How often do one get the chance to go on a fully subsidized overseas learning trip? Thanks to LeX, I got to visit Hanoi, Vietnam during poly's March term break!
First thing’s first, what is LeX? Quoting directly from SP’s website, LeX is “a 12-day overseas program that equips students with the Design Thinking mindset in a social innovation context. In this program, students get to enjoy out-of-textbook experiences such as learning a new language and undergoing a community homestay.“
For this year's LeX trip to Hanoi, the programme is coordinated by ex-SP lecturers who have retired but are still active in facilitating learning trips for current SP students.
Before the trip
A month prior, every group researched a different aspect of Vietnam, ranging from history, culture to social and economic. Of the 30 SP students going, we were split into 6 groups. My group (Hong Xun, Megan, Yohann, Germaine) was focused on what makes Vietnam's economy tick.
All the teams gathered together a day before the trip, and excitedly shared our respective findings. This sharing session was one of several collaborative opportunities this LeX trip provided. For many of them, it was their first time visiting Hanoi. I had the benefit of visiting Vietnam as recent as in Dec 2023. So, I was excited to be back so soon!
I shared what knowledge I had about their culture, including the currency exchange, simple greetings (e.g. “Xin chào, tôi là Howie. Dao nay ban the nao!” which means “Hi, I am Howie. Nice to meet you!”) and what colors to avoid when giving gifts.
Fast forward to the day of departure, everyone gathered hours in advance at Changi Airport. Even though the flight was delayed, no one was bothered as we were all excitedly chattering about the weather in Vietnam, the souvenirs they intended to buy, the sights and sounds, etc.
First Impressions
Although the flight to Hanoi was only 3 hours, we were all famished by the time we touched down in Hanoi. So, our instructors made a pit stop at Pho Vo restaurant near our accommodation. There we enjoyed our first meal in Vietnam, which was fittingly a warm bowl of pho (noodles) soup. The herbs and lime brought out the strong aroma of the soup. It was just as good as the one I tried back last December 2023.
After that, we got back onto the bus which soon stopped in a dark alley. The driver bellowed that we were here and told everyone to disembark. There were only a few street lamps, so we could hardly see where we were walking. All the students huddled together, and simply followed our facilitators’ lead. The few neon lighted signs provided an extra bit of illumination to help lead us to our accommodation, “Linh Anh Hotel”.
It was an old hotel but clean. The room had enough space to fit a bed and a table. Each room had its own toilet and shower. I found out later that some rooms were much bigger and comfortable than ours, but did not let that bother me. I was here on a learning adventure, not a holiday. Besides, our facilitators could have deliberately made it this way to teach us life lessons that not always life is fair. The room was functional and that was good enough for me. Everyone was so tired, we just unpacked, took a bath and went to sleep.
Our local partners, HUCE
The next day, we met our overseas partner of this trip, Hanoi University of Civil Engineering (HUCE) . From the onset, they made us feel as comfortable as possible by arranging our accommodation to be conveniently located just 5 minutes away from their campus.
Even though HUCE is only half the size of my old secondary school (SST), but it hosts a total of 8,000 undergraduate students! For context, SST is only able to hold 800 students. What HUCE lacked in space, they made up for with greenery and cleanliness. There were many palm trees and other green plants all over the campus, giving HUCE campus a sense of tranquility. The campus was also very clean, despite hardly seeing any cleaners around.
My new Vietnamese friends
Shout out to my new Vietnamese buddies, Julie and Hieu. Throughout the trip, they were our groups’ official language translators. They spent considerable time supporting all the groups as we created our prototypes. They also helped translate our interview questions to the villagers, as well as captured their responses. They were always on the lookout for us, and even taught us some simple Vietnamese phrases. They explained what was a typical Vietnamese lifestyle and shared meals with us. I tried to impress Julie with a few Vietnamese phrases (I learnt from Duolingo a month prior), but it was so bad that it left her in stitches.
I am also impressed by Julie and Hieu's strong command of English, and how confidently they presented themselves. Although English is now a compulsory subject for all Vietnamese students, they must have put in considerable hard work to be so fluent in it. Kudos!
