News, 17-18/2/01
hyt...@my-deja.com
* Samoan sweatshop abused workers, Labor Department says
Janet Moore / Star Tribune, 17/2/01
Three human and labor rights groups claim several U.S. retailers -- including
Minneapolis-based Target Corp. -- have done business with a garment factory in
American Samoa that routinely cheated, sexually harassed and starved workers,
most of them young Vietnamese women.
Many of the allegations are documented in an internal U.S. Department of Labor
report obtained by the Star Tribune.
"Investigators have documented numerous incidents that indicate a trend of
institutionalized workplace violence and corporal punishment by the owner," the
Labor Department report states.
A Target spokeswoman said the retailer hasn't purchased merchandise made in that
factory since June 1999.
This is the second time in as many years that Target's sourcing policies with
garment manufacturers abroad have come under fire by human rights groups.
Three lawsuits filed in 1999 charged that Target and other retailers conspired
with factory owners on another Pacific island, Saipan, to create an atmosphere
of "indentured servitude." Target denies the allegations and is not among the 18
companies that have settled those suits.
Korean-owned Daewoosa Samoa Ltd., which opened in February 1999 and employed
about 300 workers, was the sole garment factory in American Samoa before closing
in January. Because the seven-island nation is a U.S. territory, garments made
there carry the coveted "Made in the U.S.A." label.
The bulk of the Daewoosa work force is Vietnamese women who paid job brokers in
their country $4,000 to $8,000 to work in the United States, according to
Charles Kernaghan, director of the National Labor Committee for Human Rights,
one of the groups leveling the charges. (The others are Vietnam Labor Watch and
Sweatshop Watch.)
The Daewoosa plant produced garments sold at some of the nation's largest
retailers, including J.C. Penney, Sears, Wal-Mart and Macy's. Kernaghan said
workers recently smuggled out labels from garments produced in the Daewoosa
plant. Among them: Prospirit, a private label of men's and women's activewear
sold at Target, the nation's fourth-largest retailer.
Target spokeswoman Patty Morris said the retailer -- which prides itself on its
philanthropic efforts -- does not tolerate sweatshop conditions and has not
knowingly sourced merchandise made at the Daewoosa plant for more than a year.
But, she said, "we cannot guarantee that one of our vendors could be using the
plant and not being upfront about it."
Harsh conditions
The Vietnamese women, many of whom live on the Daewoosa compound, were routinely
subjected to substandard housing and diet, safety hazards and workplace
violence, according to Labor Department documents.
Six days a week employees were fed a diet "consisting primarily of a watery
broth of rice and cabbage, [it] is of a type and quantity that may lead to
malnutrition," the report states, noting that some of the women resemble
"walking skeletons."
The plant's management admitted to Labor Department investigators that they
withheld meals from employees "as a form of punishment" when workers complained
about the food.
The plant's manager denied these allegations in the Samoa News recently, saying
the workers' looks were "deceiving."
"They are small and trim because of frequent physical activities," he said.
Female employees also told government investigators that the owner of the
company "routinely" entered the labor barracks to watch them shower and dress.
The report documents a Nov. 28 incident at the compound described by the local
newspaper as a "melee" in which a 21-year-old woman lost an eye after allegedly
being beaten with a PVC pipe.
Kernaghan alleges workers were supposed to be paid the Samoan minimum wage of
$2.60 an hour (vs. $5.15 an hour on the U.S. mainland), but were often paid as
little as $1.17 an hour -- if they were paid at all. Most have no money to
return home and face debt, fines and blacklisting if they do return to Vietnam,
he said.
A lawyer for Daewoosa recently told the Samoa News that the allegations raised
by the Department of Labor and in media reports are "bull."
The Daewoosa factory has been the subject of numerous investigations by
government agencies.
The Labor Department confirmed Friday that its Wage and Hour division conducted
three investigations in 1999 and 2000. After failing to meet its payroll for
several months, the company agreed in August 1999 to pay 71 workers $151,500 in
back wages. The company was fined $24,140 for violations of the federal Fair
Labor Standards Act.
