Article about Vietnamese women

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363-01955 to 363-01982.pdf

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Article about Vietnamese women

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Article by Keever for the New York Times about Vietnamese women

Transcript

"--------------------
- Page 1
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Beverly Ann-Deepe
64A Hong Thap Tu
Saigon, Vietnam
November 9, 1966
SAIGON, VỊ INAM.
The 44-year-old wife of a low-ranking Vietnamese government official
recently visited the damp, cluttered office of a woman lawyer, explaining
that in more than two decades of marriage she and her husband lived in a small
with maids and in-laws.
""But, now it is just too much,"" she explained to the ans
compassionate lawyer. ""I can't take it any more. In the past six years,
House
my husband has not spoken a word to me--not a mortal word. I want a divorce.""
Several days later, at the same lawyer' soffice in downtown Saigon, a
young housewife staunched through the door and also requested the initiation
of divorce proceedings.
""After six months of marriage, my husband slapped me--and I refuse to
take it,"" she explained vehemently. The woman lawyer, Mrs. Nguyen Thi
forged
(Gaity), confessing she felt more like ""a psychiatrist,""
Vui
bobbed,
a reconciliation in both cases. She urged the older woman to have her hair
instead of wearing the old-fashioned bun, to replace her missing
front teeth and to erect a small partition between her bedroom and the sleeping
rooms of her in-laws to produce some intimate privacy.
Mrs. Vui*s formula
was magical: for the first ever, the recalcitrant husband put his wife on the
back of the family scooter, called at the lawyer's office to thank her and to
present her a gift of delicate fish sauce from the Mekong Delta.
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Deepe
Women--page 2
Long
In the second case, Mrs. Vui recalled that not only ago the "" suffering""
tradition of the Vietnamese wife was to kneel before her husband as he
beat her with a rattan stick or feather duster; she then ""tricked"" the
young housewife by telling her that indeed even Mr. Vui--a prominent
professional am man in Saigon--occasionally slapped her too.
Even the com contemplation of a divorce suit epitomizes a miniscule
facet in the galloping evolution of Vietnamese womanhood in a country in which
only three years ago divorce was illegal except under special dispensation of
Roman Catholic President Ngo Dinh Diem and his spitfire sister-in-law,
Madame Ngo Dinh Nhu. The two prospective divorce cases illustrated the
slow-motion equalization in the husband-wife relationship,
which is the heart
#!
of the Vietnamese family, and which, in turn, is the stark quintessence of
the nation-society. In the setpiece battles of the sexes, husband-wife
entanglements commonly end up with barriages of dia bay--""flying saucers,
as vases, soup blow bowls or bamboo chairs are hurled into orbit. In other
the wife's sphere of influence already dominates that of her husband's
in the home, but unlike American wives, the Vietnamese wife in public still
creates the appearance that her husband dominates.
cases,
One American advisor was flabbergasted that his counterpart, a
Vietnamese province chief, consistently had to ask his f wife for
twenty piastres (about twenty cents) in order to get a haircut.
Vietnamese high-society wife gloated, ""Maybe the Vietnamese generals and
ministers run the country, but their wives run them."" One Vietnamese
general once laughingly replied to a foreign correspondent's question,
have to ask my own commander-in-chief.""
One
""I'll
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Deepe
Women--page 3
The wife of one Vietnamese colonel once organized the wives of
her husband's subordinates into search squads to ferret out their husband's
when in ""top secret conferences"" with rival lovers. During the flaming
Buddhist crisis in mid-1963, Madame Ngo Dinh Nhu jerked the linen tablecloth,
which sent bowls of chicken soup flying into her husband's face, when she
deemed he had made too many concessions to the wily monks who were later to
sparked the toppling of the regime. Even Prime Minister Nguyen Cao Ky and his
lovely 25-year-old wife are known to engage in shrill verbal battles
when Mrs. Ky demands to go to Kong Kong on extravagant shopping speeds sprees
and her husband refuses in the grounds that the Vietnamese Dozu population
would accuse her of smuggling gold and diamonds out of the country, as other
top-level wives are criticized. Authoritative sources report that these
bitter tiffs between the Prime Minister and his wife usually cause a flurry
of official cables at the American Embassy.
