The day's activities started with a lecture on urban planning and development in Ho Chi Minh City (HCM). The main thing I learned from the dozens of facts that were read to us was how social and economic development are patriotic goals in the Vietnamese culture. The language class was a lot more enjoyable today. The teacher did not call on me as much. We reviewed the different forms of greetings that correspond to the hierarchal structure of Vietnamese society. We continued our study of the tonal nature of the Vietnamese language. I now understand why Vietnamese is so hard for Westerners to learn and why Vietnamese speakers have a singsong-ish sound that is sometimes angry sounding. One of the tones involves this sharp down-ward thrusting noise that must rise quickly from deep withing the throat. Try as we did, I don't think anyone was able to pronounce this tone correctly.
We visited Phu My Hung in the the afternoon. It was incredible. Phu My Hung Corp. transformed a swamp into what is essentially a new city complete with tall commercial buildings, residential units, and shopping centers.
The day's scheduled activities ended with a visit to the future building site of a UEF campus in South Saigon. Currently it is a swampy area with a billboard showing what it will look like after development. There was a lady selling fresh vegetables picked from the swampy area. In a few years she will surely be gone, replaced by students and tall buildings.
A mixed group of Vietnamese and Pitt students went out to a dinner of pancakes stuffed with vegetables and shrimp. We cut up the food, wrapped it in lettuce, and dipped it it in fish-sauce. We had dessert at a frozen yogurt place. Everything was good although I did not expect the bill to be so large. It cost about 8 dollars for each for the entire meal.
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