Interpreter's life in Vietnam

Even though we are two of us on the assignment this week our work is not proceeding in satisfying speed. Our contact persons are very busy and as they are not able to dedicate us any time it’s difficult for us to think about any potential advices or solutions for them if our knowledge about company is still vague.

So we spent the morning “session” with our interpreters learning more about life in Vietnam and their current situation of entering on labor market. We did our best to share our own experiences and try to give them some guidelines or encouragement. I hope it was interesting for them to see also our perspective from two countries Poland and Holland (in Vietnamese Ba Lan and Hal Lan:-).
Personally I perceive very seriously our work with interpreters and see it equally important as our consulting for companies. These young people have great opportunity to improve their English and gain some work experience but at the same time they are our first ambassadors to the Vietnamese culture and for sure our work wouldn’t be possible without them. (for some of us for sure). In addition I’m sure that I’m learning so much thanks to them and my experience is so rich.

In the evening we had our first work-out:-) Hurra, some sport activities (that’s probably one of the biggest issue for me during this stay not having any sport/ fitness activities).
So we decided to master our skills in playing shuttle- cock at the parking of the hotel. It’s our second time only playing this game and it’s far away from presenting any level (probably every single child in Vietnam plays thousand times better than we do) but we have had so much fun.
I’ve bought 5 shuttle-cocks to take with me to Poland and introduce game to family and friends:-)

New week new researches

During this week the research in my company continues. As this is my second assignment I’m still in the phase of obtaining information how the company works and in which areas I can assist. I have got some initial blurred ideas but it’s far too little to be able to present my client any proposals. However I should be able to speed up a bit this week as Arjan will spend this week with me here and hopefully we manage to provide some advice.
So today we had a session on customer service management and tried to understand how this concept is understood and what the reality is.

And herewith are some photos from company surroundings:
Company dog:

My company building:

Other neighboring companies buildings:

Treasure hunt and other games in SOS Children Village!

Sunday morning we dedicated for the trip to Do San beach and Hon Dau Island nearby Hai Phong and the afternoon for activities at SOS Children’s village.

The trip was organized by one of our clients with VCCI (Vietnamese Chamber of Commerce) and probably we wouldn’t go for such an excursion by ourselves but it was another experience. We had difficulty to understand the purpose of different spots showed us during the trip like Casino or the resort that is still being built. None of use seemed to be interested in discovering it or being impressed by them. On the other side our requests to have some longer walk were seen as strange idea:-)

The afternoon we spent back at the SOS Children’s Village playing games with the kids. And it was very joyful time and it seems that children appreciated the lolly pops, books and IBM stationery they have received as prizes in the games organized by us. We arranged a treasure hunt, Debbie prepared balloon animals that seemed to be the most hunted by all the kids. We ourselves started playing popular in Vietnam a game of keepy-uppy using something similar to a shuttlecock. To be honest our skills were behind the children but we have intention to buy our own shuttlecocks and keep on practicing.

And it was also great that we could finally have some sport activities and seeing kids smiling and enjoying playing with us was very rewarding! It's not sure if we manage to come back to SOS village still during our stay in Vietnam but hopefully the other CSC teams will follow the relationships we have built.

The unique engagement experience

What a wonderful feeling to wake up and to see the sun shining outside!!! It’s been the first time since we arrived to Hai Phong that we were enjoying such a beautiful day. A minus of our stay here is that we came during the rainy season and unfortunately almost every day it rains.
And regarding this weekend we decided to stay in Hai Phong due to some earlier arrangements, planned meetings and community activities.

The first one was the visit of IBM Vietnam General Manager Mr. Vo Tan Long to get overview of our assignments and to see if there is anything we need support on. It was very interesting to share our experiences and to get more light on some of the issues we have been facing as well to enrich our knowledge of Vietnamese business environment, culture. We may still meet again at the end of our stay in Vietnam visiting the IBM office in Hanoi.

The afternoon was supposed to be without any particular plans, rather lazy one but I have already learnt during my stay here “state without plans” can be really short one. And the became valid for this afternoon as well:-) Monica has received from the client (Mr Phuong ) invitation to another wedding and she didn’t have to persuade me for a long to join her. (not that I‘m fan of weddings but my intuition was seeing it as another unique experience, and I was right:-)!!!). This time the event took place outside Hai Phong, in the province and we were told that the celebrations would be rather modest. So we took a taxi and our excited journey started:-) Our taxi driver even though he had received all the indications with the address and detailed directions as soon as we left the city kept on stopping every 5 minutes asking casual people about the way but finally he succeeded and we arrived to bride’s house.
The preparation started shortly before our arrival and it turned out that we were going to attend engagement party. At the beginning there were only a few people and everyone was surprised to see two western women but quickly we were introduced by Mr Phuong (sister of his girlfriend was getting married) and so many people welcomed us very cordially. Especially the elder women from the bride’s family were so much eager to talk to us but the language barrier make it pretty impossible but still with help of our hands, constant smile and translations of Mr Phuong we managed to have very exciting “conversations” learning more about Vietnamese wedding tradition. So the ceremony we were attending was engagement party, where elders of the groom’s family will meet elders from bride’s family in order to exchange gifts and secure the authorization from both families to have their son/daughter married.
Earlier a fortune teller was consulted to set a date and time for the wedding, a good day” was chosen based on the lunar calendar and young couple’s astrological signs.