If such marital battles are viewed as commonplace within the context
of the full-fledged egalisation of the Western woman, in the non-Communist
they are part of the sa smouldering evolution of the emancipation
Orient,
of Vietnamese females, whose traditional heritage was Confucianistic since the
first Chinese conquest of Vietnam in 111 B. C. While Confucius did not.
codify a religion, the teacher-scholar presumed the existence of God--he
did establish a ritualistic code of ethics which would guarantee earthly potica
political harmony by defining the five basic human relationships--king and
subject, father and son, elder and younger brother, husband and wife and
friend and friend.
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Deepe
Women--page 4
The tormenting plight of the Vietnamese woman was epitomized in the
proverb Thap Nu Viet Vo--one son is a son, but ten daughters are nothing. The
moral indoctrination of every Vietnamese woman was to obey without question
first her father, then her husband when she married, and then her eldest son
when her husband died. Before the French colonialism in the late 1800's,
a Vietnamese daughter was considered a stranger even within her own family.
She was never a taught maxmnehm secret family recipes, such as the medical
cures for diphtheria (a mixture of rhinoceros horn and burned herbs),
pork
neck cancer (pulverized pearls) or pyorrhea (green snake poison and fat).
Child marriages were the norm;B she often tended her infant husband.
She could be sold as a concubine, or hired out by her father as a
servant. ""My own father was 11 and my mother 10 when they were married,""
a 43-year-old Saigon scholar = explained recently. ""But my father really
loved my mother. He never took a concubine or second wife as his fortunteller
Because He cut off His
advised. He was considered a revolutionary at the turn of the century He
was a customs official for the French and could have become fabulously
wealthy, but he collected rice bowls instead of money.""
This Confucianistic structure prevailed for two millennia, first as
one of earliest and most highly developed civilizations and then as
Hair..
a fossilized social structure which worshiped the ancestral past and stiffled any
social movement--frompnrural to urban life, from one region to another, from
one class or occupation to another. Yet, Vietnamese women were still less
restricted than Chinese women;
twisted
d deformation
they never had their feet bond, for example.
of the feet of Chinese grandmothers in Vietnam
still show the effects of this Confucianistic practice. (More
The
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Deepe
Women--page 5
During more than half century of colonialism,
discouraged, x such ""feudalistic"" practices,
in the countryside;
the French
but did not abolish them
in the cities the French veneered the social-economic
elite with Westernization; they changed the arbiters of the social structure
from the scholarly mandarins educated in Chinese characters to the French-
educated functionaries. But, the basic social pattern in the non-Communist
areasxxxx while somewhat diluted, remained still in tact during the 'R
rule which ended in 1954.
the American buildup of combat troops, which
1
The
""
one
By all accounts,
dramatically impacted in mid-1965, unleashed an acceleration of the
emancipation for women far beyond the wildest expectations of the Vietnamese,
leaving them ""dizzy and disoriented,"" as one husband explained.
traditional slow-moving, nearly-petrified Vietnamese social structure lurched
ει
as though sided side swiped by a violent hurrican of Westernization and
modernization. (""For better or worse, Vietnam will never be the same,
old Asian hand explained as he watched the American buildup). The weight of
the American war machine--and equally important, the accompanying ""green
tide of American dollars""-produced a series of cross-currents unparalled
preceding two thousand years--the results of which are still unkown and the
end of which is still not in sight. (""Twice in the past 1000 years we had
such a miraculous opportunity to make money,"" one middle-aged businessman
explained.
now.
in the
""The first was the French war, but we were too young; the second is
We can't let this chance escape."").
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Deepe
Women--page 6
The vicious acceleration of the bloody fighting on the battlefield
in the past 15 months brought a flood of rural families to the adventures
of urban life; a total of 900,000 were listed as war refugees, but untold
thousands more came, as wide-eyed immigrants in their own country, to live
with relatives in the cities. (""Vietnam has become a giant-sized railroad
station,"" one American observed). The influx of American money brought
demands for, thousands of washer-women, shoe-shine boys, maids, cooks, enter-
