This morning, we started off our day with a lecture about Buddhism. I’ve always taken an interest in learning about other faiths, so I was extremely excited for this. We learned about Buddhism’s core values that boiled down to “life sucks so stop wanting stuff” as our lecturer put it. I thoroughly enjoyed learning about the different aspects of Buddhism and the differences in its implementation from country to country. However, the lecturer made a “joke” that was noticeably against other religions which was extremely concerning to me. In the US, this would be completely uncalled for and it wouldn’t have been brushed over so quickly like it was. I talked to some of the Vietnamese students afterwards, voicing my concerns, and they told me joking around like that isn’t seen as a big deal at all in Vietnam. To me, this social difference is extremely fascinating but also a bit upsetting. After our lecture, we visited a pagoda. This is a Buddhist temple where people typically go daily to pray. I thoroughly enjoyed getting the opportunity to view another religion’s place of worship.
After a great lunch, we headed to VinaCapital, an investment firm with a large foundation that works towards providing healthcare and education to underprivileged children with congenital heart disease. They allocate over $2 billion every year to this foundation in cash alone, in addition to all the outreach they do to get donors and support for the foundation. While this may seem like an awfully specific problem, it has affected millions of children and is a large problem for developing countries like Vietnam who lack all of the resources necessary to care for these children. Additionally, as one of our presenters put it, the Foundation’s mission is actually broader than it seems. By providing financial assistance to these families, VinaCapital is actually working towards a specific goal: building the middle class. This will help to bridge the increasing gap between the rich and the poor and is necessary to improve the average citizen in Vietnam’s quality of life. I was very inspired by their presentation and extremely interested in this mission. Also, one of the presenters is on Vietnam’s Shark Tank so how cool is that?