Days 28, 29, 30, & 31: A Bittersweet Farewell to Asia

Well my friends, this is my final blog post for my trip to Southeast Asia.  It is a bittersweet moment because it is the end of one brief part of my life and the beginning of a new one.  My last few days in the "Pearl of the Orient" have been truly incredible and I am very sad to be leaving Hong Kong, my friends, and this program.  However, I am really excited about coming home to share it all with you!  In the meantime, here's some of the things we did:

Thursday we took a bus to the main campus of Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.  The campus was unbelievably beautiful. It's perched right on the side of the island where it looks out upon the sea and some minor islands:

We began our day with several hours of lecture and discussion on the diamond industry by one of the HKUST's Professors, Jaideep. He was amazing and had done his PhD work with one of our trip leaders, which was really neat. We read and talked through a case on DeBeers' challenges in marketing diamonds to the Asian consumer.  The case highlighted differences between consumers in the East and West and how difficult marketing diamonds in Asia has been.  Diamonds have a history of romance and regalia in the West because they were exchanged in royal circles as emblems of love and power.  DeBeers successfully leveraged this when they created the A Diamond is Forever campaign, which remains the single most successful marketing campaign of the modern era.  Western consumers hold romantic love as one of the highest ideals and men give women diamonds as a gift of enduring love.  This positioning allows DeBeers to have a recession proof luxury good.  When DeBeers tried to replicate this same notion in Asia, they were confronted with little success.  Asian consumers found DeBeers' positioning as overly romantic, impractical, and generally considered diamonds to be a luxury good that competed with cars, tvs, handbags, etc.  It was also interesting because Asian women saw diamonds as something they would purchase for themselves. We were asked to break into groups and present recommendations to DeBeers management about how they could market diamonds to the Asian consumers.

 That afternoon/evening, we worked through two cases with Laurence Franklin.  Larry is a great friend of UVa, worked in Finance for 25 years, and now teaches at HKUST.  We did two cases based on real deals Larry has worked on.  The first was between Firestone and Chinese tire manufacturers.  The case was about Firestone selling older radial tire technology to multiple Chinese firms with a buyback agreement.  The case explored the difficulties of doing deals with China from intellectual property rights to the reach of the central government.  We had 4 people role play as consultants pitching to Firestone about what characteristics to look for in a Chinese firm and which city they should go to first.  My friend Lena and I presented to the class of "Firestone Managers."  We made a suggestion that was very different from what Firestone ended up doing but Larry said that it was great because it demonstrated how many different strategies there are.

 The next case we explored was the building of a gas pipeline from the Yadana Gas Fields of Burma to a power plant in Thailand.  This case was really interesting because it involved higher risk from dealing with multiple governments, environmental implications, currency risk, and human rights issues.  As you may remember, the US has imposed economic sanctions against Myanmar (Burma) based on how the military regime has treated villagers and dissenters.  Also, the deal took place right before the Asian financial crisis and was delineated in both USD and Thai Bhat.  We role played as investment bankers attempting to pitch the deal to Thai Bankers, AIG, and a Myanmar Bank. Larry had a pretty interesting perspective on US relations with Burma that I did not particularly agree with but it was great to hear his opinion nonetheless.
Here is a map of the pipeline:

 Here is a picture of the pipeline that ran through the land:

 That night and part of the next day, Kathryn, Theo, Steve, Jeff, and I took a boat ride to Macau.  Macau is another Special Administrative Region.  It is a former Portuguese colony where the only commerce was a small fishing village.  Today, it has surpassed Las Vegas for gambling revenues.  We spent most of the night at the Venetian which is the largest casino in the entire world (pictured below).  It was very beautiful but has a very different feel than the casinos of Las Vegas, Atlantic City, or even Reno/Tahoe.  Macau has a distinctly Asian reservation about it.  While the grandeur of the buildings may surpass Las Vegas, the people have a certain demureness.  We obviously managed to have a great time nonetheless!  Kathryn gambled for the first time in her life and we enjoyed hopping from casino to casino to enjoy the different ambiances.  The entire island is pretty impressive.

