Vietnamese Culture Club: Ho Chi Minh City Day Five

Instead of visiting a company today, we spent the entire day at UEF.

We first had a lecture about the Mekong Delta. Naturally, the area is great for growing rice and rubber trees. Because it's so wet in the area, instead of using cows to plow the fields, the main work animal is the buffalo. Because of this significance, the buffalo has become the animal mascot of Vietnam. Along with agriculture, the area is really good for fishing, and the catfish industry is a big part of the Vietnamese economy. After the lecture, we had a language class where we were introduced to the number system. I felt that as an engineer, it helped me understand this class the most out of all the language classes. It was a lot easier to remember the class material, and even in Vietnamese language class I can see why I chose to be an engineer. After the normal classes, we had a culture sharing event at the university library. Although we were in the library, we were allowed to be extremely loud during the activities. We did several activities, such as guessing various exotic fruit through only the use of touch, passing an eggplant down a line using only our knees, and whispering a Vietnamese phrase down a line as it was lost in translation (literally). During the activities, both the Pittsburgh and Vietnamese students worked together and had fun even though we were from different countries. Afterwards, we had dinner at a famous Banh Xeo restaurant.

It was a lot similar to the kind that my mom made at home, but instead of just bean sprouts, mine also had these Vietnamese green beans inside too. Following dinner, a few of the Vietnamese students took us on their motorbikes around the city.

 

Traffic is usually crazy just seeing it, but driving in it on a busy Friday night was even crazier. I even got a video of it to share with everyone back home.

Motorbike Video

We drove all around district one, and we had a traditional Vietnamese dessert in this crowded alleyway. Even though the alley was so busy, tons of Vietnamese people came there to eat these soup-like desserts.

After dessert, the Vietnamese students let us actually drive their motorbikes in a secluded area. It wasn’t too difficult, but it probably is a lot harder when there is tons of traffic everywhere. After riding around the city for a long time, we were dropped off at the hotel to get ready to sleep.