Five months later, the company again failed to meet its payroll, the Labor
Department confirmed Friday. Back wages totaling $366,689 were paid to 213
workers by the shippers and manufacturers who had contracted with the factory
between September 1999 and mid-January 2000. This time the company was fined
$213,000, which it is appealing.
The department also embargoed all of the goods the factory sent to the U.S.
mainland.
Further, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration found 17
violations in the past two years and fined the plant $17,470. Withholding food
was among the violations, according to the Labor Department, which noted Friday
that the company has made only a small payment on the OSHA penalties levied.
The Labor Department said Friday that it will make public the results of its
investigations once they are completed.
The financially troubled operation was closed in January and placed in
receivership by the Samoan High Court. However, most of the Vietnamese nationals
were stranded without sufficient money to return home, Kernaghan said. Many of
them sought refuge at a local Catholic church, he said.
The human rights groups claim the company owes the workers nearly $1 million in
back wages. And workers from the factory filed suit for lost wages against
Daewoosa, accusing the company of nonpayment of wages and of violating their
original contract, which promised free room and board. The suit is pending in
the Samoan courts.
A report by the Associated Press on Friday said 16 of the workers were flown
home to Vietnam, and the remainder of the 200 employees were expected to leave
the island by the end of this month. It was unclear from the report how the
workers paid for their passage.
J.C. Penney spokesman Tim Lyons said the company immediately pulled the
Samoan-made garments from its shelves upon hearing of the investigations. The
garments subsequently were returned to the supplier that contracted with
Daewoosa, he said. In addition, the supplier reached an agreement with the U.S.
Department of Labor to pay the workers back wages.
Targeting retailers
Kernaghan is known for his anti-sweatshop crusades -- including the revelation
in 1996 that the Kathie Lee Gifford apparel line sold at Wal-Mart was made in
sweatshops in China and Central America.
More recently, Kernaghan and the National Labor Committee have targeted Kohl's,
based in Menomonee Falls, Wis., for allegedly sourcing with Central American
sweatshops.
"Charles has been trying to make allegations against Target for over a year and
has not been able to substantiate any of them," Morris said, noting the company
holds its vendors to rigorous standards regarding workplace conditions abroad.
Although the Daewoosa plant has been shuttered, Kernaghan charged that American
Samoa "has the potential to become another Saipan."
Saipan, part of the Northern Marianas Islands, has been the target of numerous
government, congressional and media investigations regarding conditions at its
numerous garment factories since the early 1990s.
The garment workers in Saipan were largely exported Chinese who, like the
Vietnamese on American Samoa, also signed contracts and paid large fees to work
in the factories.
Most of the nation's largest retailers and clothing manufacturers, including
what is now Target Corp., were sued in 1999 on behalf of the workers, who
claimed they were subjected to abuses ranging from grueling working conditions
to forced abortions and unsanitary living quarters. Three lawsuits sought $1
billion in damages.
Some of the Target's Field Gear private-label merchandise -- sold in the
company's department stores -- were made in Saipan factories.
Nikki Bas, director of Sweatshop Watch, one of the plaintiffs suing the
retailers, said 18 companies have settled the suits. However, Target is not
among them.
* First mistreated Vietnamese workers return from American Samoa
ABC, 18/2/01 - An initial group of 16 Vietnamese workers mistreated at a garment
factory in American Samoa, has returned home.
However, more than 200 others remain behind waiting for plane tickets from their
state-owned recruitment company.
The workers said they received no wages from their Korean employer, Daewoosa,
for eight months, were refused medical attention, and received only meager meals
of fried potatoes, onions, cabbage, and an occasional serving of meat.
The plant had been the subject of numerous investigations and was closed in
January.
Each of the workers paid about 5,000 US dollars to one of two Vietnamese
government-owned recruitment agencies in hopes of improving their families'
financial status by working in Samoa.
They say they now have no money and no way to repay the recruitment fee, most of
which was borrowed at high interest rates.
* Vietnam condemns air raids against Iraq
HANOI, Feb 18 (AFP) - Vietnam on Sunday condemned the latest air raids against
Iraq by US and British planes.
"Together with the countries in the world that love peace and justice, Vietnam
condemns and demands an immediate end to such military action", foreign ministry
spokeswoman Phan Thuy Thanh said in a statement.