 We came back at 7 in the morning after staying up all night and had the most beautiful hour boat ride back to Hong Kong where we saw so many little islands and fishing villages through our windows:

Friday, after catching up on some sleep, was spent walking around the city, eating delicious food, finishing my final reflection paper, and our capstone project (can be seen at www.mcintiresea2.com, password: mcintiregie).  If anyone would like to read my final paper, please send me an email and I'll send it out to you (madelinechiavini@gmail.com).

Saturday, we had informal presentations of our capstone projects, then a discussion where we reflected and synthesized our month long experiences with those of the China group's.  It was really great to get some time to think together as a class about the Asia Pacific Region--its challenges, opportunities, future prospects, and impressions upon us.  Finally, we had a graduation ceremony where our professors gave us speeches about our growth and all the wonderful things that lie before us.  Because we do not officially receive our diplomas until August, the program presented us with Jefferson Cups as a token of congratulations.  If anyone is really curious about the history of The Jefferson Cup, it can be read here: http://www.monticello.org/site/house-and-gardens/jefferson-cups

 Here's a picture of the class on orientation in August 2010:

 What a long way we've come!  In honor of our completion of our Masters degrees, the program chartered a boat to take us to Lamma Island:

 We docked here:

 And stepped into the Rainbow Seafood Restaurant to enjoy a multiple course meal celebrating the end of our trip and studies at UVa.  We toasted to our class and the dedication of our professors many times and it was so neat to take a moment to appreciate everything that this past year has been.

 We jumped back on the boat to Ferry back to Hong Kong Island and sang the whole way home.  Mom, you would have been proud of the variety because it ranged from everything from You Can't Hurry Love to the Backstreet Boys.  I will always remember that moment because we were almost hysterical with happiness and a sense of accomplishment.  We went out to Lon Kwai Fong, a very fun bar district, with our professors to continue the celebration and the singing and dancing.  We said tearful goodbyes in the wee hours of the morning because most of our friends and professors left early Sunday morning.

I spent the day on Sunday saying more goodbyes, exploring the city a little further, and making some last minute purchases.  We plan to have one last dinner with the remaining classmates before I get on a plane home to San Francisco tomorrow morning.  It is with a heavy heart that I say goodbye to my dear friends with whom I have shared one of the best months of my life.  I can not be more grateful for the opportunity to explore this region and learn so much that I never could have otherwise.  I am honored to have been part of this program, studied alongside my wonderful professors and fellow students, and experienced global business firsthand.

Luckily, the learning doesn't stop here.  In a few weeks, I will be taking another plane ride out to Asia.  This time, it will be to Beijing to intern with Xinyuan Real Estate Company for a few weeks.  I am bursting with excitement!

Thank you to each and everyone of you for reading about my adventures and discovery.
I hope you have enjoyed hearing about them and I hope to share more with you in person.
Much love,
Maddy

Days 24, 25, 26, & 27: Gateway to China

We are officially coming down the home stretch as far as my MS Commerce degree goes!
We've been having so much fun in Hong Kong and I want to share it with all of you.

On Sunday, we landed on Lantau Island and drove for about a half hour to Hong Kong Island which is what people generally think of when they think Hong Kong because it has all the sky-scrapers and the central business district.  However, Hong Kong, the special administrative region, is much bigger than just Hong Kong island.  It actually reminds me a lot of San Francisco because it has so many bridges and huge buildings that are nestled against small mountains and peaks.

Because we are essentially right on the water, the views from our hotel rooms are unobstructed and amazing.  We're staying at the island pacific, which is very close to the business district or central as the locals call it.

This is just part of central. You would not believe how dense these sky scrapers are.  It's a sight:

We settled in and went out to experience the town.  We had dinner and drinks in Soho and caught up with another fourth of our class who had been travelling in mainland china for the last month.

