Today we learned a lot about the history of Vietnam and its religions. We started off the day with a lecture that explained Buddhism and its significance in Vietnam. It was taught as a religion where one has to discard his desires and when he completely follows the Eightfold Path, he will become enlightened. After the lecture, we visited a famous Buddhist temple in Ho Chi Minh City, and we walked around while the tour guide told us more about the monks and the different things that we found within the temple. I think Buddhism is very interesting when it is compared to Christianity, because although they have some similarities, both of them are extremely different from one another. For example, Buddhism seems more spiritual, and it makes one more in touch with themselves while Christianity’s main beliefs are to put more faith in God then yourself and God will guide you the right way. Another thing that was different is that in the temple, you must speak quietly and take your shoes off before entering, while in a church, you can be loud and your still allowed to keep your shoes on.

After the temple, we grabbed some lunch then moved onto the reunification palace where we explored the whole building. The reunification place was used by the President of South Vietnam in the 70s, so the entire building sort of had a retro feel to it. The tour guide explained to us all the different rooms and what each room was used for. After the reunification palace, we moved onto the War Remnants Museum. The museum showed the Vietnamese view on the Vietnam war. The two exhibits that I think I will remember for a while is the war crime exhibit and the aftereffects of agent orange exhibit. The only thing I can say about the war crime exhibit is that its horrific. Seeing what some of the Americans did to the some of the Vietnamese makes me realize why America did not want this war. Multiple pictures of dead bodies were displayed, some died by gunshots, some died by bombs, many were women and children. The Agent Orange exhibit was just as horrific. Multiple pictures of children who were born with extreme deformities were displayed. Many of those children did not live to long, and many of them died as fetuses. I genuinely think that there was no need to use agent orange because it messed up the lives of the Vietnamese for decades. Although history might be gruesome, I feel that it is important to see what we have done in the past so that we will not make the same mistakes again