Let the Design Thinking Process begin!
Stage 1 Sense and Sensibility
Long Thong village, Nom Village are well-known for their bronze factories. However, as the village develops, pollution has also become an increasing problem. Hence, our SP instructors brought the whole team headed to Long Thong village & Nom Village to make "Sense" of the situation.
Stage 2 Empathy
This allowed all the SP contingent to Empathise with the locals, better understand their needs, motivations, and challenges. True to Design Thinking methodology, this then helped us to identify the core problem as well as opportunities that may help the local community.
Every group was tasked to come up with our own problem statement that can potentially help the community at Long Thong village, Nom Village. My group’s problem statement was, “How might we reduce the pollution produced from Bronze manufacturing?”
To empathise with our target audience, we spent the subsequent 3 days at Long Thong village. To craft our interview questions, we first reviewed whatever secondary research we could find. This led to a surprising finding that the pollution had gotten quite severe over recent years, but not much has been done yet. With Julie and Hieu’s help, my team reviewed the secondary research and tried to identify the villagers’ physical and emotional needs. We used POEMS to observe the conditions in the factories.
As I learnt more about the village, I became fascinated with how different it was from Singapore. I felt like a pseudo-anthropologist, questioning how and why the place looks the way it does now, and how it would have been just a few decades ago.
Long Thong village
This village is a strange juxtaposition of flora and pollution. Despite the abundance of trees and paddy fields everywhere, the air was cloudy from the smoke generated from the reaction of molten bronze and Resin-coated mould in the factory. The meandering rivers were filled with trash. Surrounding all these pollution was lush greenery. Huh?
The factory generated so much smoke, but the local villagers seemed unfazed. They went around working nonchalantly, without masks or gloves. I wore a N95 mask but still felt dizzy at times. When I interviewed them, they replied that the smoke does not affect them, and proudly told me not to worry as the average worker there has a life expectancy of 80 years.
I nodded to acknowledge their feedback but was not convinced. After some follow-up research, I found out that the bronze casting method that the villagers are currently using was only implemented about 10 years ago. Prior to this new innovation, it used to take many more days for the clay moulds to harden. With the introduction of the Resin-coated sand approach, production was boosted tenfold! No wonder the villagers embraced it with open arms. However, this new method involving the resin-coated sand moulds and the molten bronze causes an undesirable side effect, i.e. it also produces harmful gases.
Many villagers are exposed to these harmful gases on a daily basis but does not seem to care. However, they will eventually have to face the health consequences later when age catches up with them. Eventually, I came across some villagers who shared how their children and family members have started to fall sick more frequently lately, specifically breathing-related issues. The common link to all these villagers who experienced health issues? They all live near the factories. Ignorance is not bliss, and something needed to be done.
Identifying the core problem
After three days at Nom Village, my team came to a common conclusion. That is, the pollution in Long Thong village is not caused via the burning of bronze, but instead comes from the residue from the reaction between molten bronze and resin-coated sand moulds. We were determined to do something about it.
Identifying Needs
My team felt that many of the villagers are nonchalant about the pollution because they are not aware of the harmful effects of pollution. So, the immediate need is to educate them on how air pollution is adversely affecting their health and what can be done to reduce this problem.
This is the user journey map we have designed for our persona, Principled Phong. My group came up with this funny name because we wanted our persona to represent a hardworking man with strong principles.
Stage 3 Ideation
When the teams returned to HUCE, we started the ideation process. My group came up with 30 different ideas and categorized them via POEMS before shortlisting the top three ideas in each category, and eventually selecting the idea with the most votes.
The winning idea was to channel the polluted gas into a giant air filter by hovering a funnel over the moulds. It was very stressful as we had to design the blueprint, gather materials and build the prototype all within a day. Fortunately, our SP instructors were there to guide us.
The next day, we presented our idea to the HUCE teachers. They gave feedback for enhancements to make the proposal more feasible (e.g. how the hot air needed to be cooled before it could be treated, etc.). My team took note of all the useful suggestions and modified our proposal to introduce a new venturi system, a new waster-based cooling system as well as a new water tank to dissolve the soluble pollutants.