And
ERS,
tainment construction work, which sommersaulted overnight Vietnam's
chronic unemployment into one of labor shortages.
Woman-power became an
immediate substitute for manpower, which for the past two years had been
bled white on the battlefield. The biggest private employer in vieta,
Vietnam, an American construction combine,
hired half of his its 50,000-
Women--even those eight-months'
man labor force from the not-so-weaker sex.
pregnant increasingly unloaded the military and commercial ships that docked
in Saigon and the coastal cities. One American Special Forces officer,
in the wilderness of his remote outpost reported women comprised half of
the workers he hired for digging trenches and mortar emplacements.
""They
but the men raise hell if we pay them the se
""So, we have to pay the women about seventy
work harder than the men,
same wages,"" he confessed.
18
percent of what we do the men. While Vietnamese women had always
done
heavy manual and field work in the countryside, they did it alongside their
husbands and children within the fir framework of the family.
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Deepe
Women-page 7
As more and more Vietnamese sons and husbands were drafted and
separated from their families,
more responsibilities were dumped onto the
narrow shoulders of the Vietnamese wives and mothers, which effect an even
more rapid acceleration of the disintegrating Vietnamese family life.
Vietnamese family is considered a far stronger bond than in the West%;B
Plus
the family is composed three generations, at times, uncles, cousins and
in-laws. At times it may number more than a hundred;
deadliest
America's
sometimes 15 or 20
of them live under one roof, all obeying the dictates of the father.
enemy in the cities--inflation--which eroded any genuine
increase in living standards--forced more members of the family, including
wives, to become rice-winners. (""Vietnam will just roll along on a green
AN
tide of dollars,""
ee American official boasted. But one old-time American
resident exploded, ""That will be America's death-wish. It's a chimera to dream
of buying political loyalty. The Vietnamese will take your money,
and curse
you at the same time.""). In short, the violence of the war forced the
already fragmenting Vietnamese family to leave the countryside;
American dollars unleashed for the women new economic opportunities; ""the big
heart"" of the American troops gave a new social independence and status
even for the lowest-class maids, cooks and bar-girls. (""Only the Vietnamese
women know what they want and how they are going to get it,"" one Vietnamese
bankerxxxxxxxxx complained. ""You foreigners think they are China dolls with
hummingbird voices. They are in public, but in private, they are beserk
panthers devouring their husband-victims unless they get what they want."").
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Deepe
Women--egge page 8
The American buiu build-up of combat forces has hurled into orbit
a new feminine
creation,
The
which the Vietnamese call Phu-Nu He Moi
(Girl of the New Generation) or Phu-Nu Doi Song Moi (Girl of the New Life).
""There's been a big evolution for women throughout Asia in the past twenty
years, but ex especially in Vietnam,""
one woman French sociologist,
""There's much more
has lived in Vietnam for 18 years, explained.
who
schooling for the girls; ten years ago, only the girls from rich families
with good talent could study; now every girl can have 12 years of schooling.
There is now the beginning of the working wife. In the family some years ago,
there were segregated
Ten years ago,
the Vietnamese
the girls couldn't speak to or sit with the boys%;B
Now you have a rapid revolution.
classrooms.
wife rarely appeared inxpuhinxhnwith her husband outside thehome%;B
can go to public receptions and affairs with hm him.""
now she
At the end of
Two decades ago, a well-bred Vietnamese girl was forbidden to ride
a bicycle--it would spoil her elegant head-high posture.
the French Indo-China War 12 years ago, only one aristocratic woman dared
drive thrmuminum a car through the streets of Saigon--she drove a crimson
Cadillac. Today, chaufe chauffers are too difficult to hire (even for the
diplomatic corps); middle-class women more often than not drive their own
upper-class bar girls openly solicit trade on the mainstreets
family car;
in the newest of American sportspars. Vietnamese secretaries regularly own
and drive their own motorbikes, or sit behind their boyfriends (American or
their legs so gracefully
Vietnamese) swerving through the traffic with
poised they appear to be riding the winds.
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Deepe
Women--page 9
In theurban centers, even the relationship between the modern
