Day Five: The day where we inevitably had to explain football to Vietnamese people

Friday was another long, but exciting day. We began the day at UEF, with the continuation of our Vietnamese History and culture class. Today we learned about Vietnamese religion. The most popular religion practiced in Vietnam is Buddhism, however there are many other religions practiced throughout the nation, such as Catholicism and Taoism. Vietnamese religion is not as simple as this though. Because of its position between two major cultural centers, India and China, Vietnamese religion is actually a mix of different religions and cultures. The popular Buddhism of Vietnam is in reality a combination of Mahayana and Theravada Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism. The Vietnamese people are also very accepting of other religions, and will often celebrate the holidays of the other religions in their communities to show respect. After this lecture we had another Vietnamese language class where we learned Vietnamese numbers, which was a struggle to say the least.

After a quick lunch, we headed to the U.S Consulate. After another quick security check, we were back on American soil. We had a briefing with four members of the Consulate, Nate, Garett, Malika, and Terry, who told us about their work in economic, political, social, and consular issues respectively. Malika’s job was particularly interesting; she works on a person-to-person level with Vietnamese citizens, getting their opinion on how the Consulate can do better to inform and assist people on issues such as education and visas. She also works in programs that help improve Vietnamese students’ chances of applying ad being accepted to American colleges. Afterwards we headed to the American Center in Diamond Plaza for a consulate organized program. In this program we met with Vietnamese students to answer their questions about American Universities. The turnout was impressive to say the least, there were around five Vietnamese students for every one of us. We split into smaller groups to answer their questions. It was fun helping answer their questions about college in the U.S, but what was even better was getting a glimpse of their perspective of the United States. They were truly unafraid to ask anything, and I received questions ranging from “what is American football” to “what do you think of the Baltimore riots”. Seeing just how different their understanding of the U.S and U.S colleges was than us, and genuinely helping them understand what school in America is like was undoubtedly the most rewarding experience of the trip so far. I also made many new Vietnamese friends, some of whom share my interest in architecture.

After the meeting, we headed back to the hotel to relax before the night. For dinner, all of the guys went with our Vietnamese friend Ba to a Vietnamese hot pot restaurant. It was certainly the most authentic Vietnamese restaurant we had been to so far. We got to try bird and pig brain, some interesting firsts for me. After dinner we went and got some Café Sua Da at a local Café, and relaxed until we called it an early night for the trip to Cu Chi in the morning. Xin Chao!