Thich Minh Duc

I befriended a monk from Vietnam named Thich Minh Duc who just completed his Masters in Ming and Qing Dynasty Chinese literature after studying at CNU for 3 years. He's leaving tuesday so I really didn't get much time to hang out but we really got along well. We meditated together, I listened to him chant, he gave me my first cup of coffee in China. We talked about Buddhism, college, his life, and we had a rather awkward and emotional moment during which I apologized for the Vietnam war. He was a child when it ended, and I had not been born, but it was still something I wanted to say and he smiled. As he's leaving in two days he decided to dump a lot of his stuff on me including his stash of Vietnamese instant coffee ( I expect to do very well this week in class), a book (in Chinese unfortunately) on Buddhism, and a work of his calligraphy. The calligraphy, while mostly ilegible to me, I recognized as the Heart Sutra. We also listened to some Vietnamese music and Sunday afternoon went with two of his classmates and one of mine (Michael, fifth year Chinese student at DSIC) to eat at a great vegetarian restaurant. Definately tops off a great weekend.