Vietnamese girl and her parents on the most fundamental question--her
marriage--has evolved into a spin.
In Saigon, for the generation of the
grandmother, her marriage was arranged by her parents--at a sub-teenage--
and she was not permitted to refuse. The split-level generation of wives in
their
their thirties and forties would likewise have her marriage arranged by her
parents, but she could refuse a number of selections until she found one
suitable for herself. This marital arrangement was made in a n
ceremony at her parents' house in which the future bride and groom sized
up each other over a cup of tea. Today, however, the ""new life"" girl is
free to choose her own husband%3B a pre-marital relations occur, but not
frequently. Leading from Saigon to the northwest provinces, the four-lane,
built at a cost of US$66 million,
fluorescent-lighted Bien Hoa Hiw Highway,
ritualistic
is one of the most popular lover lanes for the teenage motor-scooter set
from Saigon. They are often seen necking in the roadside coconut groves--
or watching a portable television set while sitting on a rice paddy dike.
While it is not uncommon for an upper-class family to assign a younger brother
to chaperon his sister when she leaves the house, the youngsters
simply form a common alliance and she runs off to see her momentary
boy friend of the moment.
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Deepe
Women--page 10
And,
Many non-Catholic brides still choose to be married in a simple
traditional wedding rm ceremony, in which batx bride and groom :
prostrate them sevles themselves before the family's ancestral altars in
gifts of lotus-scented tea and narcotic betel-nuts are exa exchanged between
But,
long white Western satin-and-lace bridal gowns
families and friends.
are becoming more popular, even among lower middle-class families.
Mrs.
Nguyen Cao Ky typified this nouvelle vague (new wave) when at her wedding
feception in November, 1964,
of the crowning social events in Seg. In the first wedding between a Korean
soldier and a Vietnamese teenager, the bride wore a Western gown.
she wore an elegant white bridal gown at one
Saigon
hamlets and villages,
In
brides wear their best ao dai tem gown; in Viet Cong
controlled areas,
the bride wears her best ba-ba, the a pajama-like
costume of flowing pantaloons and long-sleeved brutus blouse.
In the
Viet Cong ceremony, there are no religious rites%;B the permission to
marry and the pronouncement of marriage is granted by the ranking pro-Communist
political or military superiors. Viet Cong ""godmothers"" frequently serve
cakes and candies to the me newly-wed couple and their friends
at the
wedding it reception in their jungle strongholds.
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Deepe
Women--page 11
In traditional times, the more the children, the bigger the family
joy. Today, Vietnamese wives are expressing more and more interest in
various birth control methods. Even for the upper-class, ""the pill"" is
still too expensive and has to be especially obtained from Hong Kong%3
American males have introduced it to their girl friends. One American official,
however, was astonished when the wife of a Vietnamese province chief in a
remote area expressed interest in it.
Fre
the U. S. military exchange at at the
Other contraceptives are sold at
street-stall cigarette counters.
Even when Madame Nhu banned the use of contraceptives before 1963, they were
They are widely used by bar-girls and by some
still sold clandestinely.
And
of the Westernized elite. In the cities, abortions are expensive, bat
common, though technically illegal. In the hamlets and villages, birth control
is rarely used--and then the age-old method of separate beds.
Madame Ngo Dinh Nhu, during the Presidency of her brother-in-law
from 1955 to 1963, did much to raise both the political and social status
of Vietnamese women--but in still more mode If moderate fashion than the
Communists. Pologamy was legally abolished, but violations were not
a Vietnamese mechanic,
prosecuted. In one extreme example in 1962,
well-paying skilled job in Saigon,
a
continued to live with his seven wives and
49 children--all under one roof in a seven-room house. Her organization of
a reported one-million women did little to wield the government closer to the
rice-roots level of the countryside%3B but it did provide the social pretext for
teachers, wives of government officials and officers to get to know each other
With the fall of the Diem regime in
1963, the
in the provincial cities.
in the provincial cities, the government
organization immediately crumbled;
wives, though they had little fondness for Madame Nhu--did complain about the s
Since then,
social vacuum created with the demise of the organization.
no Vietnamese woman has even dared attempt the political feats of
