Today, we began our classes and company visits for the trip. In the morning, we attended a lecture on the development of the Mekong Delta region and another lecture on learning the Vietnamese language. During the Vietnamese lecture, we really got to spend time talking with the students here as they helped us learn pronunciation and the dos and don’ts of the language. While we were going over the language, the students helped us learn our Vietnamese names. The students I was with, Fred, Kane, and Jermaine, gave us two names, one based on our English name, and another based on our name’s meaning. The first name I was given was Đen, stemming from my name Aidan. They told me how this name meant black, and it was often used as part of a nickname for young boys. My other name, which they gave me, was Tuấn, which came from my name’s meaning.
Then, in the afternoon, we visited GreenViet, a company focused on sustainability. The company works as a consultancy to help companies and buildings improve sustainability. Co-Founder Mr. Quang explained how GreenViet utilizes engineering talent from Vietnam while working with a few international interns. The company consists of 30 members who split up into four groups to help work on projects. This tight community and its opportunities to learn from international interns allow them to achieve great, passionate work to help the environment and promote sustainability throughout Southeast Asia. This passionate connected work really allowed them to excel and become greatly successful.
When it comes to international business, it felt that GreenViet was mostly based around business in Vietnam but began to take advantage of the global market, especially in Asia, by expanding to work in Japan, Cambodia, and Singapore. This shows how Vietnam is a growing nation and is really working to push itself onto the international stage. Mr. Quang also helped explain that Vietnam had been taken advantage of for so long by imperialist powers, and now it is Vietnam’s time to go out and make a name for itself in the world. He also explained the views on the tariffs from an outside of the U.S. perspective. His perspective showed how trade with the United States is extremely important for Vietnam’s economy and businesses, and any work to attack that can greatly harm both the consumers in the U.S. and the producers in Vietnam. He also explained how Vietnam is just being targeted by these tariffs because the U.S. wants to weaken China, and if it does not raise Vietnam’s tariffs, then industrial jobs will just flow to Vietnam, allowing China to break away from them and gain more power. While a nation relying on industrial jobs can hold it back from growing as a major power, these are still very important for many Asian countries’ economies, so these tariffs have the potential to greatly impact Vietnam and the rest of Asia if they follow through with them. Overall, this outside perspective on current issues in the U.S. has made me very interested to continue learning about Vietnam, its life, culture, and perspective.
