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derivative filename/jpeg
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363-04788.pdf
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Digital Object Identifier
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363-04788
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Title
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Rich Get Richer and Poor Get Poorer
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Description
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Article published in the New York Herald Tribune about the economic disparity between urban wealthy and rural poor women in Vietnam, page unknown
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AI Usage Disclosure
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Draft transcripts were automatically generated via Google Document AI and are currently under review. Please report significant errors to Archives & Special Collections at archives@unl.edu.
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Transcript
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Rich Get Richer and Poor Get Poorer
FOR many women in South Viet Nam the
war has meant deprivation and direct in-
volvement in the fighting. Others, living in
the comparative sanctuary of Saigon, have
looked out only for their own interests. Herald
Tribune special correspondent, in the fourth
of five articles on Vietnamese women, discusses
the effect of the war on the peasant women
and on the housewives of Saigon.
By Beverly Deepe
A Special Correspondent
SAIGON.
Between the wealthy Saigon
-housewife and the peasant
woman is a world of dif-
ference.
The rich Saigon housewife
worries about the price of rice
and milk; the peasant wom-
an has rice, but she worries
how long she can hold it be-
fore paying off Viet Cong or
government troops.
The high-class Saigon house-
wife frets about getting her
children into Saigon's exclu-
sive French-run schools; the
young peasant mother won-
ders how long it will be be-
fore the Viet Cong or the gov-
ernment destroys the simple
village school.
The upper-class Saigon
housewife is an expert in real
estate, especially renting to
Americans; the peasant wom-
an is an expert on building
underground bomb shelters.
To the wealthy Saigon house-
wife, diamonds are her best
friend. She is an expert on
good diamond buys smuggled
in from Bangkok, Hong Kong,
Laos or France. She can tell
the quality, the carat and the
price in a flash. She buys
them not for rings but to stash
away in a biscuit box-the
literal equivalent of an Ameri-
can's hiding money in an old
sock.
The housewives buy dia-
monds as an investment and
a safeguard against inflation.
Savings accounts and pur-
chases of war bonds are con-
sidered insane. During the
past eight months inflation
has eaten up at least 30 per
cent of idle capital. A second
reason for diamond purchases
is that they can be smuggled
out of the country quickly
and more easily than gold,
dollars or francs.
SMUGGLING
Diamond smuggling by the
wives of high-ranking offi-
cials is so commonplace that
Premier Nguyen Cao Ky in a
recent press conference took
special pains to explain he did
not take his wife with him
on state visits to Taiwan and
the Philippines. Obviously, he
was afraid the Vietnamese
people would think she was
engaging in illegal diamond
transactions. When she more
recently accompanied him to
Malaysia, the Premier told
newsmen that anyone could
check their luggage for dia-
monds at the airport.
Gold also is considered a
good investment. Lower mid-
dle-class women frequently
make bracelets of it, thus ac-
quiring the equivalent of walk-
ing bank accounts. But gold
is too difficult to smuggle out
of the country in quantity.
Still, the price of gold has
jumped in the past few weeks
from 7,500 piastres ($75) a
tael (372 grams) to 8,700
piastres ($87).
It is commonly accepted
that many wives influence
their husbands-the generals
and ministers-who rule the
country. American advisers
have been astonished to dis-
cover Vietnamese officers who
have tough reputations among
their troops are virtually hen-
pecked at home.
Wives of Vietnamese gen-
erals, colonels and ministers
generally are the business
managers within the family.
This is so the husband can
avoid even an indirect in-
volvement in possibly corrupt
business dealings.
More often than not charges
of corruption are directed at
the wife or the mistress.
Some officials' wives are in-
volved in legitimate businesses,
such as import-export. How-
ever, reliable Vietnamese
sources indicate that a few of
the wives of top military fig-
ures are "involved in traffick-
ing of influence."
Thus, if a captain or major
wants a transfer from a hot-
spot province into Saigon, or a
transfer to a post known for
lucrative rake-offs (such as
the engineering corps), he
usually sees the wife of the
general, rather than the gen-
eral. So if proper orders are
later signed, the general has,
according to official rationale,
done a favor for his wife and
not the officer. Obviously, the
wife of the general is also
given "a token of apprecia-
tion."
