Traditions Are Cast Aside

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31880, 7 January 1969, Page 2

Traditions Are Cast Aside

South Vietnamese have come out of the kitchen, leaving behind much of the traditional Oriental docility and feminine helplessness. There is nothing weak and fragile about the 150 women of Huong Tra district in Thua Thien province who have organised their own selfdefence company to fight any Viet Cong threat to their homes. I Aged 18 to 30, they have been trained in the use of weapons, guerrilla tactics, | first aid and evacuation proi cedures. Some 2000 South Vietnamese women were trained in 'first aid measures during the ;10 weeks after the Cominunjists’ launching the Tet offenisive last February. One train-; ling class included the wives; of the President, Vice-Presi-j ident, Prime Minister, and: (most cabinet ministers. The Vice-President's beauitiful young wife. Mrs Nguyen |Cao Ky, said: “I would be 'the first to volunteer for the army if women were called up. It would be a small conI tribution if Vietnamese ' women were called to fight i side by side with their men I folk." No Draft But Vietnamese men in this regard are more conservative than their women, and the legislators voted down the proposal to draft women. Volunteers would be sought, but no female would be con-

scripted. But Vietnamese Communists feel differently about their iwomen. The Viet Cong have stepped up efforts to recruit young women for combat

duty. Women make up half the strength of some small Viet Cong guerrilla units. Last March the Communist South Vietnam Women's Libration Association, which claims a membership of two million women, celebrated its seventh anniversary. The association’s president, Mrs Nguyen Thi Binh, is deputy commander of the Viet Cong Liberation Army.

Support of the Viet Cong military efforts has ranked high among the association's duties. Just before the Tet offensive the association called on its members for front-line combat duty.

Mrs Nguyen Van Thieu, wife of the President of South Vietnam, feels that over the last 15 years women have come to play a greater role in the economic and social life of the country, and that now they will become more important in the defence effort I Shooting Lessons Mrs Thieu for some time has been taking pistol-shoot-ing lessons from an army instructor and practises several times a week. A member of the palace staff who has seen her on the pistol range said she was “an exceptionally good shot” Now Mrs Thieu is taking lessons with rifles. Mrs Thieu is chairman of the Association for Protection of Military Dependents. She distributes large quantities of food and blankets to homeless women and children. With only a small escort she has travelled through insecure areas to bring material aid to war victims. Slightly taller than the average Vietnamese woman, pale-skinned, with the traditional black hair and dark eyes, Mrs Thieu wears

little makeup and discreet jewelry. She always wears the ao dai, the flowing long dress over pantaloons that is the national costume for women.

“The role of the modern Vietnamese woman is to help the less fortunate learn about i public health, home economics, basic nursing and ele- ; mentary pediatrics,” she said. One of South Vietnam’s : modem women is Huynh I Ngoc Nu, a former school : teacher and member of the House of Representatives, i Self-effacing, mild-mannered, ’ she works at the Vietnamese Confederation of Labour ■ (C.V.T.) as an adviser on i feminine questions. Sharing Job ; Her dogged support for the cause of Vietnamese women . is largely responsible for the . establishment throughout the country of 28 social centres for poor women and children to give classes in child care, and basic educa- ■ tion for children. The Secretary-General of . the Federation of Unions of I Bien Hoa province and wife of the C.V.T. president, Tran ■ Quoc Buu, Huynh Ngoc Nu > is the classic portrayal of the i modern Vietnamese woman, r Actively sharing her husi band’s work, she nevertheless pursues her independent r career, balancing her job with i what would be for a Western > woman a full-time home life. : She has three children, the > oldest of whom is 17, and she i is expecting a fourth child > shortly. i Huynh Ngoc Nu believes i her programme for the education of women, especially in : the technical field, must be , accelerated. “We must help - them now,” she said. “Of the I 330,000 workers with regular i jobs in Saigon, 250,000 are

women and 24 per cent are less than 18 years old." One of the busiest women in South Vietnam is a pharmacist. Nguyen Thi Hai. aged 46, the mother of four children and the owner with her husband, Nguyen Van Trang, of the Trang-Hai Laboratories. “1 had no intention of giving up my career and in fact the year of my marriage I opened my first pharmacy on Le Loi Street, near the Central Market. My husband had already started a pharmacy in Cholon the previous year, so we both continued to work in our respective pharmacies, although what we really wanted was to manufacture our own products.” The Trang-Hai Laboratories now occupv 3600 square metres in the fashionable residential quarter of Ngo Thoi Nhiem Street, forming a large compound which includes their residence.

