From the very beginning of June, Hanoi’s facebook community heated up as everyone kept spreading gen about an unprecedented upcoming event, convened by zestful Amsers for all teenagers in the area with appealing prizes up to over 30 millions VNDs. It was “Code of Culture”, named after the rules of a famous world gameshow called “The Amazing race”. After several days of tough competition, Code of Culture 2012 has found the deserved winners.

            The elimination round took place on Tuesday, 12/6/2012, at 8:30 at Botanic Park. Here, the teams registering for the race were given a tricky numerical riddle: “222226666664888844433336684466666666443338”, which led to the next destination-Thong Nhat Park.

Focusing on decryption…

And moving to the required location

Here, the next challenge for the teams was to find a single person of the organizers who kept the password, using the mantra "Open Sesame" to receive details about the second puzzle:

 “From the giant gate in the middle of capital

Twinkling stars shine brilliantly

The bridge of light, the sacred challenge

Uncle Ho led the lofty & glorious path”

To meet this task, the contestants needed to cotton on another directive: “From the start, turn 200m on the left” in three boxes full of stars, to learn a little dance and perform it in front of the organizers at the veranda. After that, the playing teams had to deal with a code hidden right on the poster of the event: “SIYZIASPFOPMZ”, whose underlying answer turned out to be  “CODE OF CULTURE” and found the right answer in a box with different figures. At this point, the qualifying race officially ended and the first place belonged to 2 contestants, Vu Quy Dang and Nguyen Tu Anh. After this round, there were only 10 teams eligible for the main race from 13-15 June 2012.

The second day (13/6/2012) of the contest started at Nghia Do Park. Ten teams were required to decipher eight codes to get to the Museum of Ethnography, where they would be challenged their knowledge of 54 ethnics in Vietnam. After a quite easy assignment of naming Vietnamese people, the teams ran into difficulty with the next mission about Tay people. Later, following puzzles, all players got to the house of the Dao, then the house of the Ede and finished the interesting race in one of Vietnam’s most famous museums.

Quick lunch for the players

More than that, the race became more exciting when the ten teams did their best to make good impressions on a native teacher at CnR Center ( Ln.100 Hoang Quoc Viet Str.) in their two-minute English presentation contest. If the teacher was impressed, the players would get directed to the upcoming stop- Thu Le Park, where they faced an exciting mission testing their memories: drawing the park map without any help. At the end of the day, all 10 teams returned to Chua Lang at almost the same time, carefully preparing for the third day.

8:00 am. 14/6/2012. Ly Tu Trong Park. All the participants of 10 teams were present on time for the succeeding race in the region of West Lake. After a warm-up, each team recieved different ciphers to one of many villages in Thuy Khue Street, bought a bonsai and kept it till the end of the day. 

An amusing warm-up game

Having finished this task, 20 people continued the race with a puzzle related to Huyen Thien Tran Vu, a character reminding of Quan Thanh Temple. Then players had to find out the lunch spot at 29 Ngu Xa Str. As all of the players were energized, the race resumed. The next stop was Tran Quoc Pagoda and Yen Phu Temple. And the third day’s race ended with entertaining fighting fish competition at Tay Ho

Burning incense

The last day, 15/6/2012, started at Hang Dau Flower Garden. The teams had players come to Dong Xuan Market For another challenge: “Split out”. This time, every member was compelled to finish a task: “Buy 5 items with 20,000VND and photography - Name seven birds in the market." Having passed this tough but interesting test, the teams traveled to Bach Ma Temple to burn incense and then they were assigned to go shooting five streets on demand- Ngõ Gạch, Ngõ Đồng Xuân, Hàng Chĩnh…

Finding ways…

Discussing to figure out the shortest route

One of the most memorable tasks in “Code of Culture” this year was to eat baby sticky rice with salt. Some teams had "mortification" to stuff those into the mouth and the rest had to eat very slowly to complete the challenge. After an one-hour break, the players quickly got to Thien Phuc Temple, walked to Hang Trong Flower Garden to take two new assignments: "Water Dogs" - one member said a famous name or character while holding water in his mouth for the remaining member to guess, and "Stuttering" - saying 10 times difficult-to-read sentences such as “How can a clam cram in a clean cream can?”

Despite those challenging tasks, ten teams quickly got the way to the coming destination-Hoa Phong Tower to fill a garbage bag and to take photographs with 5 foreigners. This was a landmark decision, as the participants would receive the journey’s end- Round House at Ly Thai To flower garden- right after they got through this assignment.

Overcoming difficult races, unique challenges in “Code of Culture” and surpassing other 9 teams, Vu Thuy Dung and Nguyen Thi Huong Giang won the first prize- one million VND and two ten-million-VND scholarships from CnR Center. Just a little slower, Pham Nguyen Hoang Dung and Nguyen Anh Dung won the second prize-800,000 VND and two five-million-VND scholarships from CnR. Every of remaining 8 teams also received 400,000 dong from the organizers for their efforts in all time the race occurred.

The working committee and the players

“Code of Culture 2012”, Season 1, hosted by Green Hanoi-Amsterdam transpired successfully. The players not only had moments to unite, to be challenged both physically and intellectually, but also had a tremendous opportunity to supplement their own understanding of the capital’s culture, the cradle where they have grown up. Let’s prepare physical and mental strength to register for “Code of culture”, Season 2, next summer!

Author: Nguyen Sieu (A1 10-13)

Translator: Nguyen Phuong Quynh (A1 11-14)