I was to the dentist today, and the dentist opined about the frightfulness of things. Since I had a cotton wad in my mouth I couldn't contradict her.
Because, even with the ongoing refusal of the Democrats to admit they lost fair and square in 2016, the world is a pretty wonderful place for us deplorables here in the land of the free and the brave.
But Linh Dinh writes from Saigon about life -- as it used to be almost everywhere. Not exactly nasty, brutish and short, but certainly very precarious. For instance, back in the good old days, people either had servants or they were servants. Dinh writes about a servant in Saigon, one of ten siblings, whose father was a drunk and beat her mother.
And my "domestic violence, we are not just talking about in the house. Neighborhood violence was not uncommon. The servant's relatives got into a meat-cleaver fight with neighbors involving nearly-severed arms, and after that she was afraid to go to school, so she is illiterate.
At age 16 she took the bus to Saigon and eventually got a restaurant job for $23 a month, including room and board. She married a Cambodian, but he soon stopped working and started drinking. So back to the city, and a job for $500 a month working till midnight looking after two kids and enduring the mistress accusing her of theft. Now she's working for $345 a month looking after a baby. But her 15-year-old son has a factory job and her 13-year-old daughter is working as a domestic servant and apprenticing at the same factory. So life is good, as she shows Dinh a picture of her father on her cellphone.
Yeah. Funny thing about that factory work, that is supposed to be so demeaning. Compared to what? Working in the rice paddies? Work as a domestic servant? The fact is that, all over the world, for the last 200 years, people have walked off the land to the city as fast as they can, because life in the city is good. They walked off the land in Britain 200 years ago to work in the coal mines. They sailed in coffin ships from Ireland to fall onto the dock in Boston more dead that alive. They took ship from the starving Scandinavia of the 1890s to end up in Minnesota. Life was hard in the city, but by God it was better than starving on the farm.
So life is good in Saigon.
Because, even with the ongoing refusal of the Democrats to admit they lost fair and square in 2016, the world is a pretty wonderful place for us deplorables here in the land of the free and the brave.
But Linh Dinh writes from Saigon about life -- as it used to be almost everywhere. Not exactly nasty, brutish and short, but certainly very precarious. For instance, back in the good old days, people either had servants or they were servants. Dinh writes about a servant in Saigon, one of ten siblings, whose father was a drunk and beat her mother.
And my "domestic violence, we are not just talking about in the house. Neighborhood violence was not uncommon. The servant's relatives got into a meat-cleaver fight with neighbors involving nearly-severed arms, and after that she was afraid to go to school, so she is illiterate.
At age 16 she took the bus to Saigon and eventually got a restaurant job for $23 a month, including room and board. She married a Cambodian, but he soon stopped working and started drinking. So back to the city, and a job for $500 a month working till midnight looking after two kids and enduring the mistress accusing her of theft. Now she's working for $345 a month looking after a baby. But her 15-year-old son has a factory job and her 13-year-old daughter is working as a domestic servant and apprenticing at the same factory. So life is good, as she shows Dinh a picture of her father on her cellphone.
Yeah. Funny thing about that factory work, that is supposed to be so demeaning. Compared to what? Working in the rice paddies? Work as a domestic servant? The fact is that, all over the world, for the last 200 years, people have walked off the land to the city as fast as they can, because life in the city is good. They walked off the land in Britain 200 years ago to work in the coal mines. They sailed in coffin ships from Ireland to fall onto the dock in Boston more dead that alive. They took ship from the starving Scandinavia of the 1890s to end up in Minnesota. Life was hard in the city, but by God it was better than starving on the farm.
So life is good in Saigon.
Ỵ has many changes of clothes, tasteful fake eyebrows, persuasive false teeth and a used cellphone, bought for just $15. Two years ago, she purchased her second stolen motorbike, this time for $65. Most domestic servants can only afford bicycles.
Yes, imagine that. A cellphone for a 3rd world domestic servant. Now, back when I was in Thailand in the mid 2000s, they told me that a used 100ml motorbike was $300. But I guess the stolen ones go cheaper. Vietnam per-capita GDP in 2016: $2,185. Compare to US at $57,000.
But, wait a moment. Here we have a poor woman in Saigon. And she has cellphone and a motorbike. What a world!
I remember reading about the workers at a Nike factory in Vietnam. They asked the workers what they liked best about working for Nike. The reply: Working indoors. Next best thing? Getting a job at the Nike factory for their relatives.
Meanwhile, in the US, the Census Bureau reports: "There are no jobs Americans won’t do, poor citizens hurt by illegal immigration." Imagine that!
I know what you are thinking. Is the Census Bureau allowed to do studies like that?
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