Today, our main focus of the day was on history and religion, specifically Buddhism. We started off our day at the University of Economics and Finance (UEF), watching a lecture about Buddhism and the origins of the religion. Afterwards we visited a Buddhist temple, where we were immersed into the religion/philosophy. While we were touring the pagota, we saw people praying, including a monk, who was singing (I think that was his form of prayer). Buddhism is a religion that’s for anyone. One of the students from UEF told me that anyone can come to pray to Buddha, which I think is super interesting, because it demonstrates that Buddhism is an open religion that accepts anyone into it.

After lunch at a gorgeous restaurant, we visited the Vietnam War Museum. It was eye-opening, because it showed all the brutality and fighting of the war. The museum provided lots of proof that the use of chemical warfare is inhumane. The result of the Americans using Agent Orange, a chemical gas, was the chemical change in the genetics of Vietnamese people and their offspring. When walking through the pictures, it was so sad seeing the effects of these types of warfare. One of the signs in the museum said that the Vietnam War was a time for U.S. engineers to experiment with different types of warfare. It’s a wonder why Vietnamese are still so welcoming to us. We did detrimental things to people in a war that wasn’t ours to begin with. Because of the war, there was so much death, destruction, and deformities for generations. My friend told me about how one of the UEF students that came to the museum with us saw her hometown being bombed in one of the pictures and she started sobbing. Even though the war is long over, some of the effects of it still remain.

The Vietnam War ended in 1975, but because of Agent Orange, the next generation of kids were born with many defects. The museum even showed pictures of kids born in the 1990s, who were born without skin on their face or missing limbs. Because of the chemical warfare, many Vietnamese were disabled. This ties into why Vietnam places importance on raising awareness for people with disabilities, with things like charities or creating more opportunities for them to work, like the lacquer factory that we visited did.

Vietnam has a rich history with many complexities. It’s important that we learn about both the good and the bad, because maybe in the future man can learn from it’s dark past.