My Tho & Unicorn Island

The visit to Unicorn Island was a brand new learning experience for me.


Unicorn Island is considered one of the rural areas in Vietnam. The people lead a simple life there. They make candy, embroidery products, hats, etc. and sell to make a living. The main modes of transportation in the island are bicycles, motorbikes and sampan. In this modern era, most of us are living in a fast pace & high technology environment. Maybe because of that, such simple environment has become one of the tourist attractions where I can see many other tourists in the island.


After we have reached the Unicorn Island, we were being brought to a place where we were served with different kinds of fruits like pineapple, banana, rambutan and longan, tea was also served. I believed that the fruits were planted by the villagers. While we were enjoying the fruits, there were a few Vietnamese started to play some musical instruments. I recognized two of the instruments; one of them is guitar and the other which is one of the famous Chinese instruments call ‘gu zhen’. I do not know what the other instrument is called but it appears to me like one of the Chinese instruments too. While they were playing, there was a Vietnamese lady began to sing. She sang in Vietnamese thus I believed that it should be one of the traditional Vietnamese songs.


We visited a shop where the people made coconut candy and sell. After the coconut has cut into half or pieces, it will be thrown to a simple equipment where the coconut juice will be ‘squash out’ and they will start making the candy.




Besides making candy, the villagers also made hats, embroidery products, etc. to make a living. They are very skillful as they made many products using their hands and/or simple tools. However, this also means that they are not very high tech as all these products could be produced using machines instead of using hand which is much faster & efficient.

And maybe because that they are limited in terms of machines & technology, they will always think of making certain products using simple tools or using a thing (e.g. fruits) to make several products. For example, coconut can be used to make many other things like coconut candy, coconut husk ornament (craved to some animal characters like the monkey).


Later on, we were brought to another place where the people there make rice paper for a living. 2 of our students, Mua Hwee and Edna tried to learn to make rice paper from them. They tried and it turned out to be quite successful.



The sampan ride was a very unique experience to me as never in my life have I travel on a sampan before. The ride was very peaceful & relaxing. During the ride, I thought to myself, “how come a life could be so simple; by rowing a sampan to earn a living.” I suddenly admire them for a moment as I think that it is impossible to lead such a simple life in Singapore; life in Singapore is fast pace and hectic. From that moment, I saw a drastic difference in the lifestyle between them and the Singaporeans.




The trip to Unicorn Island has made me change my perception of the Vietnamese; they are actually very innovative & skillful people. And I believed that if these people are under proper training & education, they will surpass many Singaporeans who are the “methodology” people that do not possess certain factors which the Vietnamese possess. I believed that it is because of the different environment that we are being brought up from.