The experiences of Duc Le

From the culture week in Vietnam, I gathered 4 days worth of information of the place I will be staying for the next three weeks. It started off with all of the new comers on the Monday, May the 5th. We were all going around the neighborhood. My favorite part of the morning was going to the supermarket and the only reason was because that supermarket has air-conditioning. That entire morning started out with only five minutes of getting out of my room, I was sweating as if I was in a sauna or just got out of the shower. Also, at that supermarket was the first time that I got Vietnamese coffee for my friends to try for the first time, since I keep telling people in America that when you are in Vietnam, you need to get Vietnamese coffee. Since then my friends got hooked into it and whenever there is a chance they always order coffee.

On the same day when it was around 13:00, our group headed to the school building (I think) and we got to learn Vietnamese culture and the language. When I was in the room and started to learn Vietnamese, it made me felt like I was in first grade again. It was really fun learning those things again. Because I am Vietnamese and I left to go to America when I was eight or nine years old. That is why when I came into that room it made me feel like I am a kid again, ready to learn. After that I got to spend time with the local students by helping them get use to speaking English and after that we did some activities together. It was interesting learning things that the local students did when they were little, it reminded me of when I was still little and ran around with my friends around the neighborhood, for example: playing around with mud and running around in the rain and going into the forest, and going to the neighbor’s house to get fruit from the trees without telling them about it (p.s it’s fine to do that since the neighbor knows me well so I tell him/her later, I did not get into trouble). Overall it was a successful first day learning of the cultures as well as the way of living of the people here.

On the second [day] a group of new comers and I went to many places with the same coordinator from Monday – Vi, and we headed to the Jade Emperor Pagoda, Reunification Palace, Cathedral Basilica and Saigon Post Office. In the afternoon we went to the War Remnants Museum and Ben Thanh Market. My favorite place out of that entire day was the War Remnants Museum. It was the place that I got to see some of the things that I learned in history class; however, I got to also learn new information that got left out in history class. Almost towards the end of the museum, Vi the coordinator took me and a group of people through a jail cell of the prisoners during that time of the Vietnam war. It was scary and sad at the time, for example, one of the places that Vi told me was that sometimes a prisoner would be put in wired cage and put in the sun for hours and the cage is really small with little to no room to move around. It was really interesting getting those kinds of information because in history class I only got to know that there were prisoners but never know what they were treated like and what it felt like even if it [was written] in a book. We had to be there to have actually felt what it is like. It was like when I visited a Holocaust museum. What I learned in a book was different to when I got to listen to the actual person that was alive after the Holocaust telling me what it was like. And what they would do during that time, they would bring me into that time period. It was similar to this – I got a felling of what it was like when I saw the prison in person. Also, on that day the group went to a mall to get food and I got to try a very good ice-cream and a relatively good banh mi (Vietnamese sandwich). The mall was also my favorite place because it had air-conditioning. Overall my favorite places that I go to [and] mostly mention, will have air-conditioning or a place to cool me down from the heat. And by the way, the heat made me felt like 40 degrees Celsius. On Wednesday I did not do much, only making some food like spring roll and summer roll, after that I made a bracelet and went to the wet market. It was an easy and fun day. After that, a group of friends in the accommodation went to a football field to play football (soccer). It was a fun game and it was raining a little so we got to see a double rainbow.

And after those three days of fun and learning, I got to go to Cu Chi Tunnel and this is my favorite place that I had visited in the culture week. I got to experience a little bit of what it was like to be in that Tunnel and to what extent that humans would go to bring independence to their home. I only went  40m and I was so tired when I came out. One of my friends said that at the 100m they laid down and started to crawl to the end of the tunnel to get out. After I finished, I started to think how they can stay there and dig for more than 200km? And it had three layers! It made me realize and think what had I done when I was 18 comparing to those people during the war time. I felt like I had not done anything and made me feel how small I am in this world. And it made me realize how lucky I am that I get to travel and not worry much about war. As I went through the museum and the Cu Chi tunnel, I felt thankful for the older generation for what they had done to bring and keep this peace for our generation. Not the Vietnamese soldiers but every soldier in the world of every country.

Thank you so much to The Green Lion Vietnam and all the lovely staff that made me feel at home for the past 3 weeks. I had such an amazing time!

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