Monday, we got up and started our day with a visit to the US Consulate where we talked with someone from the Commercial Service and with an economist.  We learned all about Hong Kong and how the US manages relationships between HK and the US and also the US and China.  As you may know, HK was a british colony until 1997 when it was handed back over to China and it became a Special Administrative Region.  This essentially means that HK can govern itself and remain free and open for at least the next 50 years while also being part of China.  It is called the One Country, Two Systems policy.  Here's some quick facts about Hong Kong:

Geographic size:  ~1,104.4 sq. kilometers

Population: 7.097 million

Currency: Hong Kong Dollar (HKD)

Exchange rate: 1 HKD =  .1282 USD

GDP: $224.1 Billion

GDP per capita: $31,709

Annual growth rate: 6.8%

Trade:  $820 Billion ($388.6 imports,  $431.4 exports)

Natural resources: Deepwater Harbor

Unemployment: 4.3%

Government type: Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China

Governing party: All officials are endorsed by the Central People's Government of the People's Republic of China

Ethnic Makeup: Chinese 95%, Other 5%

Languages: Cantonese and English

Religions: 90% are either Buddhist, Confucians, or Taoist while the other 10% vary from Catholic, Protestant, Sikh, Muslim, Judiasm, and Hindu.

Here's a picture of the US Consulate building:

After our meeting with the consulate, we went to Ernst and Young's building where we had about five hours of lectures and discussion with various E&Y people.  We had an overview of the Asia Pacific region where E&Y gave us a sense of what trends they see as most important in this region and how it will affect global business.  We learned about 5 trends:
1. The move of capital flows from west to east and north to south
2. The great demographic shifts
3. The pressure placed on scarce resources by the incredible growth
4. How the relative power of countries are changing
6. Who will likely become the next emerging markets to pay attention to
After that, we had a lecture on capital markets in Hong Kong and mainland China.  We also extensively discussed the IPO market in Hong Kong because as many of you know Hong Kong is the world's largest IPO market.  We learned that most of these IPO's are mainland chinese companies that are seeking access to the global financial markets.
Next, we had two Transaction Advisory Services partners discuss investing in China.  It was really interesting to learn about the challenges and opportunities available to foreign investors in China.  We learned that to be successful in China, you must have a global brand because Intellectual Property laws are so lax.  We did two case studies, one of an IPO and one of an Acquisition that were examples of how it can go wrong and how it can go right in China: Anheuser-Busch InBev and Longtop Financial Technologies.
It was so cool to be right in E&Y's office building because we were right in the international financial center where the view was truly amazing:

We went straight from E&Y to the Hong Kong Club to visit with local alumni, thank them for their support, and share our impressions of Asia.  The Hong Kong Club was really neat and we had a great turnout for the event.  Here is what the building looks like.  It is a gathering place for many people, especially the ex-pat community:

Tuesday was all about finance in Hong Kong and China.  We met with the head of Investment Banking and M&A for the Asia Pacific Region for J.P. Morgan.  He shared his thoughts on how to be successful in this market and the financial sector in general.  He also spoke to the challenges of doing M&A work in Asia.  He focused on four things: a different language, a lack of legal framework, the due diligence process isn't as developed, and the reputational risk involved.
Next, we had the Director of ZBI Asia speak to us about the Private Equity climate of Asia.  He spoke about how important it is to recognize and overcome your psychological biases when investing.  He also said that he believes that his firm is so successful because it has a longer term focus and because they understand that it is not about stock market behavior.  Rather, it is about blocking out noise, opinions, and emotions and focusing on what really drives things.  He explained how you need scale in the PE game and how you have to have a "black belt" in accounting because there is more information asymmetry here.
Then, we had the CFO of Asia Global Banking for Citibank who spoke to us about strategy in the Asia Pacific Region.  He spoke to us about understanding market trends, monitoring the competitive landscape, assessing your firm's capabilities, and then identifying and prioritizing investment opportunities.  He shared how Citi tends to strategize and some of the challenges Citi has faced in these markets as a foreign bank.
Finally, we were able to meet together as a group to try to make sense of the financial landscape of this region.  We spoke about how the lack of trust in the financial system leads to less participation which in turn leads to an underdeveloped financial market that lacks both depth and liquidity.  Without a sophisticated financial market, capital cannot be efficiently allocated and growth is stifled.
After quite a long day, we hiked up Victoria's peak, or just the peak as locals call it.  It was night and the view was unreal:

