Welcome Festivities

We are off and running in Hue beginning with our welcome reception held in a lovely open air restaurant with the staff of Hue University's College of Foreign Languages. Besides the Dean and the University's Vice Chancellor for International Relations, there were several Hue history professors attending and a great bunch of junior staffers who will be working with our group as Vietnamese teachers, interpreters on our two weekend trips, and support staff in the office. Junior staffers received UCR ballcaps while senior staff received an assortment of gifts from UCR-pens and moneyclips. In this pic, the Vice Chancellor very happily shows the UCR banner I picked up before leaving. I didn't bungle the introductions too badly, and the UCR students all showed up dressed to the nines.

Arriving in Hue

Xin Chao! Welcome to Hue! Today is the official start of the UCR Summer Travel Study Program in Hue Vietnam. For the next five weeks, we'll explore this former imperial city of pre-colonial Vietnam and surrounding areas of Central Vietnam. The class "Vietnam Wars" is being led by me, David Biggs, a history prof at Riverside. My wife, a Hue girl once removed and pictured here with Scuppy, will be assisting Hue University staff on offering a course on Vietnamese language. Pictured here is the 1833 Moon Gate entrance into the Royal Palace. It is copied from the Chinese Forbidden City model but includes some uniquely Vietnamese and even Western features. We are staying at Thanh Noi Hotel just a short walk from here, inside the walls of the "old" city.