Day 3

Sorry for the delay, I typed up my posts for Days 3 & 4 and thought that they saved but I my internet connection was bad and they didn't save :(
Anyway, Wednesday and Thursday started out like the others with breakfast at the hotel. On Wednesday morning we took the bus/van to the Vietnam Singapore Industrial Park. This industrial park provides the infrastructure (roads, buildings, etc.) for the factories of many different international and Vietnamese companies. I thought that one aspect in particular was interesting because it pertains to the Vietnamese government's actions. To conserve energy, the government uses power outages which are apparently short, but fairly frequent in warmer weather. However, this does not have to occur within the industrial park, posing a major advantage for companies that have production facilities there. Also, under the Vietnamese government, a company does not actually own land, but can lease it for 50 years. One such company is II-VI, which is actually Pennsylvania-based and produces many things including lenses. The thing that struck me most at this company was the working conditions because I could compare them with past experiences in the US. For example, I noticed that though many of the factory workers were working with glass to shape the lenses, no one wore eye or ear protection. Furthermore, we learned about the issues concerning the employment of migrant workers. Most of the factory workers live in other parts of the country. They come to areas like HCM City and work for 6-8 months, then return home for the Tet holiday and give the money to their families. Instead of returning, many take a longer vacation and then find similar work elsewhere for a couple months and then repeat the cycle. II-VI and other companies have had to adjust to this challenge of high turnover rates. Specifically, II-VI discussed new incentives for workers to return, including paying for transportation home for major holidays like Tet. Additionally, II-VI is concerned with paying decent wages, but not over paying, so they use both formal and informal wage surveys to compare with theirs and adjust as necessary.
After lunch, we headed to another company called Glass Egg Digital Media. Many major video game production firms outsource and commission other companies to create some of their game elements. Glass Egg is one such firm. They create objects, especially cars, characters, and backgrounds for many games. I was excited to talk with this group after reading and studying the Harvard case study on the firm and wish the presentation was longer.
Once we returned to the Victory Hotel for a free afternoon, we made plans to go back to the market after a short nap. However, the "short nap" accidentally became a 4 hour nap. So, after waking up much later than we intended we went out to dinner and then back to bed. Though we missed an afternoon, it was worth it to catch up on our jet lag and be, for the most part, adjusted to Vietnamese time.