On Wednesday, we had the CEO of Walmart Asia and a consultant speak to us about the challenges and opportunities in mainland China.  China is such a complex topic that is even more confusing when you try to make sense of Hong Kong's relationship to China and the US's relationship with China.  I have a lot of thoughts on this issue now (happy to share them with anyone and everyone when I have more time) but the bottom line is that China is so important and influential and just plain big that it dominates most people's thoughts when they consider this region.  As one of our speakers said, it's not just a country--with over a billion people, it's a continent!

We then had the wonderful opportunity to have a panelist of UVa alums speak to us about living and working in Hong Kong.  We had three recent graduates and two not so recent graduates who shared their stories about getting to Hong Kong.  They ranged from people who just up and moved here after visiting to people who ended up here almost by chance.  The work the alums did ranged from private equity to investment banking to entrepreneurial activities to research.  It was exciting to hear about how adventurous people can be.

That night we took the tram out to Happy Valley where there are horseraces every wednesday night.  It was pouring rain but we had a ton of fun betting on horses and getting to hang out with some ex-pats, alum, and some of our professors.  We then headed out to LKF, which is the center of Hong Kong nightlife.  Here's a picture of what the Happy Valley races look like:

One more blog post coming (probably on Sunday) about my final days in Hong Kong!
Can't wait to be back in the US to tell you all about it in person.
Thanks for reading,
Maddy

Days 21, 22, & 23: Roughin' it in Vietnam

On Thursday morning, we took a two hour bumpy bus ride to Cu Chi, a province to the north west of Ho Chi Minh.  We arrived at Vietstar, the Vietnamese subsidiary of Lemna, a US corporation involved in waste and water treatment.  Vietstar is a solid waste treatment center.  They receive shipments of solid waste from collection centers.  The waste is then hand and machine sorted to pick out organic waste that is turned into fertilizer and plastic waste that is turned into plastic pellets.  We met with the interim CEO of Vietstar who taught us about how different trash collection and environmentally sustainable initiatives are in Vietnam.  We learned that the wetness of trash in Vietnam means that any waste treatment center must also invest heavily in water treatment because all the liquid that runs off from the trash must be treated before it can be dumped in the river.  It was also interesting because it took so long to get this project off the ground because they had to deal with many government agencies and comply with many requests.  You’ll be interested to know that the plant operates 363 days a year because people are constantly producing trash.  I cannot explain to you how truly repulsive the smell was at this facility.  Our tour was a great wake up to how much waste we produce and how we must have business solutions to take care of it.  Here is a picture of one of the piles of trash (the trash went on for what seemed like miles):

We drove from Vietstar’s corporate headquarters to the Cu Chi tunnels.  The Cu Chi tunnels are a vast and complex network of tunnels that were created by the Cu Chi people who fought on the side of the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War.  This was one of the most impressive parts of the trip.  When we got to Cu Chi, we had our guide discuss how the Cu Chi people created the tunnels and how they were used during the war.  Then we watched a video about the tunnels that was communist propaganda.  It was so interesting to see because they filmed the video like it was made a long time ago but our guide told us that it made fairly recently.  The video again painted the Vietnam War as a war of American aggression.  Below is a diorama of the system of tunnels; there were rooms devoted to cooking, sewing, weaponry, etc and there were long air holes that gave oxygen to the very deepest tunnels:

The tunnels have been widened for tourists but this is an example of how tiny they were and how the Viet Cong would slip into the tunnels through disguised trap doors and disappear:

