Emperor Jade Pagoda, Ho Chi Minh City

I recommend visiting this building as it is a significant example of what is a pagoda, of the devotion of the people and unfortunately of how it is exploited. Arriving you are first in a very beautiful and typically oriental atmosphere with the vast courtyard that precedes the pagoda, almost covered by the branches of plants and softened by a profusion of lanterns with a lively color; then you arrive at the building of an intense pink with on the sides of the entrance two small stone lions: all very beautiful and that knows how to inspire a sense of serenity. The interior is very different, consisting of rather cramped rooms and corridors topped and almost suffocated by altars and statues. All this is rather claustrophobic but at the same time interesting in the contrast between the devotion of the people gathered in prayer and the exasperated exploitation of which they are subject: in fact, at every step there were sales counters that in a way to our almost obsessive eyes marketed things to offer to the gods and which the faithful assiduously bought to place them on the altars. But, given the amount, then what were they meant to do? An example of what happens was we noticed seeing some people giving to a woman that was in charge of the bottles full of oil, which I poured, in front of an altar, in a kind of lamp-burner, only that the oil overflowed, went down in a with a pipe he ended up in a bin at the foot of the altar from which he was picked up to return to the sales desk! This very disliked aspect we have noticed in several pagodas where without any scruples we exploit the naivety and faith of the people, with examples, for our way of seeing things, at least in my opinion, really reprehensible.