Madame Nhu for fear of absorbing her stigma.
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Deepe
Women--page 12
The evolutionary process has manifested itself in the exterior of the
urban Vietnamese, who are considered breth breath-takingly beautiful,
with a rippling comma in each lotus-colored cheek and long flowing back
black hair which rhythmically sways with the
graceful fluidity of a willow
in the wind. The tiny-boned, small-waisted women caused on Western diplomat,
who has traveled around the globe, to exclaim,
""These are really the most
beautiful creatures in the world. If one had to imagine the most beautiful
of all women-goddesses, you would come up with the Vietnamese. They are not
women; they are a works of art."" The national costume, called the ao dai
is a long-sleeved, mandarin-collared dress hugging
(pronounced
Zie
OW
the body from the neck to the waist and then breaking wispily into two
flowing panels which seductively flit over
""elephant-footed""
satin pantaloons. Though some Vietnamese women accuse an
18th-century
Dior of designing the dress as a means for French textile merchants to sell
more material, the couture is a ✓✓ in splendid match for the diminutive
Vietnamese figure.
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Deepe
Women--page 13
Yet, many of the Vietnamese schoolgirls--and more significantly, the
in the a countryside, ba-bas are worn exclusively.
bar-girls have forsaken the ao dai for Western clothes. The traditional
high-heeled, open-toed wooden sandals / painted with lacquer have given
51
way to lowcut sling pumps for the moder girls. In traditional time, it was
""contemptible"" for a Vietnamese woman to appear with a bulging chestline;
Today,
special straps were worn to maintain a flat-chested appearance.
not only the modern girl--but also the wives of upper-class families--relish
the heavily padded vers versions which American GI's have jokingly termed
Today, the new
""Hong Kongs"", because they are not indigenous to Vietnam.
beztu beauty status symbol is plastic r surgery on the breasts, the unslitting
the
of the noses,
since a Vietnamese
of almond-like 's eyes and the ""straightening""
characteristic is to lack bridge in their noses. Mrs. Ky had eyes and nose
operation of this kind in Japan before her marriage.
Before World War II, almost all Vietnamese women wore the traditional
hair style of turbanning their hair around their head in a lazy coil, like that
of a drunken cobra. During the Japanese occupation of the country, a few urban
women cut their hair short as a matter of convenience.
in both Saigon
Today,
and the provincial capitals permanent waves or high-styled beehives are popular;
even peasant girls in the Viet Cong zones wear short curly hair.
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Deepe
Women--page 14
While middle and upper-class wives in the urban centers can buy a simple
dress without their husbands consent, the style of the clothes is often a
matter of intense debate. In Saigon recently, the wife of a middle-class
accountant--and the mother of three children--began to work as a cashier in
a neighborhood bar as a means to add income to combat inflation.
astonishment, the husband returned one day to find his wife wearing
pedal-pushers and a beehive hair-do, which the Vietnamese call ""the
Birmingham Palace Guard up sweep.'
""
To his
""What do you think you're doing,"" the husband ranted. ""You belong
to a traditional family. Why do you have your hair combed like thatp-
you look like a whore. W
Thewife retorted, ""I have to wear this to look presentable for my
job. What do you care--the kids are better dressed and I make more money
than you do."" The wife won the argument, but the husband made the last
threat, ""if you don't behave well, I'll take the children and leave the
house."" In another case,
one husband used to threat his second wife that if
she didn't behave well, he would marry a third. Today, the wife maintains
the family by selling diamonds, leaving her husband home to do the laundry
and take the children to school. She now threatens him to that if he doesn' t
treat her well, ""I'll marry an Am rican. I'm still prettier than a bar-girl.""
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Deepe
Women--page 15
The traditional view that the wife should stay at home and take
care of the offspring gradually began to change during World War II, but
with the arrival of American combat troops--and galloping inflation--the
pattern accelerated dramatically. At the time of the French Indo-China
War, few women were employed andx except in teaching, nursing, or clerical
work for the French or the banks. Even four years ago, the majority
of Vietnam's nurses and teachers were male; now only thirty per cent of