The Cu Chi people also were ingenious in how they created the tunnels because they were so complicated with so many traps.  Below are some pictures of the booby traps that they created.  It was a really sobering experience because the exhibits show pictures of American soldiers running for their lives from the Viet Cong and our guide told us how they found so many dog tags when they began to turn the tunnels into a tourist attraction.  It was also really shocking to see how they had created these incredibly painful and efficient devices to trap, torture, and kill:

At the end of the tour, we crawled 50 meters through the tunnels.  It was really scary because it was so small and dark but luckily I had lots of moral support.  The tunnels zig zag and go up and down.  This is what they look like with flash photography so imagine it nearly pitch black:

On Friday morning, we headed out to Kinh Do, a publicly traded confectionary leader.  We walked through their very impressive factory where we saw them produce the Vietnamese equivalent of twinkies from mixing the batter to shipping the boxes out.  The scale was astounding.  The company was started in 1993 and has grown to become the #4 widely recognized brand in Vietnam with 212 distributors, 120,000 retail outlets, 30 bakeries, and several major acquisitions.  They are the market leaders in cookies, crackers, wafers, and biscuits.  We were really intrigued by the fact that 80% of their business comes from general trade (general trade is distribution to mom and pop stores that are usually tiny and require distribution on motorbikes).  Kinh Do hopes that as Vietnam grows they can move more towards the premium end of the market which will mean that distribution will change more towards modern trade.  The CFO explained that Kinh Do’s real competitive advantage over MNC’s like Kraft are in its strong distribution network and brand equity.

We went to a mall for porcelain goods to enjoy a quick lunch.  The porcelain vases and dinnerware was truly beautiful—so intricate.  We then drove over to ICA Biotechnological and Pharmaceutical.  We got a tour of their factory where they produce one of their generic branded drugs and then met with the CFO who shared information about their company history, structure, and philosophy.  ICA is a very lean corporation that can price their drugs lower than other brands because they contract out their R&D through joint ventures with European, Korean, and American pharmaceutical companies.  This is a very interesting model because it allows them to have a very different cost structure and to need less capital tied up in research.  It also allows them to position themselves well in the Vietnamese pharma market because Vietnamese consumers trust foreign technology better. 

On Saturday morning, we got up early to take a long bus ride out to the Me Kong Delta through the lush rice patty filled countryside.  We boarded a boat that took us to Unicorn Island where we enjoyed some exotic fruit and saw how coconut candy is made.  We then took a canoe ride to a restaurant where we enjoyed a traditional Vietnamese meal in what was basically the jungle.   Dragonfruit and Durian was hanging from the trees while butterflies fluttered by.  We got caught in a huge downpour as we walked back from the restaurant to the boat.  The rain comes on so fast and rains so hard in the Tropics.  It made the experience authentic!  That night we went to a microbrewery with nearly everyone to celebrate Garrett’s birthday.  We had some pretty exotic food—someone ordered roasted pigeon!  It was a great way to end our week in Vietnam.

Next Stop... Hong Kong!

Thanks for staying with me,

Maddy

Days 18, 19, & 20: A land of great contradiction

We’ve had quite an eventful time in Vietnam and I couldn’t be more excited to share it with you:

Monday began with a panel discussion with four panelists, a US Consulate worker who helps facilitate American Business in Ho Chi Minh, an executive from Citibank Vietnam, a manager from Ernst and Young Vietnam, and the CFO of the Mesa Group.  As I’m sure all of you are familiar with the US Consulate, Citi, and E&Y, I will take a minute to explain the Mesa Group.  The Mesa Group is a major distributor in Vietnam.  In fact, they are the primary distributor of P&G products in Vietnam.  This is significant because, like Indonesia, hard infrastructure is pretty poor in Vietnam, especially rural Vietnam.  The Mesa Group has successfully built a strong and extensive distribution network.  As the CFO explained to us, because of the strength of this distribution network, they are able to greatly diversify their businesses into other seemingly unrelated fields like real estate.  This morning was truly interesting because we were able to get a broad sense of US relationships with Vietnam, Multinational activity in Vietnam, the spirit of the Vietnamese people, and the challenges Vietnam is currently facing.  Here are some highlights from that morning:

