhausted, but still maintained a cheerful smile. After seeing these two men work and serve us, I couldn’t help but think about how hardworking this culture is.

My second moment came as I was walking down the street and saw a military or government building (not sure which it was) and there was a huge mounted machine gun at the top of the building over looking the courtyard. As I continued to walk down the street I began to hear children’s laughter. Next to this government building was a children’s school. I couldn’t believe that they had these two buildings next to each other. I’ve never in my life seen a mounted machine gun; the sight of it made me a little scared. However, these kids no older than 12, see it every day. No parent in America would let their child go to a school next to a building with heavy artillery mounted to the top of it. Such a small thing as the location of buildings made me notice some differences in our cultures.

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Older Generation’s Reprieve

The moment that captured me was when we were brought to the bamboo artisan’s workshop in Hoi An. When this artisan was showing us the things he used to build during the war it was a little unsettling. He had such pride showing us tools and devices used to harm or kill Americans. This, I did not feel was a pleasant visit. It is understandable that the war crimes committed by the Americans were terrible, but what if a Vietnamese person visited the United States and toured a Monsanto (Agent Orange producer) factory. One is obviously more lethal than the other, but both evoke emotions based on painful times in our past.

It is enlightening to see a man from that generation overcoming his hatred for the United States. My respect goes out to this man and his ability to forgive, given the atrocities committed by the US during the war. I, personally would not be able to forgive a group of people who committed such crimes against my country. Between the destruction, massacres, and civilian deaths caused by the United States, overcoming that hatred he likely once held is something I would never be able to do had I been on his side of the war.

His devices and tools did not affect me personally, but having an uncle who served during the war made me think about how they could have been used against a member of my family. From the artisan’s perspective, it is quite remarkable how friendly he was with the people he used to fight and who likely killed someone he knew. His ability to forgive after years of such a gruesome war is what captured me most on my visit to Hoi An.

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The Economics of Life

The economic disparity is very apparent to all of those who pay attention to their surroundings. I was made most aware of this on the bus rides to and from Halong Bay and Hoi An. Driving past these rural villages, the people evidently live a very different life from those in a city landscape. It appears to me that the middle class of the city would be upper class in a rural setting, likewise this is comparable of the lower class of the city being more of the middle class in a rural setting.

The distribution of wealth is the most dramatic within a city setting moving to a rural setting. I found myself wondering if the economic class of American Citizens is just as apparent to an outsider visiting the Untied States for the first time? I don’t believe that it is quite as dramatic except for in larger cities when you contrast the homeless with those working in high end industries and office buildings. I also feel that this is a different situation because the amount of people within each of those classes is much smaller in the United States. From my perspective, we have a much larger and growing middle class. Whereas in Vietnam, the middle class seems to just now be beginning to grow and evolve into one that is similar to that of the United States.

I also found that the gap was most apparent in the resident on Halong Bay. When we visited the fishing community I found myself asking a lot of questions revolving around their lifestyle choices. How do they drink water? They cannot drink the bay water, so is there a way to get a gas line to boil water? And starting a fire on a house boat just seems out of the question. Do they rely on more modern technologies upon shore to sustain their lives? These questions also apply to cooking food and medicinal issues. In the case of a severe medical emergency, do they just paddle one of those boats as fast as they can to shore for treatment or do they rely on other means? These questions have the simplest of answers to me as a resident of the Untied States and is something that I always take for granted. It takes visiting places like these to remind me how fortunate I am.

I also observed that most of the houses along the more rural roads are what I would consider a shack. They are made of basic scrap materials and metals and that’s all some of these people have. All of the previous issues also apply to them if they aren’t able to afford luxuries.

Many of the smaller houses along the main road were also enclosed with a fence wall. I noticed that many of the walls were concrete with glass shards dried into the top. The colors of the glass reflected beautifully in the light and I thought at first they were for decoration, then I realized that the glass is a cheaper form of barbed wire, used for security purposes. I think that something as simple as these cement with glass walls even further demonstrates the distribution of wealth and how people need to be resourceful with materials and money in order to have the lifestyle that they wish to.

I feel extremely grateful for everything that my parents have been able to give me and noticing the little things within this country has shown how differently people here live from how I am accustomed to living at home.

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