CORRUPTION
Some charges of corrup-
tion among the wives of high-
ranking officials could be
Communist-inspired propa-
ganda, still they are so com-
monly accepted that Premier
Ky recently warned govern-
ment services and agencies
against corruption as a result
of several cases of officials'
wives misusing their hus-
bands' positions.
more
One necessary status sym-
bol for Saigon's upper-crust
housewife-along with air-
conditioning and an Ameri-
can or French car, all of
which have become
conspicuous with the in-
crease in American aid-is
to enroll her children in a
French school. There are five
French-operated schools in
the capital and the French
government supplies 400
lovely French schoolteachers.
Lists for school admission
are so long that a 10,000
piastre pay-off is mandatory.
In addition, gifts to the
teachers such as cameras and
watches are considered musts
at examination time. "If you
don't think so, just look at
how many French teachers
leave Viet Nam and invest in
hotels on the French Rivi-
era," one Vietnamese house-
wife said.
A French diplomat recently
said, "We don't care how
many Vietnamese generals
make anti-French speeches at
press conferences. We know
when the student exams roll
around, their wives will crawl
in the back door begging us
to let their kiddies pass." Last
summer when Saigon broke
diplomatic relations with
Paris, the French diplomatic
staff was expelled, but the
French schoolteachers
re-
mained.
In contrast to the aristo-
cratic role Saigon's upper
class women fill, is the plight
of a young woman who re-
cently lived in a war-infested
province of the Mekong Delta.
Nguyen Thi Bay, 19, who re-
cently fled to Saigon, where
she receives 1,000 piastres
($10) a month plus room and
board as a maid, told this
story:
"Last April, several jets
circled over our house about
five times and then bombed
and strafed it. My parents
were working in the rice field
and I was paddling my sam-
pan coming from a relative's
house when I saw the flames
pouring out of our house. I
ran toward the house to try
to salvage some of our belong-
ings, but instead I found my
elder brother near the family
bomb shelter with blood gush-
ing from his head and my
younger 12-year-old brother
with his face full of blood.
IN SAIGON
"My elder brother was
rushed to the medical unit
run by the Filipinos and the
doctor said it was better to
leave the metal fragment in
my brother's head rather
than to operate. My younger
brother was lucky; none of
the shrapnel got into his eyes;
but his face is now criss-
crossed with scars. After that
my parents moved into the
provincial town to live with
my uncle and I came to Saigon
to get a maid's job to help
support them."
In Saigon, Miss Bay (which
means the Seventh Child)
looked at the trenches built as
protection against possible
retaliatory bombing raids
from North Viet Nam and
laughed. She said, "In the
villages, if we built trenches
like these, all of us would be
killed.
"In our villages, the peas-
ants built two kinds of shel-
ters. One kind is inside the
house right under the bed.
When we hear any artillery,
mortars or groundfire we just
roll out of bed into the trench.
The second kind is usually in
the yard or garden and is
used when aerial bombing
and strafing starts. Even our
family dog knew exactly
which hole to run into. When
there was mortar or artillery
shelling, he ran into the shel-
ter under the bed. But if there
was bombing from airplanes
he would lead the family to
the big trench in the garden.
He could even tell the differ-
ence between a cargo plane
and a fighter; he didn't even
run out of the house when a
cargo plane passed over.
"Some of the families in our
village have pretty plush bomb
shelters. Some have put their
money together to build a
community shelter deep in the
ground with concrete walls
and floor so they can sleep
there during the night-time."
The girl said that because
more and more men were leav-
ing for the battlefields the jobs
of building the shelters and
planting and harvesting the
rice were being performed by
women.
TOMORROW: The U. S.
troop build-up brings build-
up in bars and brothels.
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Date
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1965, Nov. 24
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Subject
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Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Women; Income distribution--Women, Vietnam (Republic); Civilians in war
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Location
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Saigon, South Vietnam
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Coordinates
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10.8231; 106.6311
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Container
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B4, F6
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Format
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newspaper clippings
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Collection Number
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MS 363
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Collection Title
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Beverly Deepe Keever, Journalism Papers
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Creator
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Keever, Beverly Deepe
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Copyright Information
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These images are for educational use only. To inquire about usage or publication, please contact Archives & Special Collections.
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Publisher
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Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries
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Language
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English