When the Vietnam war ended in 1975, half of the population wasn't alive.  Today, Vietnam has about 86 million people and over half of the population is under 30.  Vietnam began Doi Moi, reintegration with the world, in 1986 and restored relations with the US in 1995.  Since then, Vietnam has had great success in increasing GDP per capita and reducing the poverty rate.  We learned that despite this phenomenal growth, like Indonesia, Vietnam has really struggled with things like human capital and infrastructure.  They also have serious challenges with inflation, corruption, bureaucracy, and protecting the environment.  We also learned that the Vietnamese economy is driven by domestic consumption and that they have a trade deficit.  Vietnam also has an underdeveloped banking sector because of deep mistrust of the banking sector and high levels of inflation that have led Vietnam to be a mainly cash or gold based economy.  However, we did learn that despite these challenges, Vietnamese people have an incredible optimism and a huge entrepreneurial spirit.

That afternoon, we took a short bus ride to a relatively new district of the city where Vinamilk has its headquarters.  Vinamilk is a state owned enterprise that collects, packages, markets, and distributes milk and other dairy products.  Vinamilk has experienced incredible growth over the past few years as Vietnamese people have enjoyed higher levels of wealth.  Vinamilk was interesting because it is a publicly traded but state owned enterprise that is well managed, agile, and a market leader.  We also learned about how Vinamilk has to educate its consumers about the benefits of milk and how their greatest risk is the quality of their milk.  Another interesting fact: Vietnamese dairy farming doesn't produce enough milk to satisfy domestic demand so Vinamilk has to source quite a bit of milk from Australia. 

That evening, we got in taxis to take a short ride to the Temple Club, a restaurant and bar owned by the president of the UVa Club of Vietnam. A group of seven of us girls managed to get lost between paying for our taxi and walking the supposedly short distance to our short distance.   We wandered the streets for a few minutes asking everyone where the Temple Club was.  We got sent in three separate directions and eventually went into a cafe to ask some people enjoying coffee to help us.  When we finally figured out where we were supposed to be, we realized we had been right next to it but missed the sign.  We had a good laugh and took a picture for good measure.  The night ended up being a ton of fun as we visited with friends of UVa and enjoyed some drinks and hors d'ouevres but I've never wanted my smart phone more than at that minute.  Here is the fated doorway:

On Tuesday, we started our day off with a two hour bus ride to the only deep sea port in Vietnam, Cai Mep.  The bus ride was long and incredibly bumpy.  Apparently, the government has been promising to pave the road for several years but it remains unpaved.  We had a short presentation where we learned about how Cai Mep was started to reduce shipping costs for companies operating in Vietnam because it can eliminate the need to go to a transshipment port like Singapore or Hong Kong.  This particular port is especially important because it is a deep sea port which is necessary to accommodate huge ships.  We also learned that it is incredibly expensive to transport goods within Vietnam.  We also learned that Walmart, Target, Lowes, Home Depot, JC Penny, Kohl's and Sears account for 1/2 of the retail shipping volume in the world.  Here's a picture of the port:

Next, we went to Johnson Wood, a furniture manufacturer who supplies furniture for Pier 1 Imports.  It was unreal.  We watched the production line from lumber to packaging.  We walked through what felt like miles of warehouses and production facility floors. There were hundreds of workers who were doing everything from shaping table legs to painting drawers.  I kept thinking of how much Dad and Glenn would both find it so interesting.  Here is one of the production lines in the painting stage and below that, a box to be shipped to Pier 1:

