Post Trip Reflections

Day 1 – As we stepped into Hanoi, I was surprised by the large number of motorcycles on the roads and the people sitting at the roadsides enjoying their meals. This was a drastic change from that of Singapore, a new culture just waiting to be explored. We went to visit Hanoi University and learnt about the local Vietnamese culture. I felt that this was meaningful as we get to have an overview of the Vietnamese culture, giving us a better understanding of the country. We also had the opportunity to interview several students from Hanoi University about the food culture in Vietnam and their responses caught us off guard and we realised that our questions do not encourage them to elaborate on their responses, resulting in the impromptu modification of interview questions.

Day 2 – When we were exploring Sapa, we saw many women from the various tribes selling souvenirs. The town seemed to be a typical tourist destination with numerous western restaurants and cafes and does not have its own distinctive heritage. We took many photos of the food scene in Sapa, such as their markets, but we found that it was like Hanoi’s which was rather unexpected. I feel that through exploring the town together, our group got to understand each other better and bonded together, which made our working relationship much better as we could each play on our strengths and contribute to the group in different areas.

Day 3 – We went for our trekking expedition which was a new and interesting experience for me. The scenery was very beautiful and I learnt a lot about the way of life of the native people and their traditions and culture. I learnt that the locals who followed us trekked the path we took almost daily to sell their goods and I find their enterprising spirit and hardworking attitude inspiring as they choose to help tourists along the route so that they can sell them handicraft items for a small sum of money and asked for nothing in return for the services rendered. During the trek, Suu, our tour guide taught us about the plants found in the region and told us about her story and the challenges faced by the locals. I find the way Suu teaches herself many useful skills, improving her living conditions and yet remained so humble and willing to help others very inspiring.

Day 4 – We went for a focused group discussion with the native tribal people back in the hotel. They were very nice and willing to share their cultures and traditions with us. I found this discussion extremely useful and it was interesting that the tribes had similar food culture although they do not have much interaction with one another.

Day 5 – We went exploring in Hanoi’s old quarters, which was a good mixture of modern and traditional cultures. We found it difficult to interview traditional restaurants due to the language barrier but we finally found restaurant and café owners who understands English and were willing to be interviewed. One of the restaurant owners was a Vietnamese that went overseas for his tertiary education and the other was a foreigner who had many restaurants in different parts of Vietnam. Both had different points of view which provided us with various insights into the Vietnamese food culture.

Day 6 – I find the amazing race a great opportunity for us to sightsee, bond together and become friends with our buddy. Through playing games, our group managed to understand more about one another. This was a very fun experience, although I feel that the duration was too short for us to properly explore Hanoi.

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I feel that this trip has exceeded my expectations as I learnt a lot, had many new experiences and made many new friends along the way during the trip. Through collecting data, I gained an in depth understanding of the Vietnamese food culture which I feel is very meaningful. We also learnt about the process of globalization in Vietnam, the way international culture reaches Ho Chi Minh, before being passed to Hanoi and Sapa. We met many people from different backgrounds and learnt more about the way they view things and the things they do to help develop Vietnam. I find the trek and homestay the most impactful part of the trip as we had a chance to observe the tenacity of the local people and their drive to better themselves, such as by setting up organisations to teach one another useful skills and getting donations to allow a young boy to go to school.

Through the trip, I learnt that much adaptation and improvisation had to be done when gathering data. We also learnt to come up with impromptu questions along the way, using different ways to ask the same questions and better engage the local people in conversation by focusing the questions on them, instead of asking them about various trends. I am grateful to be given this rare opportunity to conduct research overseas and meet people from a different culture who were very willing to share their knowledge with us. Although there was some miscommunication amongst our group members, I feel that as we got to know one another better, our communication skills have greatly improved and we could finally proceed in a common direction when we were doing our research. The information we gathered was extremely useful and it caused us to head in a different direction to reach a new conclusion which was what I had hoped would happen.

Through working together during the trip, I feel that my groupmates and I have become better friends and I hope that our relationship would only become better as we work together on our report and media deliverables. I enjoyed this trip and am extremely thankful for all the time and effort put in in planning this trip as it has made it very comfortable for us, allowing us to concentrate on doing our research while not forgetting to have fun at the same time.