Friday, September 15, 2006

Departing for Vietnam

Late Feb. this year we visited Children Hospital Number 1 in HoChiMinh City for assessing the possibility of an international cooperating research project. Three projects were planned to be implemented in Vietnam they are Entrovirus 71 Clinical Trial, Diagnosis of Acute Encephalitis, and the study of Infectious Mononucleosis and Hemophagocytic syndrome. Given the insufficient of technical support and financial difficulty we tried to simplifying these projects but still the complexity has greyed a few hairs of mine. I am departing to Vietnam on Sunday yet I am still working on transforming compent cells to get constructs for the positive controls of Polymerase Chain Reaction.

Doctors in Children Hospital Number 1 HCMC treated us as VIPs on our last visit. The overwhelming hospitality deepened our embarrassment for not preparing presents in return. This time, shopping is one thing on the list of must do's before my departure. To be efficient, I pictured in my mind kinds of gifts that look elegant, pratical and are symbolic of Taiwan but nothing rang a bell. Except for notebooks and bicycles what item comes to mind when speaking of Taiwan? Anyhow, I bought a few extra gifts to give away and hopefully these gifts can save me from being a VIP, Very Impolite Person, this time.

I have been engrossed by moving into the new building, the symposium and training 2 techicians from Vietnam and I just realized that I am actually leaving in less than 28 hours. So many responsibilities to delegate yet so little time to get it done. I'm better off stopping here and start packing for my one month Vietnam experience.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Good luck and I hope you will have a fruitful trip with your research!