Tuesday evening we had the special treat of having dinner on a river cruise down the Saigon River.  This dinner was graciously hosted by Pier 1 and involved a five course traditional Vietnamese meal and musical and dance performers.  We had a ball! Our friend, Steve, sat down with the band and played one of their traditional Vietnamese instruments to much applause.  I joined in by clinking together two porcelain tea cups together.  It made a truly lovely sound...I'll be sure to demonstrate when I return home! Here is what the boat looked like and below is a picture of me and Rebecca (my roommate for this leg) on the deck as we sailed down the river and watched the sunset:

On Wednesday morning, we walked a couple blocks to P&G Vietnam's headquarters.  We met with Michelle Le, the CFO.  This was a really great meeting because we were able to learn so much about P&G's country subsidiaries and how they operate for our project.  We also learned about the differences between north and south Vietnamese consumers.  We also learned how hard it is to penetrate these markets and how key good distribution networks are.  Another interesting fact about Vietnam is that the Vietnamese government banned facebook here but Vietnamese people still use facebook and have found ways to get around the internet blocks.  Finally, something I think everyone will find very interesting is that women have an incredibly important role in Vietnam.  There are a tremendous amount of women in positions of power within corporations and when we ask Vietnamese businessmen and women about this they say that women are "more prudent" and "more hardworking".  Ms. Le told us that it is common to see men lounging about while women bring home the bacon.  What is further interesting is that Vietnam has really traditional family values and roles so these women are running companies and then going home to cook and clean.  It's pretty empowering and impressive.  

A group of us went to lunch at a restaurant the hotel recommended.  There, we watched the servers deliver rice to the tables by smashing a clay pot and then throwing the rice that had been inside the clay pot across the room into our bowls.  It was wild.  After this, we walked to the War Remnants Museum.  This museum houses many war artifacts and exhibits.  It was brutal; I was literally sick to my stomach because the pictures and exhibits are gruesome.  Beyond the sobering experience of the devastation of war, the museum was really interesting because it is so biased.  It is a beautiful example of how history is written by the victors.  The museum calls the war the war of American aggression.  The museum focuses on the war crimes and atrocities of the American soldiers and government and even calls it genocide.  While we don’t paint a rosy picture of the Vietnam War in the US, we certainly don’t view it this way.  In light of how many Vietnamese people see the Vietnam War, I am amazed by how they welcome American tourists, businesses, and brands.   

That evening we had a visit from a local Vietnamese fast moving consumer goods company, International Consumer Products, ICP.  ICP was founded in 1991 and has rapidly grown into a competitive company.  Most of this growth can be attributed to the men's shampoo XMen.  ICP found a blue ocean in men's shampoo where they could market an aspirational masculine brand to men who were using women's or generic shampoos.  We learned all about the company's story and the success of their brands, especially XMen.  It is interesting to know that ICP markets its products as international products because Vietnamese consumers trust and like European and American brands much more than local ones.  We had so much fun watching the XMen commercials and learning all about ICP.  

More to come soon!
Thanks for reading,
Love,
Maddy

Days 15, 16, & 17: Welcome to Jogja!

On Friday, we hopped on a plane from Jakarta to Yogyakarta.  Yogyakarta sits in the central eastern part of the island Java at about 3,000 feet.  The city of 3 million people is nestled between huge active volcanoes and sits on a major faultline (Daddy, the elevation is for you J).  After landing, we went directly to Prambanan Temple.  Prambanan is a hindu temple or rather a grouping of many Hindu temples that are dedicated to different Hindu gods and goddesses.  Rebecca and I were mobbed by a group of 20 or so Indonesian middle-schoolers who were so excited about our fair skin that they wanted to take a million pictures with us.  We finally had to tell them we couldn’t take any more pictures with them because we had to rejoin our group.  I’m sure it was a sight to behold.

