Day 2

After breakfast at the hotel, everybody went to UEF for a lecture on the development of Ho Chi Minh City. I learned a lot about the advancements made by HCMC in the last few decades about the obstacles that must be overcome in the near future. HCMC is the economic center of Vietnam, and its GDP is expanding at a much greater rate than the country's as a whole. After the lecture on economic development, we had another language lesson. Again, the student that was helping me today was Julia. She was very helpful with the lesson, she even taught me a couple words that I should be more careful who I say them around. Also, in class we had to go through the scenario of meeting a new person. My partner was Uma , and you could say we did well...  you'd be wrong, but you could say it. To me it seemed to be a fairly standard script we had to go through, and Uma decided to change it up on me and cut a few of the parts out. I guess I could have been listening better, but I wasn't. As a result I responded totally inappropriately. At least everyone got a good chuckle out of it. I've been told before that when having a conversation with someone most people are more concerned with what they will say next than what the other person is saying. I guess I was guilty of that and I should probably work on that. We had lunch at the canteen, and started our way to the company we would be visiting that day, Phu My Hung. Phu My Hung is an industrial park and their goal is to construct a perfect utopian city in accordance with their "master plan." They had a very futuristic and interesting presentation, but it kind of gave me the creeps. First, I always get skeptical when I am being targeted. Little things of the presentation indicated that it was made for an American audience, like the use of the term "Vietnam War" instead of "American War." Also, the ideal of a utopia always raises red flags with me. The idea of living in a place that "has everything one could ever need, with no need to leave for any reason" makes me a little uneasy. This being said I think with the population growth the need to develop southward will be needed, and I loved the idea of the competition that was held for the best city plan for this expansion. After a brief history of Phu My Hung, we made it into a room, and we could so out the window the large inflatable duck who recently made an appearance in Pittsburgh, so a picture was needed.

A lot of pictures were taken in the room and the tour concluded. Now, it was time for us to return to the hotel. We later went out to dinner with the students from UEF. Everything was delicious, and I had my first taste of Pho in Vietnam, which I was looking forward to. After dinner we went out to do some group bonding. I had a very fun and interesting second day in Vietnam.