She said Friday's air raids were a "brutal and unacceptable action against an
independent and sovereign country and serious violation of the United Nations
Charter".
The spokeswoman said the raids caused "heavy loss of life and property" among
Iraqi people and were a "threat to regional peace, security and stability".
Iraq said two were killed and more than 20 wounded in the raid, which the United
States said hit radar installations and command posts after increased Iraqi
threats to British and US warplanes policing the skies of southern Iraq.
Vietnam became the latest country to break the 10-year-old UN air embargo
imposed on Iraq by flying a plane loaded with medicines, milk and clothes worth
some 20,000 dollars to Baghdad in mid-January.
* Thousands Protest Air Strikes in Baghdad
ABCNEWS.com, 18/2/01
Thousands of Iraqis took to the streets of Baghdad for a second day to protest
Friday's air strikes by U.S. and British jets as international criticism of the
raid mounts.
Allied planes patrolled the southern no-fly-zone in Iraq today as about 2,000
Iraqis took to the streets of Baghdad for the second day, burning American and
Israeli flags, to protest the United States and Britain's attack on Iraqi
military targets.
Friday's attack killed two people and injured at least 20 more, according to
Iraqi news reports.
Despite heavy rain, Iraq's Deputy Foreign Minister Nabil Najim joined a crowd of
at least 1,000 in the city's center while across Baghdad 1,000 others, some of
them children kept home from school, gathered outside the offices of the ruling
al-Baath party.
Demonstrators chanted slogans and carried signs protesting what they say is
undue Western aggression in the region and an American bias toward Israel. The
attack, which took place during the Muslim Sabbath, was viewed by many as an
affront to all Arabs.
"This dangerous aggression shows how much the Americans and Britons hate Iraqis
and do not respect any international law," Najim told protesters. "This
aggression must be condemned."
Tone of Defiance
The Iraqi media called for countries that have been critical of the attack to
take action against Washington. In a continued tone of defiance, one Iraqi
newspaper, Jumhouriya, demanded retaliation for the attack.
Another paper, al-Thawra suggested the appropriate response to the raid was to
form an army for a Holy War to "liberate Palestine."
"The little Bush administration tried to show that it is strong and able to do
what the former Clinton administration could not do" said the front page
editorial.
The day before Saddam said he planned to form such an army of 21 divisions,
about 100,000 to 200,000 soldiers. However, international observers dismissed
the announcement as a largely symbolic gesture.
Bombing Victim Reported to be Wife of Senior Officer
U.S. and British defense officials tell ABCNEWS the attack successfully wrought
heavy damage to all targeted command and radar centers.
While Iraqi officials rushed journalists to hospitals where women and children
sat bandaged and weary this weekend, they have been less willing to allow the
media onto the bombed sites, The Associated Press reported.
According to London's Sunday Telegraph one key command center, the al-Suwayrah
site about 40 miles southwest of Baghdad was destroyed during the raid. The site
was apparently one of several used to coordinate intensified anti-aircraft
attacks on American and British warplanes patrolling the no-fly-zones.
The Telegraph reports a woman killed in the raid and identified as a civilian
was the wife of a senior Iraqi air defense officer at the base. The paper didn't
say where it obtained its information.
International Criticism Mounts
Meanwhile, international criticism of the attacks continue to mount.
Two NATO allies, France and Turkey, questioned the purpose of attack and
expressed dismay they hadn't been told of the raid beforehand.
Russia, China, Cuba and many Arab nations, led by Egypt, denounced the attack
Saturday.
Echoing the words of many Arab leaders, Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr Moussa
described the raid as "a serious negative step that we cannot accept, nor
understand its reasons, which run counter to Iraq's safety and sovereignty."
Vietnam, Spain and Yemen are among the latest governments to condemn or
criticize the air strikes, all saying they serve no purpose other than
strengthening Saddam Hussein's power. Vietnam also became the latest of many
countries to defy the air embargo on Iraq and send a planeload of humanitarian
and medical supplies to Baghdad.
No More Attacks For the Moment
Pentagon officials told ABCNEWS today that further attacks on Baghdad were
unlikely for the moment. But if the Iraqi military continued targeting American
and British planes with radar and firing anti-aircraft missiles there could be
another raid.