This is a picture of Julia, Me, Laura, and Rebecca sitting on a ledge of one of the temples:

            After enjoying the temple, we went to a small house that had been converted into a stage where we watched a leather puppet show.  If you’ve ever seen the movie, Year of Living Dangerously, then you may remember the shadow puppets that are used to tell stories.  We watched a religious story of the Ramayana, which is a Hindu epic.  It would be the equivalent of seeing a puppet show of the Odyssey for us in the western culture.  We quickly learned that leather puppeteering is really an artform.  There was traditional Indonesian music that has that quintessential eastern sound and involves many drums and gongs.  We were captivated by the intricacies of the shadows and the cultural importance of this art form.  Islam was spread to Indonesia mainly through the use of puppeteering.  We then walked across the dirt street, being careful to not collide with the wild chickens running around, and we walked through a labyrinthine passageway.  We arrived at a back porch of a house where a meal of traditional Indonesian food was laid out.  We were among palm trees, salamanders, and hand-carved wood.  It was one of my favorite meals.  After such a delicious meal, we checked into the Hyatt where we were greeted with guava juice and fresh jasmine garlands.  We took a quick swim before falling into bed because we had to rise early. Below is Julia with one of the leather puppets (Julia was my roommate for the Indonesia leg of our trip):

            We got up at 3:30am so we could arrive at Borobudur before dawn.  We walked up to the Buddhist temple in the dark with flashlights and climbed up to the fourth level to watch a glorious Indonesian sunrise over the volcanoes.  It was an incredible experience.  It was an incredible experience that I can’t really put into words so forgive my attempt to do the sunrise justice.  The night turned from twinkling stars to watercolor splashes of pink.  The pink gave way to molten-red rays and eventually to a brilliant orange-yellow.  A dense fog settled upon the trees in the valley below the temple. You can see the progression below:

This is Amy and Me.  We wore sarongs as we walked around the temple and marveled at the intricacy of the carving work and how the stones fit together tongue and groove:

Borobudur is seven levels.  As you can see below, the first four are rectangular and the next three are circular.  Within each little bell shaped part of the temple on the last three levels there is a praying Buddha.  Two of them have been exposed; below is an example of one of the exposed Buddhas:

After exploring Borobudur, we had a lovely traditional Yogyakarta breakfast in the hotel right next to it.  We then hopped back onto the bus where we slept until we arrived at a Batik factory.  Batik is a technique of dying and decorating fabric that is very famous in Indonesia.  Batik is truly an art form.  An average piece of Batik work takes over a month with multiple people working on it.  Batik is created by pressing or painting wax onto fabric, dipping the wax covered fabric into dye and repeating this multiple times until you have an intricate design.  

After finishing at the Batik factory, we went to the Tembi house of culture in a more rural part of Jogja where we went into a local museum of Yogyakarta art and culture.  We also hopped up on a Javanese Andong, a traditional horse cart.  The horses took us through a village of dirt and cobble stone streets.  We watched as the locals tended to rice patties and waved to us with smiling faces.

Later that evening, as we enjoyed a delicious dinner, we watched the Ramayana story again (same as the leather puppet show) but this time it was a dance.  The dancers danced among the tables and by the hotel pool.  We really felt like we were part of the story!

On Sunday, we got up early to catch an early flight from Yogyakarta to Kuala Lampur Malaysia.  We flew Air Asia, a budget carrier with seats where barely I could fit.  So you can imagine how much complaining our 6’3” and 6’5” classmates did!  Fortunately, we got to Kuala Lampur in one piece where we were anticipating spending an 8 hour plus layover.  Our administrative assistant, Chris, was able to rebook our next flight to leave much sooner but it involved us running through the Kuala Lampur airport to catch our flight to Ho Chi Minh City.

For some unknown reason Air Asia has an Oakland Raiders plane so this one's for you Dee:

We arrived in Ho Chi Minh City, which is the new name for Saigon.  As Professor Maillet described it, the name change would be akin to renaming Richmond, Virginia Lincolnville after the south lost the civil war.  It was incredibly hot and we were exhausted so we made our way to the Intercontinental and had a quick dinner of Pho (a traditional Vietnamese soup) before hitting the hay.   

Sorry it’s taken me so long to get these out but things have been really busy here in Siagon.

Thanks for sticking with me,

Love you guys,
Maddy