That's a pancake?

Last night, a group of the Vietnamese students took us out to dinner for pancakes. As expected, they are absolutely nothing like American pancakes. They were pretty much giant eggs with vegetables and seafood stuffed in them. Then you took part of the pancake, put it on a giant lettuce leaf, and rolled it up and ate it like that. If I had been in the United States, there would be absolutely no way I would have tried something like that. But I tried it and it ended up being really good (#yolo). The UEF students were a lot of fun, and really liked the fact that we were trying and enjoying their food. After dinner, they took us out for ice cream, which was pretty much the exact same thing as American ice cream. They also tried to teach us a little more Vietnamese, and laughed at us as we completely butchered their language.

 A Vietnamese pancake (which is kind of like an American omelette)

Ice Cream!

This morning we woke up and went to company visits. First we went to Vietnam Singapore Industrial Park (VSIP), which houses several major industries in Vietnam, including many big engineering companies. We sat through a very informative presentation, in which the projects (VSIP I, VSIP II, VSIP Bac Ninh, VSIP Hai Phong, and VSIP Quang Ngai) were further explained to us. All five of the industrial parks have brought many foreign companies to the area, which have been a blessing for the economic growth of Vietnam. After the presentation, we got to take a tour of VSIP I. It was amazing to see just how many companies outsourced to VSIP, including several American companies like Kimberly Clark, Williams Sonoma, and II-VI Co. It was good to see just how many engineering companies had factories abroad, and gave me a better idea of engineering job opportunities in other countries.

The entrance of the VSIP I headquarters

Vietnam Singapore Industrial Park: home to many companies from around the world

After the VSIP tour, we visited II-VI, an engineering company that originated in Saxonburg, Pennsylvania. It specializes in optoelectronics and is a major supplier of optics to places all over the world. I was really excited for the II-VI company visit because it was the company I had done my pre-departure report on, and I was not disappointed. David Baker, the chief engineer at II-VI Vietnam, gave us a tour of the factory and showed us how the glass for the optics were made. It is a really complicated process that involves making the correct size glass, coating it, polishing it, and making sure it does not have any scratches on it (fun fact: glass used for optics that has any scratch bigger than 100 micrometers, aka: really really tiny, is considered unusable). The nerdy engineer in me absolutely loved the tour that we went on (After all, I can't imagine anything more fun than talking about chemistry and physics nonstop for over an hour). It also made me really consider the possibility of working at an engineering company abroad one day, because the thought of being able to work while experiencing life in another country sounds awesome!

The polishing room in II-VI

Afterwards, we went back to the hotel for lunch and then left the for UEF. We found out that UEF really consists of three seperate schools: one for first year students, one for second year students, and one for third and fourth year students. Until today, we had only visited the one for third and fourth year students, but today we had a presentation at the first year school. It was given by Frank Joseph from the US Consulate about economics abroad. It was honestly more useful for the business students to see, but it was still interesting to learn more about Vietnam's economic history.

We are now back at the hotel and attempting to search the city for anything resembling American food. While the food is really good, it is also really different. A little bit too different sometimes. So were hoping that American food does in fact exist in this city because we could all use a cheeseburger right now.

-Hailee