Today, we began our day with our last lecture, this time it was centered on Buddhism. To start our lecture, we learned a little bit more about Vietnamese culture and traditions and their relationship with Buddhism and other religions like Confucianism. After that, we dug into Buddhism, starting with its history. I found the history of Buddhism to be very interesting, and it honestly connected with me well. The story of the rich prince being unhappy and seeing the suffering around him, and then going out to meditate while defeating temptation to reach enlightenment, was very intriguing to me. After we learned about the Buddha, we then learned about some Buddhist teachings, like the concept of Dukkha, which is the concept that life has suffering in it, from illness to cravings. We also learned about concepts like “no self,” which is the idea that there is no “I” and there is no self or eternal soul, and we must come to terms with that because we fear death as the end of the self. Another related concept we learned about was impermanence, and that everything born must die. However, Buddhists also believe in the concept of Samsara, which is reincarnation. To Buddhists, life is like a cycle, and your actions in your past life determine the position of your future life. If you are born wealthy, you likely lived a great past life, and if you were born poor, it was because of the negative actions in your past life. However, if you are born human, that shows a level of success in a past life, because if not, you can be born as other animals. To escape this cycle, you have to reach enlightenment or Nirvana. When you reach Nirvana, you have eliminated all desire, anger, and ignorance to reach a state of absolute peace. After our lesson in Buddhism, we had the privilege to visit a Pagoda to see how the Buddhists practice their religion. This was a wonderful experience seeing a religion less commonly practiced in the U.S. and seeing its members strive to live better lives. The pagoda was also extremely beautiful with its altars and statues, and the lit incense and candles throughout. I also find the practice of removing your shoes before entering it to be very nice and it helped me shift my mind into a more meditative mode as I walked around and reflected.
After the nice, peaceful morning of learning about Buddhism, we travelled to the Reunification Palace and the War Remnants Museum, where we got to see the North Vietnamese perspective on the war. The Reunification Palace was very cool to visit because it has stayed in tack since the 1970s and it looks just like how it did back then, so it allowed you to practically step back in time to see where many important things happened during the war. The museum, on the other hand, was very somber and often very graphic, with some very thought-provoking imagery and stories. Seeing how some U.S. soldiers treated the Vietnamese during the war was very disturbing, with many of them having no regard for the horribly mutilated corpses of their “enemy”. One picture that stuck out to me was of a U.S. soldier smiling and holding the remains of a Vietnamese man, but all that was still attached was the head, one shoulder, and an arm. I also read stories of groups of soldiers committing full massacres, with one soldier just receiving a dishonorable discharge and house arrest. These disgraceful acts really allowed me to see the United States from a less positive angle, but that allows for a fuller picture of what happened there.
However, the main exhibits in the War Remnants Museum that caught my eye, and many others, were the large sections focused on Agent Orange and the disgusting chemical warfare the U.S. bombarded the nation of Vietnam with. The United States used Agent Orange to destroy Vietnam’s vegetation, but it poisoned hundreds of thousands of people, leading to many horrible effects down the line. The main impact of Agent Orange is widespread birth defects throughout Vietnam; many families suffered numerous miscarriages, and when the children did survive, they had horrible defects severely impacting their life expectancy. Some children died on the day of birth, some lived for a month, and others suffered for years. The images and stories of Agent Orange’s victims range from missing limbs to having to be locked up for trying to eat everything to being born with two noses and three semi-formed mouths. These poor children are simply born into their lives with an immediate struggle, all because of some foreign nation that they will likely never visit, which really connected with me. I felt extremely somber coming out of the Remnants Museum, and while I know it is just their point of view, it did help open my eyes to the many struggles of the Vietnamese before, during, and after the war. My main takeaway is that Vietnam has struggled greatly, and the U.S. does not always teach that, but the nation is now growing better than ever and truly beautiful.
