After we traveled through Hue, My Lai, Da Nang and Hoi An, Dr. Vietri challenged us to identify the sources of cultural and historical richness in Central Vietnam. We offered our own reasons for why the center is still the "heart and soul" of Vietnam.

Even after touring Hue's indomitable Citadel--pummeled in war by the French and Americans and held by the Viet Cong for 23 days during the 1968 Tet offensive--sophomore computer science and government and politics major Ken Liffiton stated in his journal that the real power of the center comes from its reliance on education, not force:

A great deal of political power has emanated from the region, and through the Confucian system this power has been effectively discovered and harnessed. The Confucian system ensured that education was truly beneficial to the society, by basing advancement in the governmental hierarchy on competitive examinations rather than on personal connections. Though the hierarchy was rigid in that superiors were unquestioningly obeyed, even an intelligent individual from a poor background could potentially enter it. As a result, the society could effectively find and make good use of its intellectual capital.

Elizabeth placed emphasis on the contributions of ethnic minorities, especially the Champa, an advanced civilization that ruled the Center before the Vietnamese encroached from the North:

The early history of the Center determined much of its cultural richness. Until the 15th or 16th century, the Cham ethnic group ruled the area what is today known as the Center. The Champa were of Malay-Polynesian origin and their religion drew greatly on Hinduism and Brahmanism. Their buildings were architectural masterpieces whose genius cannot be copied today. Modern engineers still cannot figure out how these massive brick structures are held together without the use of mortar.

Senior journalism major Meg Smith shared Elizabeth's admiration of the Cham Towers, which the students inspected on the way to My Lai. But she was also concerned that centuries after conquering many tribes in war, the Vietnamese majority has still not found an equitable way to treat ethnic minorities in the Center:

Dr. Vietri once said that the Center was the most likely flashpoint for future civil unrest, and I believe it will be the ethnic minorities like the Cham, Montagnards and Hmong people who rise up. The battle lines are already being drawn in the most ironic location: along the Ho Chi Minh trail, Vietnam's greatest nationalist symbol.

The trail, which we visited at its point of intersection with Highway 9 on the way to Khe Sahn, once carried Viet Minh soldiers and their supplies through Laos into enemy lines. The stretch of trail we walked was dotted with ethnic minority villages, where children have little hope of schooling beyond 8 or 10 years old, girls are preyed on by traffickers in child prostitution, and malnutrition is rampant. Because of Vietnam's neglect, people like the Bru, Hmong, Cham and other montagnards have little hope for an honest living and turn to smuggling and opium production to support themselves.

It was along this section of trail that we saw an ethnic minority woman smuggling cartons of cigarettes from across the Laotian border. As Vietnamese officials squelch activities like these without enabling minorities to prosper legitimately through schooling and job training, they breed resentment among minorities, who may one day rise up in frustration...

As the daughter of a veteran who earned a purple heart in the bloody fighting at Khe Sahn, Elizabeth was also sensitive to the Center's location at the "heart" of the country's agonizing era of modern warfare:

In contemporary history, Da Nang served as the point of invasion for both the French and the American forces. The center, especially near the DMZ, saw most of the fighting during the American war. The "Street Without Joy" in Quang Tri province can serve as a symbol for the center during the wars--it changed hands many times, many military lives were lost, but most importantly, many civilian lives were lost. The Center has long been the focus of historical activity and intense conflict.

Nowhere were civilian casualties more poignant or grisly than in My Lai. The students ventured on a day-long excursion to the tiny hamlet, which has been converted into a memorial park for the American soldiers' 529 victims. Words describing the atrocities committed by Americans were chosen with a controlled fury that jumped off the grave stones and museum placards at us. One exhibit was a photograph of Lt. Calley, taken from an American newspaper. The newspaper's caption indicated Calley was flashing the peace sign at photographers several days before he led the attack in My Lai. But the Vietnamese placard said he was waving "the 'V' for killing victory" as he boarded a helicopter after the attack.

Meg contemplated America's "Jekyll-and-Hyde" policies that damaged the same civilians it was trying to protect and exposed them to violence from the opposing side as well. She recounted our guide Song's description of the people of the Center:

As Song said on the way to the DMZ, many people who lived below the 17th parallel were caught in the middle--they didn't like the American presence in Vietnam, but they didn't support communism, either. "In the American war," he said, "there was no road for the people in the middle."

The students diverged when pressed to say whether the Center was the "heart and soul" of Vietnam. Elizabeth felt that in contemporary Vietnam, the country is sustaining itself on economic and cultural opportunities that are being generated in the fertile, vibrant deltas:

When it comes to the economic success, agricultural productivity, cultural harmony, and political stability that I would imagine at the "heart and soul" of a country, these items would not be found in the Center. The land in the center is not as fertile. The weather is prone to typhoons and natural disasters. This leads to fewer crops and a subsistence level economy. While this may work for the people of the center, this cannot sustain the entire country of Vietnam, as the heart of a country should.

But the last word goes to Ken, whose heartfelt appreciation of the people's strength and will to survive against the odds leads him to believe that one special aspect of the Center is the source of the whole country's strength:

Vietnam's "soul" is in its villages. In a primarily agricultural country, they are the lifeblood. Their small sizes leave them less susceptible to Western influence, making them all the more Vietnamese. Skip Isaacs feels that globalization and technology are conflicting with the overall Vietnamese culture. But that only affects places where people are well-off, making them more materialistic and individualistic. But, as Ed Henry has said, Vietnam's cloistered and battered villages create stronger Vietnamese "family values," which technology has largely erased from American culture. This strengthening taking place in the villages is vital to the continued role of the Center, which contains many villages but no cities on the scale of Saigon or Hanoi, as the "heart" of the country. While Saigon and, more slowly, Hanoi sell their "hearts and souls" to the West, the center is likely to remain truly Vietnamese.