the nurses in the training programs are male, according to official sources.
At the jet set--or more accurately, Dakota set--elite top of society,
several prominent women are doctors, dentists, pharmacists%;B one is
principal of a leading girls' school; one is director of a Vietnamese bank;
several are managing directors of radio battery and textile plants.
Two ""Dragon Ladies"" control most of the construction in the northern
provinces where American Marines are based. One American official was
astonished, when in an organizational meeting to form a new company,
one woman without hestitation replied, ""I'll chip in 100,000 pin-Stres
piastres (US$1000)."" While most economic experts concede Vietnamese women
are more gifted than Vietnamese men in financial affairs, they must compete
in the economic sector with the male sex of Chinese and Franch nationalities,
""and even the they hold their ow own fairly well,"" one American economist
explained.
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Deepe
Raga Womne--page 16
The upper-elite of Saigon and other
urban centers--the families of
doctors and dentists, or successful businessmen--
considered themselves
under the Diem regime as the social arbiters of the country, because of the
old Confucianistic status placed on education. But, with the move of the
Vietnamese military juntas into the political domain since 1963, the
educated elite has eclipsed in their privileged decision-making importance.
Not without some justification, Vietnamese generals have publically cus
accused this educated elite of doing little to support the anti-Communist war
effort, while the consistently snippily criticize the government.
//cons
The life in this small bracket of elite at the top fo of the Vietnamese
social pyramid is cocomed in elegance and luxury. Many own barn-like villas
in the old ""French Quarter"" of the city.
(chauffeured), and often a two-car family;
They are at least a one-car family
they often own either a black
Mercedes or an older model of a flashy American car. Their sons and daughters
ह
attend the lite French grammar and high schools in the country and become
""awkward Frenchmen,"" speaking better French than Vietnamese; knowing more
about French history, and by geography and literature than that of their
own birthplace. Many of these children-especially sons--are w
whi sked out
many study
of the country before they are eligible for the military draft;
in Paris-and in American on American-government scholarship--and some seldom
SI
return to their homeland.
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Deepe
Woman--page 17
iR
Laundromat.
In
The homes are decorated with such modern luxuries as air-conditioning
in the bedrooms, stereo tape recorders in the living room. And, in addition,
they possess the most ancient convenience in the Orient--servants--who are a
And
combined baby-sitter, maid, automatic dishwasher, cook,
this urban elite, the families in which the husband and wife are older than
40 are dim carbon-copies of the akax French cultural tradition-""they are
just chocolate Frenchmen, being more French than the French,"" one Westerner
observed. In thier homes, a seven-course candlight dinner of French cuisine,
capped by champagne, for as many as 20 persons is not uncommon.
discreetly anti-American in their political views and cultural.
prejui dices. The younger elements in this Westnerized elite-younger than 400-
are often more Americanized than Frenchified.
""Since the French-Indo-China War,
even between my grandmother and myself,""
educated Saigon housewife explained.
All are
there has been a big difference,
one 39-year-old wealthy, and highly
""My grandmother was stricter; she had
When my mother married
three girls and I wanted them to get married young.
my father, I was the only child and my mother always wanted me to be someone.
She wasn't happy in her marriage because it was an
Vietnamese women
ed arranged one.
were submissive%3B there was no divorce%;B it was her
lifetime responsibility to serve her husband. My mother wanted me to be
different;
to have a higher education which she couldn't have.
me to go to America or France to study--and I did.
She wanted
(More
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Deepe
Women-page 18
""She allowed me to be free, except for one thing--love.
She didn't
want me to marry young, being afraid I would be unhappy. Though she was
liberal, she didn't let me have any boy friends, even when I was 15 or 16. She d
did allow male tutors to come to teach me English, Chinese characters and how
But, she always watched what I did in the big
when I was a teenager, I wanted to be
to play the mandoline and guitar.
mirror in the hallway. Of course,
admired and I like to flirt%;B I read French novels about girls and boys. My
