Vietnam - A French intern in Vietnam

I am a student at the Institute of Telecom & Management SudParis in France. I decided to come to Vietnam and do a three-month internship to gain overseas work experience.
I worked for a Saigon-based French corporation to see how a foreign company operated in Vietnam. I also wanted to discover how a company in Asia operates and consider my chances of working abroad, especially Vietnam.

As a young intern, I received a warm welcome from my Vietnamese colleagues. My job was to manage the database, do customer satisfaction surveys, and update work contracts of foreign employees. In France, I would not have got the chance to do such important tasks. Companies in France hardly trust interns and usually give them unimportant tasks.

Earlier I used to intern in Luxembourg and the environment there was the opposite of that in Vietnam: Interns have to try and learn from people around. In Vietnam, I was appreciated by people at the workplace and able to take the initiative at work. Of course it made me feel more responsible towards the company. If I had any difficulty, my colleagues were always there to help me.

I loved the working environment in Vietnam: friendly, comfortable, and not so stressful. The work pace in Vietnam is quite slow compared to Europe. A project that is done in a few days in France may take a week or more in Vietnam.

One thing that surprised me was that Vietnamese employees went to work in jeans, T-shirt, and sneakers. At first I found it unusual because in France we usually wear uniforms or suits to work.

Here, I gradually adapted to the local style to mix easily with colleagues and keep myself cool during hot summer days.

I loved to talk to my Vietnamese colleagues to learn about different ways of thinking.

They were very friendly to me and considered me a co-worker rather than an intern. They tried to talk to me in English and share their experience and knowledge.

However, there was one instance when we had problems exchanging ideas. When I asked a colleague to help me search for information for a project, he kept saying “yes” and nodded his head as if he understood. When the deadline approached, I asked him about his progress only to find out that he had not even started. It was because he did not understand what I said!

I noticed that Vietnamese said “yes” to everything, even if they did not understand. Some foreign friends said they had the same experience. I think every foreigner in Vietnam should take care of this to avoid mistakes at work.

Except for that “lost-in-translation” incident, I have many good memories of my three months as an intern in Vietnam. Every day in Vietnam I learnt a new thing. I really want to return here to work after graduation as I can foresee many opportunities in career development in Vietnam.

Théo Falcoz (French student)

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