Time Magazine "Cover Girl"

My hat is off to Time Magazine and the Afghan girl who posed for the portrait of her face after Taliban elders permitted her husband and brother-in-law to cut off her nose (and ears) for running from a beating. The photo filled me with a special form of rage, because of the extent to which my life has brought me into contact with this issue.

For years I and my wife babysat the little Vietnamese girl, Nhu, who lived next to us with both of her parents, Thanh and Trang. We loved all of them, but especially the little girl. That little one was a "southpaw," like me. In fact, she was the most left left-handed kid I ever met. She was left-eyed and left-footed, not just left-handed. I bonded so well with that little one that she could almost read my mind. She was the daughter I never had.

One day, I spied a yellow fiberglass rod in the corner of their living room. To the wife I said, "Trang, what is that for?" The wife answered, "Peter, Thanh and I will be using that to punish Nhu." I said, "What??? For what, Trang??? Nhu is the gentlest, most obedient little kid I ever met!!! You are planning to whip her???" Trang answered, "We only have to do it once. She will never forget!" I skeptically thought, "Sur-r-r-r-r-re they'll only do it 'once'!"

That night, I was called over to help little Nhu with her math homework. Her parents' marriage had been 'rocky,' and they wife had gone south to Florida with Nhu for a few weeks' separation. During that time, Nhu had missed a lot of schooling. Now that her parents were together again, trying to repair things, Nhu was in "catch-up" mode in school, and needed help.

When I entered their house, I saw Thanh, the husband, in a flowered apron doing dishes -- a startling sight, in a Vietnamese household. Trang, the wife, was cleaning house. The mood was somber. I glanced over to the corner of the living room. The rod was still there.

I set to work on the 25 math problems with Nhu, who was 8 years of age. She was a quick study. She banged through the problems lickety-split. But, 25 problems are 25 problems. They take time.

We got to Problem #25 at 9:55 p.m. It was the hardest problem with the most novel components. Just as I said, "Okay, now let's do what will look to you like the hardest problem of all," Thanh in the kitchen held out the dish towel, and said, "Nhu!," and then he gave her an order in Vietnamese. Clearly, he was telling her to finish drying the dishes.

Nhu answered in a mix of English and Vietnamese. The English portion made it clear that she said something like, "Dad, we're about to do the last math problem. I need Mr. Peter's help to do it. We are almost done. It is 5 minutes before 10. If I do the dishes first, it will be that much later that Mr. Peter will get home to Rise`. Please let me finish." She said it calmly and rationally, without begging.

Thanh exploded, and began to run toward the fiberglass rod. Trang was quiet. I jumped up and I whispered, "Thanh, she's trying to be a good person! Don't punish her for that!" Thanh growled, "This is none of your business, Peter!"

I ran to Trang and whispered, "Trang, you can't punish her for balancing things to try to be a good person!" Trang sternly said, "Go home, Peter."

After the door closed behind me, out on the front porch I heard Nhu scream.

Two days later was babysitting day. Little Nhu knew that I tried to save her. In her innocent kid way she said, "Mr. Peter, look!" She pulled the waist of her pants down and her shirt up (consistent with decency) just enough to let me see part of the deep red gash running up from her buttocks to her back. I thought, "Those bastards! They whipped a little girl with a fiberglass rod on her bare skin for being good!"

About a year and a half later, when we were still allowed to babysit Nhu, she said to me, "Mr. Peter, can I ask you a question?" I said, "Sure, kid!" She said, "Mr. Peter, do you remember the day my dad whipped me with the yellow stick?" I said, "Yes." Nhu asked, "Why was I whipped?" I answered, "You were whipped because, instead of simply obeying dad immediately, you asked to finish your homework first, before doing dishes, so that I could go home to Rise` sooner." Nhu looked at me with astonishment. "WHAT???!!! BUT THAT MEANS THAT DAD WHIPPED ME FOR TRYING TO BE GOOD!"

I quietly said, "I know, Nhu."

She added, "What did mom whisper to you? Was she in favor of me being whipped?"

I lied. I said that she wasn't.

Afterwards, I felt so dirty for telling that lie.

Nhu added, "Mr. Peter, did you know that my dad whipped me several times after that, with the stick, hangers and a belt?"

I thought, "I wonder if Trang puts up with that for the support money? Is Nhu helping to buy Trang's condo with the skin on her back?"

Soon after that, we were never allowed to see little Nhu again.

I want to take the cover of Time Magazine, and rub Thanh and Trang's faces in it.

Vietnam and Gender Issues

.

One of my favorite jokes is about the Vietnam War. A young American soldier is patroling the roads in Binh Duong Province when he comes across a farmer walking down the road. The farmer knows some English, and they begin conversing. After awhile he notices that there is a Vietnamese woman following them, with two dogs, about 100 meters to the rear. The American soldier asks, "Who's that?" and the farmer answers, "Oh, that is my wife!"

