beauty of the south

The morning language class on the eighteenth progressed at the ridiculous pace at which a detached tire without much of a purpose would probably choose to roll itself down the street, if it could. Life, in some ways, has become overly scheduled and routine here in recent days, perhaps even to where a lingering sense of mundane repetition seems to dictate what will happen next—part of this stems from always being busy with one thing or another, and living the life of a student on a study program. In a sense of the matter, I am bound to the social and structural obligations that I have gotten myself into this time around; however, this is not to say that my wish for continual growth through interaction and implementation of developing ideas will be confined to but one narrow path.

On this particular day after language class, I met with my friend Nguyệt, whom I had studied with in Hà Nội with on the CIEE program during the fall semester. This meeting of old friends immediately brought back a surge of memories from months prior—though our physical appearances were still comparatively the same as before, our levels of human development were now indescribably further along than before. It is my belief that the way by which a person presents his or her psychological demeanor to another human being, it changes over time. What changed about my friend was that she seems to have developed into someone who is more comfortable with a larger range of physical mobility than before; the person once at ease sitting in a room all day was replaced by one who is willing to walk the streets alone.

After this brief lunch meeting at V3 Kafé followed by another goodbye, a scheduled tour of the Nike shoe making factory in Biên Hòa consumed the rest of the day. Owned by South Korean investors, employing over 18,000 workers, and under a contract with Nike, this factory was in fact, a factory—not that I have ever seen another factory on such a grand scale to make a meaningful comparison. Our student group was given a sort of constrained view of operations which had the goal of painting a good picture by the public relations management team, and a selected tour of the working facilities. Though the social mobility factor is indeed lacking for a variety of reasons which may include lack of a formal education beyond basic literacy, the workers here seem relatively content with having employment to support their families back home in their rural provinces where work may not be as readily available. The management here sees the factory as being beneficial to the surrounding community, and continues to view itself as such in the long-run.

The day after the Nike factory tour, our student group had an afternoon meeting with two of the political officers working at the US Consulate here in the city. These individuals commented on a variety of issues including Vietnamese Americans being arrested by the local government for attempting to leave the country with untaxed profits from house sales, current pressures on the Vietnamese government in correlation with various human rights abuses, the economic and political climate, and the feasibility of foreign business affecting social reform.

Days later on a Thursday would be the first time I would meet with a Vietnamese educator with his own views of the system for my research project. Humorously, he did not understand why he was scheduled to meet with me in the first place—he thought that I was a Vietnamese student whom required help with the English language as he has been teaching the language for a living here for decades. The introductory meeting went relatively well, and he scheduled for me to meet with two of his fellow educator friends the following day. When last Friday arrived, however, I had fallen ill to the common cold and was in no condition to have a serious discussion with a group of teachers. Fighting an onslaught of drowsiness brought on by the cold, I had trouble staying awake in their presence and excused myself to left the meeting early—I did get their contact information before I left though.

There is much more to write as I have not written for awhile. However, I need a break and will post another entry tomorrow.