Today I met with Dr. Philpot to discuss my dietary challenges I will be facing while traveling. I cannot eat gluten (wheat, oats, barley, or rye) or lactose, so it should be an adventure in itself to find food to eat while in Asia. It is going to take some planning to make sure that I have everything that I need on the trip, but with Dr. Philpot's help, I think that it … [Read more...] about One Step at a Time
This year, I try to make the process a bit smoother by providing a swag bag (courtesy of the College of Business) for each participant. Each bag contains a t-shirt, luggage tag, flash light (for Myanmar's surprise power outages), and other swags to be used as gifts for their new found friends in Asia. The purpose of the bag is two-fold: 1. The contents of the bag such as the … [Read more...] about Swag bags. Come and get it!
Caodism: [kou-dahy-iz-uh m] Cao = High Đài = Palace Cao Đài is basically a religion created in Vietnam influenced by Taoism, Confucianism, Buddhism, and even to some extent, Christianity. It roughly has several million followers in Vietnam, and is the third most popular religion in the country (behind Buddhism as first and Catholicism as second). It was founded … [Read more...] about Cao Đài – Caodism
Myanmar, as the title of this post states, is the land of golden pagodas. And yes, you are correct in guessing that means Myanmar is filled with pagodas. During its golden age around the 11th-13th century, its kings built massive amounts of beautiful temples and pagodas. The first temples to be built was in Bagan. It is one of the cities that we will be visiting while in … [Read more...] about “The Land of Golden Pagodas”
As a follow up to my posts from last week, I briefly mentioned the influence of Buddhism in both countries. How did the religion flow there all the way from India? Through contact with surrounding countries like China and India. In both Myanmar and Vietnam, the forms of Mahayana and Theravada are most dominate. In Vietnam, the northern part of the country studied Mahayana … [Read more...] about Buddhism – Vietnam/Myanmar