Administration Nguyen Thi Hai supervises the administrative side of the laboratories while her husband, who is also a professor of pharmacy at the University of Saigon, oversees the technical side of the work. In addition, Mrs Hai is vicepresident of the Pharmacists Union and president of the Union of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers. A member of the 1963 Vietnamese delegation to the International Labour Organisation, she also ran for the Senate in last year’s elections—unsuccessfully, to the secret relief of her friends and staff, who claim she works twice as hard as she should already. Nguyen Thi Hai was one of a group of 46 Vietnamese businesswomen who went to Harvard for the six-week summer seminar at the School of Business Administration. In Vietnam, 70 per cent of the pharmacists are women. In a survey made by a private firm, all women interviewed unanimously agreed that pharmacy and teaching were the most acceptable professions for women, the preference being given to pharmacy because one could earn more money than in teaching. The president of the Association of Friends of the Go Vap Orphanage, Mrs Hai is now working with Senator Pauline Nguyen Van Tho on a new charity—the Association of Vietnamese Women in Service to Society. Also In U.S. “This is the role of women in Vietnam at the moment—giving help where it is needed in society. I enjoy being a Senator and giving an occasional course in sociology at the University of Saigon, but I really feel I’ve achieved something when I work for the improvement of conditions for the poor,” she said. A former president of the Girl Guides, Senator Tho

divides her spare time between four orphanages. Mrs Nguyen-Duy ThuLuong, aged 46, was also a member of the group of Vietnamese women to attend the Harvard business seminar last year. Director of the O.P.V. Laboratories, she is also director of Nam Do Ngan Hang (the Nam Do Bank) and proprietor of the Park Hotel in Saigon. She finds nothing unusual in working at three professions concurrently. “I have eight sisters and four brothers, and each one has his or her own business,” she said. “Besides, I only work an eight-hour day and can still spend time with my husband and four children. “1 have never experienced any discrimination against women working professionally. Whether in the laboratory, as a bank director or in the hotel business, I think I have been treated as an equal by my colleagues, most of whom are men.”

In disagreement with this are Mrs Ngo Hong Quy and Miss Doan Thi Minh, both lawyers. Educated at the University of Saigon, Mrs Quy is in her early 30s, married, and has one child. “Glorified Clerk” “It is rather disillusioning to end up working as a clerk for the Government. The men for whom I’ve worked have often been less well educated than I. They know I have a university education, yet they give me dull work to do because I’m a woman,” said Mrs Quy. “Sometimes I think Vietnamese men are very stupid trying to hold a woman back when she is ambitious and wants to do a good job.” Doan Thi Minh strongly criticised a working woman’s position in Vietnam. “I have a degree in law from one of

the finest schools in France and did additional studies in the field of letters to give me a good, all-round education,” she said. “I didn’t come back to Vietnam to be a glorified clerk.

“Deep down, Vietnamese ; men feel that a woman’s place; is in the home, and even; though those who have trav-i elled in Europe or America; may talk in a modern way, they really think you should' stay home or at best engage in a genteel job which brings i in a little money but does not , interfere with home life.” ; Huynh Thi Nga feels that; being a woman in business is I a great advantage. At 25! years of age, she is vice-presi-; dent of her father’s firm, Sai-' gon Motors, which imports: and manufactures tractors, i pumps, ovens, and assorted; electrical goods. Educated in Paris and London for four years, Miss Nga I speaks impeccable English : and French. With her waistlong black hair and pastel ao dai, she looks the epitome of; the traditional Vietnamese girl—until she starts repairing a tractor or demonstrating one of her father’s ■ inventions. “I have a lot of freedom, compared with earlier generations of Vietnamese girls. Although I live at home, my parents have no objection to my going out with friends in the evening. Still, I would not like to go out with people if my parents did not approve of them. It would be discourteous,” she said.—Vietnam Feature Service.