Yesterday we started off the day at UEF doing a Vietnamese language class. Right before class I had a cup of coffee and I really think that was a great start to my day. The class was super fun and energetic trying to learn some bargaining phrases to later be used. After the language class we were given hats and were able to paint them to our own liking. I’m not too artistic but I painted some flowers on the hat and I thought it came out cute but you just have to squint a bit to make it look better. 

After class we headed to the market to practice our new phrases we just learned and to buy some souvenirs. We got to the market and I was immediately overstimulated. It was so crowed and everyone was selling different variations of the same exact stuff. I wasn’t sure where to start or who to buy from since everyone had the same products. The vendors were super pushy trying to drag you in and get you to buy something, most would let me say no thanks and walk by but a few of them tried to corner Hannah and I and we just had to push by a bit. Compared to shopping back home it was completely different. There is really no bargaining while shopping at home people usually just paid what the price tag says. Shopping at home is easily less stressful as being at the market all the vendors could tell we were foreigners and just trying to up charge us the entire time. 

We headed over to the consulate to speak with an employee who works in the economics section of the US consulate. I thought that her job was super interesting and the process to how she got to Vietnam was even more interesting. The test and score that determine so much, ranking 60 countries, two 2 year different program locations, and an 8 month Vietnamese language class to prepare for the move and job. Regarding their goal to increase their income and become a high income society by 2045, I feel like it’s definitely possible to increase income however being unaware of what they goal is to get to I’m not sure they will be able to reach it fully. Considering spending the past 2 weeks in Vietnam seeing what things cost and looking up salaries to different companies that we have attended site visits on I fear that it will take longer than 9 years to reach the same high income that some of the other countries around the world are at. I do think that over time they will achieve this but it might take a bit longer depending on their overall number of a goal. However we never know what could happen so we would just have to wait and see.