In the coming week, we will give you a little update on our trip to Vietnam on this blog and tell you what we experienced and would also like to share our trip with you in the form of photos.our long journey to Thanh Hoa, Vietnam, started on Tuesday. For eight days, our group, consisting of ten students from the Bachelor's and Master's degree programs in Tourism Management, set off to get to know Vietnam.

Arriving in Thanh HoaAfter

several hours of flight and bus travel, we arrived in a busy and colorfully lit city - Tanh Hoa, where we were warmly welcomed in a restaurant by some students and professors from Hong Duc University and treated to a traditional and very tasty dinner. This gave us the opportunity to have our first conversations and get to know our Vietnamese hosts better. After dinner, we were already looking forward to our shower and our bed, and we ended our first day in Vietnam full of anticipation for the next day and the Vietnamese Cultural Day associated with it

.Vietnamese Cultural Day at Hong Duc UniversityHong

Duc University is a public university and offers bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees in the fields of technology, agriculture, business and tourism, among others. With around 14,000 students, it is much larger than our university. This size is also reflected in the large, green and palm-filled campus. However, we saw relatively few of the numerous students. Those we saw, or who saw us, were all friendly and full of euphoria. Some asked us where we were from, but the majority asked for photos with us as an attraction, and when we arrived at the university we were warmly welcomed with a large banner at the entrance gate. After a welcome speech and introduction of Hong Duc University, Hochschule Zittau/Görlitz and the University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Ha Noi, a presentation by HSZG and HDU about student life and community-based tourism followed. At around 10 a.m., Dr. Pham Hong Long joined the discussion and a lively round of talks began. Contrary to the plan, the discussion was almost exclusively in Vietnamese.

Some asked us about our origins, but the majority asked for photos of us as an attraction.

"Cho Que Festival "

The university's long-awaited cultural festival started at around 2pm. The program began with an opening ceremony. The students danced a cultural Vietnamese dance with an accompanying vocal performance. This was followed by the performance of the HSZG students. We all stood together on stage and sang "Brother Jacob" and other songs in canon. Our audience clapped along eagerly.The stands at the festival were very different. At one, the students prepared glass noodles, at another they served fruit skewers or milk drinks. The new, unfamiliar dishes were not always to our taste, but we bravely tried everything. Along the way, we played a few folk games such as tug-of-war. At the end of the day, there was a small celebration with a Vietnamese dance called "Nhay Sap" in which we were allowed to join in. At the end of the day, there was a large table with similar dishes to lunch and the traditional soup "Pho", which the dean of the faculty prepared for us.

We all stood together on the stage and sang "Brother Jacob" and other songs in canon. Our audience clapped along eagerly.