Last Day of Classes!

When the day commenced, we headed to UEF for our last day of classes. Finally we had an extremely entertaining lecturer who got so into his history and culture. After that fairly long and interesting class, it was time for our last language class, test day. We reviewed for a bit and then the test consisted of teams who had to do various things from verbally filling in the blank, to writing translations on the board to recited an entire paragraph about the things we've learned. After class, we had our last meal at the canteen and it did not disappoint.

We headed to the pagoda right after lunch, and it was stunning. The story of Buddha was lining the top of the each wall with a giant golden statue at the alter. I wandered around in awe and took in the beauty of this place of prayer. After exploring the pagoda for a good amount of time, we headed out to the memorial to Quang Duc. 

This monk protested the South Vietnamese government through self-immolation. He was followed by a precession of monks down the street while in a car, once he got out he soaked himself in gasoline and lit himself on fire while staying perfectly serene. What was captured on camera was a scene sinhorrifying that it somehow managed to be beautiful as a depiction of this mans derivation to his beliefs.  I could never dream of making a statement that dramatic and the memorial didn't fair to show this mans strength. After wandering around the memorial on my own for a bit, the group recollected and headed to the War Remnants Museum.

 

I was scared to step foot in this place because I knew that it would depict the United States in a way the a stubborn patriot like me would not enjoy, and I was right. It was a great learning experience and I know that it was also biased towards the Vietnamese just as anything we'd display in the states would be biased towards us, but the images I saw were not pleasing no matter what the story behind them was. Even worse, the tiger cage and guillotine outside was not something I wanted to think about, but I wandered and read and took it all in yo try and understand as much as I could. 

When it was time for dinner, we did one last Vietnamese place of choice where I got some amazing shrimp wontons. It was a pretty nice ending to a hard day and I am going to miss all of the students who took us out dearly.