Measured in time, Singapore is two hours by air from Vietnam. Measured by the lives of ordinary citizens, it is a universe away. A city-state with fewer than six million people, Singapore boasts a standard of living that matches Canada’s. Few, if any, North American cities come close to Singapore’s success in urban design. This multi-lingual, multicultural city is home to some of the most dramatic and inspiring architecture on the globe, which was recently enhanced by McGill-trained architect Moshe Safdie’s dramatic ArtScience Museum. The Governor General received a tour of the Museum from Mr. Safdie on Sunday.

The Governor General’s final day in Vietnam took him from the urban bustle of Ho Chi Minh City to Can Tho in the south. From there the motorcade threaded for two hours through one of Vietnam’s poorest areas, along narrow, waste-strewn roads lined with small shops, rice paddies and muddy canals.

Governor General David Johnston speaks to SIAST business administration diploma graduates at Ho Chi Minh City University of Industry

As Chancellor of Ontario’s newest University, the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, it was daunting to accompany Governor General Johnston on his visit to Hanoi’s Temple of Literature. The Vietnamese discovered the importance of higher education long before the first settler placed a foot on North American soil. The Temple of Literature traces its roots back over 1,000 years to Vietnam’s first university.

The Canadian delegation at Hanoi’s University of Social Sciences and Humanities

For a Canadian businessperson making a first visit to Vietnam, the trip from the airport into Hanoi leaves little doubt that things are different here. The outstanding impression is of the traffic itself: a flood of motorcycles that often carry whole families, tiny trucks that look as if they are about to tip over from the stack of cargo they carry, busses, bicycles and, when you get closer to town, pedestrians and bicycle rickshaws. The lanes are often unmarked and, where they are, are scarcely respected.

The decision that Governor General David Johnston’s first state visit would take him to Asia makes good sense on a number of levels. First, Asia’s economic growth continues to far outstrip the pace of economic activity in the rest of the world. But its cultural and diplomatic importance is also rising rapidly, making our connection to the region even more valuable as Canada positions itself in global affairs.