"Scientology!" "Gynecology is not a religion" (day 3)

Rather than my normal blogging style, today's gonna be a tad different because.....

I MET SOMEONE WHO WENT TO PORTLAND STATE TODAY! and it poured rain and so today just reminded me so much of home. Oh and I tried to use being from Oregon as a defense to why i wasn't an assassin in our lovely game of mafia, but it didn't work so well and I was very wrongly accused. But I will elaborate on this more later. 

So to start out the morning we got up, before our alarm again. Got ready and headed down to our delicious breakfast. Despite the fact that the Vietnamese students keep telling me Victory really doesn't have great food, I find it absolutely delicious. We were then loaded on the bus and sent off toVietnam  Singapore Industrial Park or VSIP. Basically what it started as was purely land or buildings which companies could lease and develop or expand their companies. Now; however, they have adapted it to include housing and living amenities like food and shopping, and they've made 4 total industrial parks around Vietnam. We were greeted by their marketing manager who told us all about her company. Next, the chief engineer from II-VI Incorporated came to talk to us. II-VI is a hard company to fully explain because it has so many aspects. But here they have two main products they make, optics and thermal coolers. They have locations all around the world which produce different products including optics (required for laser technologies), military equipment, thermal coolers and glass coating. It was probably one of the most interesting companies we have learned about and it was so perfect for this trip because it was a large combination of business and engineering. After the briefings, we had the opportunity to tour two different plants of II-VI. It was so fascinating to see the production line so close. The patience and attention to detail that these factories require is crazy. And almost all the employees that work these assembly lines are uneducated and/or unskilled. We also learned quite a bit about the business culture of Vietnam today too which was fascinating. These workers are very well protected under labor laws. Say a worker just chooses to not show up to work 5 days in a month, the boss is unable to fire them. Rather he must pay them normally and continue to employ them. 

Finally, after a very long morning it was time to eat and we were all starving. We went to a Chinese restaurant. It was definitely one of my favorite meals thus far. We had beef and broccoli unlike anything I've had in the states. It was so good. There was also shrimp which was delicious until I realized that the heads were also fried up and served on the same plate. At that point I was done eating the shrimp. Like all our meals there was rice too and then Pho. And I chose to be very adventurous and tried octopus and can I just say it was absolutely delicious. At this point it started pouring down rain and when we went to go get on the bus, the waiters walked us one by one or two by two under umbrellas to the bus. On the bus we started playing games to pass the time. Included in that were name games and Mafia. Basically mafia is a game where there is a story teller who secretly assigns 2 mafia assassins, 1 angel and 1 detective. Everyone has their head down and the storyteller asks who the mafia want to kill. Then he/she asks the angel who they want to save and the detective who they want information on. Unless the angel chooses the same person the mafia pick, someone is killed off each round. The detective is not announced but can use his/her information to help expose the mafia. The townspeople then take a vote on who they think is mafia. The person with the most votes is out of the game. The first round I was the mafia and was doing such a good job but unfortunately we arrived at the school and never finished that round. 

Today we went to a different school, one which is related to VSIP. It is called the Eastern International University (EIU) and it is a supported by Portland State University who sends professors to teach at this institution. Here I met a girl who actually attended Portland State for a little while. We met and talked to many of the students and learned about their festivals and holidays. Everyone was so friendly just like at UEF. We finished off our visit with lots of pictures and hopped back on the bus where we went back to playing our various games and such. I think our poor advisor Dr. Berman was gonna kill us but Tin seemed to be getting very into it.

Now we are back at the hotel getting ready for dinner and exploring!

Now you are probably wondering about my title. Well today we were talking about religions or something at dinner and I said Scientology. Well I was misunderstood and the lovely Gregg thought I said gynecology. Well then Ben proceeded to tell everyone how that used to be his dream profession. It most definitely made for an interesting lunch conversation. 

And on that note it's actually time for me to get ready!

Hen gap lai