Design Thinking is an iterative process. True to form, my team revisited our earlier ideas and made small incremental improvements to our prototype. We went through 4 major changes before we reached the final (version 4) design.
Stage 4 Prototyping
My group coined our prototype as “Advanced Bronze Suction”, ABS for short. ABS is inexpensive to create and implement. ABS consists of 5 major components:
Water tank
Funnel
Cooling system
Tubing
Filter (microbial inoculant)
With our prototypes sorted out, all 6 teams returned to Long Thong village on the scheduled day and presented it to the workers, and the chief of the bronze factory. It was nice to see people nodding as we pitched our ideas. But I wondered how many of the proposals will actually pan out.
Taking a step back, building ABS is feasible as the major component parts are inexpensive and easily available. Compared to commercial air filtration systems, it is also much cheaper as its easy to maintain, i.e. one only has to replace the moulds below the funnel of the ABS. If enough units of ABS are built, it can theoretically improve the quality of the air by reducing pollutants in the air. This potentially leads to better health for workers in Long Thong village.
Although cost effective, such a system could still be considered a waste so long as majority of the villagers feel that the polluted air is not harmful to their bodies. With no incentive for them to change, why would they put time, effort and money to implement such a system?
I got a bit disappointed when I came to this realization but took comfort that at least we created a working prototype. One day in future, when the villagers consider the air pollution as a problem worth solving, an ABS-like system might actually be implemented.
The next day, our SP contingent set up booths at HUCE and shared the same presentation, but this time to HUCE students. As they visited each booth during their gallery walk, many gave insightful comments on how we could further improve our prototypes. My group took down these suggestions, but felt that it was a waste as we could have implemented these recommendations before sharing it with the workers at the factory just a day ago.
To wrap things up, I gave a closing address on behalf of our SP contingent. It was a bitter sweet moment for me it signalled the ending of this fun trip. However, I was also filled with gratitude for HUCE’s hospitality and support. Our cross-country cultural exchange had been incredible, but as with all good things, it's finally coming to an end.
Closing Thoughts
During this trip, I interacted and built new friendships with fellow SP coursemates as well as youths from Hanoi. When things did not go according to plan, we looked out for one another. The group of 30 SP students went to Vietnam as strangers and returned to Singapore as close-knit buddies.
I tasted local cuisines, explored temples, and read up their history engraved on the walls. Despite the pollution and haze, I hardly heard any complaints. Everywhere I went, Vietnamese people had a smile on their face. I could sense their warmth and sincerity.
Travelling together with instructors and students is very different from visiting a foreign country as a tourist. While both give the opportunity to learn a new culture, only with LeX could I have visited the non-touristy spots and attempt to solve a real world problem facing the local villagers. To top it off, having experienced facilitators, passionate schools mates who want to make a difference, and a chance to work with local Vietnamese students and teachers... these are experiences that money cannot buy!
Last but not least, I gained a better understanding of the issues faced by the community at Long Thong village, and an appreciation of how good we have it back in Singapore. I learned much during this LeX trip, and am sure you will too if you are fortunate enough to join a future LeX program.
Epilogue
On my last day at Hanoi, my instructors approached me, Hong Xun & Hao Tian to create a video summarizing our 12-day adventure. Fortunately, my training as a MAD student already got me thinking of making such a video at the start of the trip. So, I had been consistently taking photos and short videos throughout the trip and even started on a rudimentary storyboard. With all these “ingredients” prepared, I reassured the teacher that it would not be a problem.
When I returned to Singapore, I got to work on it immediately and completed it within 5 days. I enjoyed editing this video as it helped me recap the wonderful 12 days I spent in LeX. I showed the video to friends and instructors, all of whom liked it. Check it out for yourself!
TLDR
Joined LeX's SP-HUCE in Hanoi, Vietnam. Learned a new culture, language, made new friends, applied Design Thinking to help local community.
Yours sincerely,
Chia Howie
15 April 2024
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