Heinz 57

Our nice weekend break officially ended today and it was back to company visits! We started off the morning by visiting Viet Thai, a company that owns multiple franchises mostly in Southeast Asia. One of the companies they own is called Highlands Coffee, which sells the most amazing coffee I've ever tasted. Sadly, it is not in the US, so I can only enjoy the excellent coffee in Vietnam. But because the meeting took place in a room above a Highlands Coffee shop, we got free coffee (yay!). I had no idea that Viet Thai was responsible for so many companies in Southeast Asia, including Highlands Coffee, Aldo, and Armani. The presentation was really informative and the representatives were so accommodating. Viet Thai also owns the Hard Rock Cafe in Ho Chi Minh, so even though it wasn't on our schedule, they made a few calls and we got an impromptu tour of Hard Rock. Even though we had kind of shown up last minute, the staff was nice enough to make lunch for us. So we got American food for the third time in Ho Chi Minh. Tran had never had ribs before, but got to try them and we were so proud of her! There was so much food and I ate way more than I should have.

A little taste of Pittsburgh in Vietnam!

Mmmm super healthy American food!

#YOLO

After stuffing ourselves with as much food as we could possibly eat, we headed over to the War Remnants Museum. It is located really close to our hotel and was built to help educate the public about the Vietnam War (or as it's called here, the American War of Aggression). Going through the museum made me realize that the US and Vietnam have two completely different perspectives on the same war. When I was going through the exhibits, it I felt like I was learning about a completely different war than the one I learned about in 9th grade American Cultures class! Even though we view the war as a civil war between North Vietnam and South Vietnam, the museum portrayed the war as an attempted occupation of Vietnam by the US. In fact, none of the exhibits even mentioned any conflict between the north and south. It only depicted American troops destroying most of Vietnam (fun fact: The museum was originally named "The American War Crimes Museum" but once diplomatic relationships with the US and Vietnam reconvened, the US mentioned that they were slightly offended by that and the name was changed). There was one document in an exhibit that even compared the United States to the German Gestapo of WWII. It was a really eye opening experience for me. It just goes to show you that the saying "there are two sides to every story" is a very true statement. A lot of the exhibits we saw were horrible to look at, especially the ones involving Agent Orange (I'll spare you from a description). I'm sure the truth about the Vietnam War is somewhere in between Vietnam's story and the US's story, but regardless, it was truly a tragedy for both countries involved. I'm just very glad that I can be in Vietnam and treated so well by the locals, despite our shared history.

On a happier note, tonight we are going out for dinner with the UEF students again for either Japanese or Korean food. I'm so excited and am sure whatever we have to eat will be an experience. Goodbye for now!

-Hailee