mother spoiled me, but then built fences around menx when it came to boys.
the young housewife, continued:
With joyful reminesces reminiscences,
""My mother always told me boys weren't nice and would take advantage of me.
If I went to the movie or market, there was always someone trailing me.
One boy wanted to marry me--he's now a general--but my mother wouldn't allow
'He's just a weak, noodle type,' she told me. My mother tried so hard
to make me someone--not simply a woman--but someone.
it.
""I wanted to be beautiful;
though we had money, my mother didn't want
me to waste it. The day I left for study in France, I had only 7 Vietnamese
dresses and 10 suits. My mother said 'It's enough'
""I said, 'It's not enough. Someday, I'll have 100 beautiful dresses'.
Mother said, 'fin--but now you do what I want you to do!""
""I suppose she succeeded. I married for love%;B my husband is kind a
we have four love children--and yes, I have the 100 beautiful
well-off;
dresses my mother wouldn't let me have twenty years ago.
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Deepe
Women--page 19
""Now, all Vietnamese
know that our national destiny depends
on international events. We Vietnamese don't think we are the top of the world
or the center of the world; the question of war or peace in Vietnam-
and whether Vietnam is free or Communist--will be decided by others.
But if we Vietnamese can not decide peace--we can decide order within
the society. But the problems are too big for us, a small nation with an
old culture--we can not be changed overnight, even by the big policy-makers
of the world. No one yet knows we will be changed into.""
If the role of the elite has been somewhat eclipsed by the
Bietnamese generals, the plight of the low-class urban working woman
has or improved considerably in the economic field because of
boom-time war spending and in the social field because of the courteous way
in which American men treat women of all nationalities and of all classes.
This narrowing of the gap between the high and low-class Vietnamese is
exemplified by one elderly maid who began to o work for the Americans
in 1964. Today, she owns a small house in the Mekong Delta city of Can
Tho, and rents two rooms to American enlisted men, thus achieving lower
middle-class status. In one mie
miz el middle-class apartment area in Saigon,
Vietnamese wives are entranced as they watch the way an American private
treats his Vietnamese wife; he opens the car door:
refor her, allows her to
enter the taxi before himself, carries their small baby instead of his
having his wife do it. In the same apartment area, two American sergeants,
rentin an upstairs apartment in a government officials' house pay their
cleaning-laundrywoman more and treat her better than the landlady treats
her servants--eventually the landlady began to
(More)
treat her maids better.
--------------------
- Page 20
--------------------
Deepe
Women--page 20
Because of the vast employment opportunities,
maids who had worked
three Vietnamese
years for one of the wealthiest families in Saigon
resigned en masse when they could no longer bear the tantrums of the owner's
wife. ""We how now have to speak softly to the maids,"" one Saigon matron
conceded.
One maid, named Sau (No. 6), a peasant girl from the Viet Cong-infested
portion of the Mekong Delta explained that her mother had promised to marry her
to the local Viet Cong guerrilla.
""Do you love him?"" she was asked.
""I don't know,"" she replied. ""How can I love him? My mother says he's
a good boy in the village. He came once in awhile with a pistol to see my
-
mother. He should be important because he wore a pistole%3B most of the guerrillas
were rifles.""
She was asked why she did didn't did not marry him.
""My mother says I'm too young and he's too busy,"" the 16-year-old
maid explained. ""We're only engaged.""
the young woman had left her home
Despite her parents' disapproval,
village because of extensive fighting in the area,
A
""We can't have security in the countryside,""
sergeant can marry me by force.
and then came to Saigon.
she explained.
The soldiers can rape me. I can be put
in jail if I'm caught in a trench during an operation.
but how can one preserve it? So, I just took a chance
Sai"

Date

1966, Nov. 9

Subject

Vietnam War, 1961-1975; New York times; Women; Civilians in war

Location

Saigon, South Vietnam

Coordinates

10.8231; 106.6297

Size

20 x 26 cm

Container

B188, F1

Format

dispatches

Collection Number

MS 363

Collection Title

Beverly Deepe Keever, Journalism Papers

Creator

Keever, Beverly Deepe

Collector

Keever, Beverly Deepe

Copyright Information

These images are for educational use only. To inquire about usage or publication, please contact Archives & Special Collections.

Publisher

Archives & Special Collections

Language

English