Religious experiences on the go

by Carla Bottazzi (Germany)

I didn't expect to find Vietnam

After a long day of walking around Ho Chi Minh, my friend Icíar and I were completely exhausted. We saw a bench in under what looked like a tiny pagoda and it was basically calling our names. We decided to rest for a bit before heading back to the hostel. And what an adventure was waiting for us. As we seated down, a Vietnamese lady came to bring us some sweets. Of course, we accepted the treat and enjoyed them while she explained us where we were. There was a religious temple in front of us, where a meditation session would soon start. "We do this every Wednesday evening, it's your lucky day!", she said, inviting us to join. And we did. We were there early, so we helped to prepare the room. There was a huge golden Buddha on the stage and the rest of the space was empty. They gave us robes and in less than 5 minutes our plans for the night were changed and we were dressed in long light gray dresses that covered all our skin. People started to arrive, and we were given a book, which we could not understand, as it was written in Vietnamese. Icíar left it on the floor for a second and, before we could even realize, someone screamed "Noooo!! The holy book should never touch the ground!" and she explained that we should act as if we were able to read it and never put it down. Men were of the left of the room and women on the right. After what felt like 30 minutes of singing prayers from the book, they separated us by gender, and we went to a different room to meditate physically. They made us stay in a really uncomfortable position explaining that the more it hurt, the more sins we had to heal. This second part of the event felt as though it had lasted an eternity, but we were finally over with it and went back to the big room with the men. By this point, we thought it was over. But, oh, how wrong were we. They called us to the stage in really broken English and gave us a present: a few books —again, in Vietnamese— and a CD —who knew about what… They started cheering and clapping as if we had been conversed to their religion. Icíar and I kept looking at each other wondering what in the world was happening and enjoying every moment of it.