After our long and very hot weekend, the group had to really rally to get ready for the day. Five site visits and 110-degree heat were in store for us today, and we somehow made it back at the end of the day with smiles. Our day started early at Coherent with an in-depth tour of their eight warehouses. All of these buildings were located in the High Tech Park, along with the rest of our site visits for the day. The High Tech Park is relatively new to Saigon, as it was created around 20 years ago and now houses billion-dollar enterprises within its confines. Compared to America, it is reminiscent of Silicon Valley in California, with massive companies focusing mainly on tech and other manufacturing sectors.

The rest of our day consisted of quick stops at countless other companies in the park, taking small tours around their facilities, and learning about how they work on educating the youth and research and development. Although these other stops were interesting, no experience could top Coherent. We were shown their manufacturing process from start to finish, including warehouses filled with multi-million dollar machines and hundreds of workers. The most interesting thing we learned today was their response to COVID-19 and how they housed thousands of employees in their unfinished warehouses. Along with their COVID-19 response, our guide spoke about employee living and retirement, which was not shared at any of our other site visits.