That the wife must always walk in the rear upsets the soldier, and he gives a lecture to the farmer on how to treat women, The farmer smiles condescendingly as he listens.

The soldier left Vietnam a few years later, with the end of the war, there, but he returns to Vietnam 20 years later, as so many Vietnam vets have done, and catches a bus to Binh Duong Province.

He is glad to see that the roads which he used to patrol had not changed much. Suddenly, ahead of him, he sees the same farmer he had talked with that day 20 years before. This time, however, the wife is walking 50 meters ahead of the farmer.

Delighted to see such a change, the American runs up to the farmer, greets him in the Vietnamese tongue, and then he begins to compliment the farmer for having grown so much, emotionally and philosophically, that he had begun to let his wife walk in front of him.

The farmer smiles and says, "Land mines."


As I came to know the Vietnamese over the years, I saw that this joke parodying the Vietnamese attitude toward women is not wide of the mark.

My first encounter with that attitude occurred as follows.

One blistering hot day, I was invited by my Vietnamese neighbors to an afternoon of cold drinks in their air conditioned living room. When I got there, I saw that about 10 Vietnamese men were in attendance. I said to the husband, "Thanh, where's Trang and little Nhu?"

"It's okay, Peter," he answered. "Trang is shopping. She took Nhu with her." I thought to myself, "Well, at least she is doing something she would like to do, in an air conditioned mall."

About 10 minutes later, the front door exploded open. There was Trang, soaked with sweat, with a heavy bag of groceries in her left arm, a baby of one of the other men in her right arm. The baby's diaper was soiled, and feces was overflowing out of the diaper onto Trang's right arm. Little Nhu, hot and tired and cranky, was pulling on Trang's left arm, crying, making demands, despite the groceries. None of the men even looked Trang's way. They continued drinking, laughing and talking.

I watched Trang put the groceries on the table, lay the baby on a towel on the kitchen floor. I heard her wash off her arm in the kitchen sink. Then, with little Nhu still pulling on her arm and crying and begging in Vietnamese, Trang rushed out the door to get more groceries.

My foolish American conscience was too big for all of this. When Trang came back in, this time carrying two bags of groceries, and Nhu still pulling on her arm, crying, and the men continued ignoring her, I stood up and loudly said, "TRANG!"

Trang stopped dead in her tracks and the room fell silent and all turned toward me. I said, "Trang, there's an empty seat here in the air conditioned living rom. I know, because I just got out of it. I will take Nhu and find out what she wants and make her happy. Thanh will fix you a cold drink while you sit in my seat here in the air conditioned living rom. The baby's father will clean the baby and change his diaper. The other men here will bring in the rest of the groceries and put them away."

All stood frozen, for about 10 seconds. Finally, Trang said, "Mr. Peter, I know what you are trying to do, but it will do no good."

Receiving these words as affirmation that Trang had reassumed her low place vis-a-vis men, and forgiving me for being a stupid foreigner, the Vietnamese men suddenly went back to laughing and talking and ignoring Trang. Figuring that I had caused enough revolution for the day, I self-consciously went back to bonding with the men.

That's Vietnam.

Happy Mother's Day!

.

Quickee Divorce

(This was my favorite Amazing True Stories story. Women from patriarchal Third World countries generally love it.)

Many women will greatly enjoy the following true story, heh, heh, heh.

The wife essentially always discovers “the other woman,” correct?

In the 1990s, in Prague, capital city of the Czech Republic, Franz Czermak kissed his wife Vera Czermak goodbye and left their fourth floor apartment for the day.

Then, a note under the door? A mysterious telephone call? The reports don’t say. One thing is certain: Suddenly, Vera Czermak knew.

All day long, Vera Czermak swung from rage to sorrow and then rage again, from a desire to kill her husband to a desire to commit suicide to a desire to kill. Murder, suicide, murder, suicide.

With more charity than hate in her heart, Vera Czermak decided in favor of suicide. Just before her husband was due to come home, she moved across the room to the door to the balcony, where she and her husband used to sit on warm Summer evenings. She opened the door, went onto the balcony, climbed onto the railing and, without looking down, she jumped to the concrete sidewalk below.

Some time later, Vera Czermak awakened suddenly. Maybe at first she wondered if she was in Heaven, for deciding to kill herself instead of her husband, or in Hell, for taking her own life?

No! She was in the hospital! And doctors and nurses and police stood around her bed, looking at Vera with a very strange look. Mrs. Czermak thought, “How did I survive? And why are they looking at me like that?”

“Mrs. Czermak,” said the policeman in charge, “We have good news and we have bad news.

“The good news is that you survived your fall from the balcony to the concrete sidewalk below without hurting yourself too much.

“The bad news is that you are suddenly a widow. Your husband died. When you fell from the balcony, you happened to fall on your husband. He died of his injuries, but his body saved you from hitting the sidewalk.”