During the ceremony, we could observe many colorful, interesting rituals, among which was the boy’s relatives set off in procession to visit their future in-laws, bearing symbolic gifts in special red lacquered boxes. Furthermore we took part in the ride on the motorcycles from the bride’s house to the groom’s house. (Mr Phuong was kind to take us both on one motorbike:-).

We got along so well with family that we were also invited to stay over for a dinner and having no other plans for the rest of the day we accepted the invitation without foreseen that it would be continuation of unique experience as well as incredibly challenging culinary one. We were asked to sit down with the closest family, including two grandmothers and it was fine until we saw dishes prepared. Generally during my travels I’m very keen on learning new things, trying new things but this time I didn’t have enough courage. Very quickly we have realized that we would not be able to eat half of the meals as it was too extreme for us, some specialties: pork liver mixed with blood, some raw meat prepared only with lemon and other internal parts of different animals. We were simply terrified and had big dilemma what to do, how not to offend our host. Fortunately two grandmothers were very kind and didn’t force too much to eat things were not fond of and it was our choice what to pick up.
Even though one of grandmother insisted very much on our stay over there we decided to come back to Hai Phong and our 30-kilometer-journey on the motorcycles (this time we two motorcycles:-) was also very exciting.

I have to say that this engagement party was probably the most unique and moving experience of our stay in Vietnam.

Not easy life when your partner is a sailor.

This morning at work when I continued my interviews with people to get better understanding how the company is organized we moved to one of very interesting topics: how to build successful relationship, later on get married if your partner is a sailor. As Hai Phong is a harbor city it looks that is pretty common problem/dilemma. My company is struggling with high fluctuation of employees leaving the company, precisely their work on the ships. It looks that many men don’t want to work in these very hard conditions and don't like being away from family for a long time. A boyfriend of one of my interpreter is a sailor and he’s been 2 months sailing and will stay another 8, the same situation was for HR person from my previous company with the difference that she’s been married for 3 months and her husband has been away for 2 months and will continue for another 8 months. And one of the managers in my new company was a sailor for 5 years and confirmed that it’s very tough life.

And today's lunch was in a shopping center as the security guide had a day off:-)This time we had “hot spot” – kind of soup being prepared by us with so many ingredients consisting of sea food, meat, vegetables and big variety of mushrooms (almost all of them were new for me).

In the evening, in the spirit of team knowledge sharing and supporting each others three of us decided to test personally SPA Nadal that is part of the complex where Murali has his assignment. Not only we could recharge our batteries after the whole week but we would be able to provide some feedback to Murali of the staff performance, one of his tasks during the assignmentJ. And we had a lot to talk to him as we have had really bizarre experience. None of staff spoke English hence we were a bit struggling explaining what we want as well as to get some understanding how we should prepare for the massage. It was a lot fun but hopefully our experience will help Murali to get some training to the staff on better customer service :-)

You never know what you get for lunch.

The first day stayed by new client passed very nice, having conversations with HR representative and director of the company in order to get some overview of the enterprise and to see where are the potential areas of improvement.

So my new assignment is in a family run oil trading company, selling and shipping oil in Vietnam, and apart from office where I work they have 6 ships (sea and river ones). One day I need to arrange to go harbor and to see it, it might be very interesting:-)

And what about the most important part of the working day lunch in a new place?:-) So the meal is prepared downstairs in the kitchen by security man and it looked ok but as we have already agreed on in our group you can never take for granted that one particular lunch can be totally “safe”. ( in terms that you can be sure what you are eating).Even innocent question “do you eat chicken” can never guarantee you that you will get the one you may be used to. So for my first lunch in a new place I got cooked chicken with lemon grass, but it was almost the whole chicken, with skin on it…. And later on the interesting discussion related to vietnamese food occurred and it was hard to persuade that there is no way I will eat a dog…. That’s probably one of the biggest culinary fears not to get a dog during one of the meals out.
Our stay in Vietnam without any doubts is amazing culinary journey but at times pretty risky one:-)

And the part of 2-hour-lunch break was watching vienamese soap opera on TV:-) Every company has its own culture:-)

Visit in blind school

In the morning me and Arjan were introduced to a new potential client and were taken to its office to see if they expectations are in line with what we can do in our remaining time in Vietnam or maybe the following later on in April another CSC volunteer can continue our work.
The meeting was very nice and despite time constraints I hope it would be possible to implement some improvements or give them some ideas that can be used later on.
We have decided to look at: Human Resources, building Customer Service and communication skills of the staff and providing some ideas on building enterprise culture.
Firstly I’ll start myself and later on, the following week Arjan will join me.

Afternoon we again dedicated to community activities, visiting this time blind school in Hai Phong with the purpose to start building the relationship and to see if there any areas we could assist on or prepare the ground for two other teams coming later this spring.
We have presented the proposals and let’s see what outcome will be.

And for the dinner we were invited by the management staff of the hotel we are staying in.