The Temple of Literature and Antony

I visited the Temple of Literature this morning. I woke up with a slight headache thanks to yesterday's activities, but the cobwebs went away after breakfast and the bike ride to the temple. The Temple was another wonderful place in Hanoi. It housed the first national university, founded sometime in the 9th century. The teachings of Confucius played a prominent role in the national education, just as Confucian ideals are an important part of Korean society. The first Vietnamese teacher, Chu Van An, had a shrine in his honor at the very back of the temple. I met a second-year university student whose English name is Antony. His friend, two years younger than him, was about to take the university entrance exam. As in Korea, this sounds like the most important day of a Vietnamese adolescent's life. There's so much pressure on this one exam; it's downright frightening.

Students visit the shrine on the day before the exam to ask the teacher for help, so the area in front of the shrine was crowded with all these older teenagers who were presumably going to take this exam tomorrow.

Antony had a book filled with entries from foreigners whom he had spoken to over the years. I was Foreigner #339, meaning that 338 foreigners had written a small paragraph in his book previously. I wrote a short description of myself, wished him and his friend good luck, and wrote down my email address for him. I took a picture of him holding his book. I think the book is pretty amazing.