May 19's activites started with a trip to Cu Chi. We got there and watched a video about the of the Cu Chi Tunnels and the American Killer Heros. I worked at spending my leftover money here and bought some snacks, scarves, and a hat. We squat walked though an enlarged tunnel. I felt the burn in my legs. There were a lot of interesting buildings aroud replicating life from the perspective of the Viet Cong. There were kitchens with chimmneys that had plant debris filters. We saw some workshops where life size plastic Viet Cong moved mechanically building booby traps and mines. The helicopter mines were ineffective because the Americans sprayed down landing zones with machine gun fire before landing. We saw all kinds of spikey booby traps that would have been smeared with feces with the intent of wounding American soldiers. We saw a tank destroyed by mines. There was a shooting range there where people could fire automatic weapons. I did not feel like I got the experience I wanted. It was a little touristy. There are rubber plantations surrounding Cu Chi. I was told that it is dangerous to travel on the roads going through these plantations at night because of robbers. I also heard that there is still a lot of unexploaded ordinace around Cu Chi and that people die every year trying to get it.
In the afternoon we went to the War Remnants Museum. It was a disturbing experience. I wish I could have seen more but, it closed at five and I decied it would be prudent to leave when the alarms started going off.
The last day of the Plus Three Vietnam trip started with the final Vietnamese culture class. We leaned about fertility worship, polytheism, and musical styles by region of Vietnam. They really seem to like worshiping in and around genital symbols. The musical styles of Southern Vietnam sounded better to me than the Northern musical styles. In the North the music is a lot more correographed and patriotic. In the South some music sounds almost Western. There was also a lot of more ethnic variety in Southern music.
In the final Vietnamese Language Class we had a quiz where we had to introduce ourselves. I passed. As much as I liked to stare at my watch, waiting for the pain of learning a language to stop, I will say that in the end I enjoyed taking the language class. I learned a lot about Vietnamese culture by having to learn how to greet different types of people, order food, and trade in the market.
We said farewell to the UEF students after something like an asain game show. There was a balloon hopping game, a blindfolded fruit tasteing game, and a blindfolded pudding eating contest. I learned that most of my UEF counterparts have never had a job other than learning. I don't think that there is anything wrong with that. They start class at 7:00am end late in the afternoon 6 days a week. We played a soccor game against the UEF students. They took it easy on us and still beat us 6-4. The match was 5 vs. 5 on a small field in a part of town where corrugated steel was a primary building material. It was alright though.
My final meal in Vietnam was wonderful. The sauce on the beef was great, everything except the chicken heads were. Although, maybe I should not judge because I did not try them. For the first time, sticky white rice was not served.
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