A day behind, but a very exciting day none the less. Waking up at roughly 7:30 we headed down to the all you can eat Vietnamese Breakfast Buffet. They offer a wide variety of dishes but I have personally stuck to two to three sunny side up two egg combo with a side of bread and Vietnamese jam. After breakfast the eleven of us and our instructors, Dr.Berman, Tin, and Sarah Powell, crammed into the Van and headed for the University of Economics and Finance. The ride there is about 45 minutes long traveling through the windy streets of overcrowded amounts of motor bikes and people. It is quite a sight seeing the hundreds of Vietnamese riding on motor bikes driving in any direction they desire and hopefully I can document it well with my iflip.
Finally we arrived at the UEF. It is always an experience going into the school as everyone there stares at us and all the students seem to love us. The first agenda item was the Urban Planning and Development of Ho Chi Minh City. This was presented by Du Phuoc Tan who is the Chair of the Urban Management Studies in Ho Chi Minh City. Overall the presentation was very excellent detailing the current political and economic issues the city faced. He showed the progression of Vietnam's economy and the investments of foreign countries. Also he presented various projects the city is undertaking to better the City's Infrastructure. Ultimately the massive population prevents the construction as any single road worked on causes traffic jams. Another issue is any rain generally floods the roads because the garbage clogs the sewers and in turn causes more traffic jams once again.
Next was our second day of language class where we were taught more conversational Vietnamese, saying how you are, addressing seniority properly and annunciation. Once again I met another Vietnamese student named ‘Kien’. He was very interesting and spoke a significant amount of English. Kien will be going to the beach with us Sunday and seemed to love swimming. Also a freshman and 19 years old, he is in his 5th year interacting with international students.
Following the our language class we ate at the UEF ‘can tin’, their cafeteria, where they served us more authentic Vietnamese food with various seafood entrees, pork soup, a questionable looking and tasting meat, as well as a comparable hamburger helper noodle dish. Upholding a normal meal they served green tea and bottled water. It is quite remarkable that the green tea is almost identical in taste to drinking original Chap Stick.
When we finished lunch we drove about an hour to the Phu My Hung Corporation located in South Saigon. There Stone Shih, Manager of International Marketing, presented their company and what they do. If I recall correctly it was about 10 years ago Ho Chi Minh City offered an international contest calling for all designs to recreate an area in South Saigon to reduce and house millions of Vietnamese and in turn reduce the overwhelming population in districts 1 and 5 in Ho Chi Minh City. Hundreds of international companies put forth designs while three companies, an American, a Japanese, and another, all won with their design.
Within this design they had developed hundreds of villas and other various living residences. They also require that 70 percent of the buildings were residential. Initially to start the development of these designs they had to turn rice fields, submerged under water, into workable plots. To do this they filled in sand and rocks and created a foundation that is 2 meters above sea level. Once completed the foundation process they began building based upon residential sales. Within the first morning of sales every villa sold out, roughly 2.2 billion USD, where each unit in the first area was 25,000 USD. This trend continued as the area continues to became more and more metropolitan. In addition to housing Phu My Hung has created a major highway in South Saigon helping reduce the traffic jams in Ho Chi Minh City. Essentially Phu My Hung has created a very independent upscale area where all needs of residents are covered through businesses located in the new commercial areas. Thus allowing no need for lots of travel and hopefully reducing the significant volume of motor bikes in the streets of HCMC (Ho Chi Minh City)
This was all very good but there were some draw backs for the Vietnamese citizens. It turned out 40 percent of these housing villas and areas were sold to foreign investors and defeated the purpose of removing overcrowding from the current city. The creation of the foundation pushed the waters up stream and back into HCMC causing more flooding and thus traffic jams and delays. And lastly all the profits are split right down the middle with the government therefore any negative effects can be overlooked and all laws are built to suite the needs of production for profit.
The future plans of Phu My Hung are exciting though seeing the architectural and civil engineering feats of such a large-scale project was very intriguing. The final project was called the crescent as it is arched buildings located along a crescent shaped part of the river. This lot will continue the residential theme having 70 percent residential and 30 percent commercial, a mall being included in this.
We headed back to the Victory Hotel but stopped at the local COOP, Vietnamese Market. There we purchased various goods for the week at such cheap prices. After the long day we decided to purchase Pizza as a group and hung out. My friend from the day before, Tony, met up with us and lent me a international cell phone to contact people during the week. I was beyond thankful as such generosity and trust amongst strangers is rarely seen in the west. Finally we headed out as group to Apocalypse Now. I am loving vietnam.
