Arrival in HaiPhong

We all boarded a minibus for our trip to Haiphong. When we arrived in Haiphong, our first order of business was meeting with the student interpreters. The are about 22-27 years of age and are students at a local university studying English. We introduced ourselves and then had 5-10min discussions with 3 of the students. Then we were asked to select the student we thought we could work with. The levels of comprehension varied. Most of the IBMers were uncomfortable with the process because this is such a new territory for us. The students had some difficulty with the accents, so we tried to be sure that where that was an issue – we made sure that we thought the interpreter could understand the speaker, They are all strong with conversation – but we can tell that as we get to business terms – this may be more difficult. At this point, we still haven’t meet the clients. That will be this morning at a 10am meeting. Then we will go with our clients to their business. Until them, we don’t know how far away they are – or what kind of transportation arrangements will be required.

Our hotel is very nice. Much better than most of us expected. The first hotel choice was changed due to security issues. So we basically ended up in a 4 star hotel because timing was short. We are hearing more about how quickly the assignments were identified and selected. ABV had tried to delay to give more time, but IBM wanted to get Team 3 out.

My interpreters name us Hau. It is pronounced more like Waa and it means flower.