President Bush said Friday the attack, the strongest in two years, was part of
routine enforcement of the northern and southern no-fly-zones in Iraq. The Bush
administration says it is only enforcing the agreement Saddam signed at the end
of the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
In a statement released Saturday British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Friday's
attack was necessary to reduce the chances of American and British planes
patrolling the no-fly zones being shot down.
"Operations such as the one [Friday] would not be needed if Saddam stopped
attacking us. But as long as he does, I will continue to take the steps
necessary to protect our forces and to prevent Saddam from once again wreaking
havoc, suffering and death."
ABCNEWS Radio's Kate Bouey in London and John Cooley in Athens contributed to
this report.
* Vietnamese beauty falls for Greene's real Quiet American
David Brunnstrom in Ho Chi Minh City, 18/2/01Sunday February 18, 2001
The Observer
The centre of old Saigon stepped back nearly 50 years yesterday as filming
started of an Australian adaptation of Graham Greene's eerie prophecy of the US
debacle in Indochina, The Quiet American.
Directed by Phillip Noyce, whose credits include Patriot Games and The Saint,
the film is set in early 1950s Vietnam, a country wracked by war as the curtain
comes down on French colonial rule.
It tells the story of a doomed love triangle involving a jaded British war
correspondent, Fowler, played by Sir Michael Caine, an idealistic American
agent, Pyle, played by Brendan Fraser, and a young Vietnamese girl, Phuong,
played by local newcomer Hai Yen.
Fraser's character, Alden Pyle, is The Quiet American of the title, a man in the
words of Greene's 1955 novel 'determined... to do good, not to any individual
person but to a country, a continent, a world' - with disastrous results.
The makers say they are aiming for a far more faithful adaptation of Greene's
work than a 1950s Hollywood version, which turned the plot on its head to make
Pyle an anti-communist hero.
Scriptwriter Christopher Hampton, an Academy Award winner with Dangerous
Liaisons, said he hoped Greene, with whom he worked on an adaptation of his
later novel The Honorary Consul - which also starred Caine - would have been
somewhat happier with this version of The Quiet American .
But he said the author, who died in 1991, was a notoriously difficult man to
please. 'I think he would be slightly happier,' Hampton said. 'But he was not
disposed to be terribly happy with any of the adaptations of his books. When I
did The Honorary Consul while he was still alive, I tried to be very faithful
with that as well, but he wasn't too happy with it.'
He said Greene had been 'outraged' by the original version of The Quiet American
by Joseph L Mankiewicz, seeing it as a complete betrayal of the book's message.
'It was turned from an accurate representation of the historical circumstances
of the time into an anti-communist tract, brought about, I suppose, by the
climate of the time in America, where you couldn't take an objective view,'
Hampton said. 'In fact, that's what the novel's all about - the incapability of
people to take an objective view.'
Hampton said he believed Greene's work still carried an important message
today.'It's always timely to say "Don't interfere in the affairs of other
countries".'
The script has clearly struck the right note with the communist authorities in
Vietnam, who gave approval on the grounds that 'it condemns the manoeuvres of
hostile forces and foreign aggressors against the Vietnamese people'.
They have allowed the film-makers to shut off a key section of a city centre
thoroughfare renamed Dong Khoi - or 'Uprising' Street - after Saigon itself
became Ho Chi Minh City with the Communist victory in the Vietnam War in 1975,
to recreate the colonial-era rue Catinat.
The production team say they have also secured permission to recreate a 1952
bomb attack Greene was to blame on a 'Third Force' - neither colonialist nor
communist - that Pyle championed.
The film-makers have succeeded in creating an authentically period feel on the
set, with the ubiquitous Japanese motorcycles and cars of today giving way to
vintage Peugeots, Citröens, bicycles and three-wheeled 'cyclo' pedal taxis of
the colonial era.
And more than 45 years after France's ignominious exit from Indochina, the kepis
and khaki of its colonial police force and military again graced the streets of
a city once dubbed 'Paris of the East'.
The crew is scheduled to film for five weeks in Vietnam, with shooting also
scheduled in Hanoi, the national capital, as well as the towns of Hoi An and
Danang.
* Art triumphs politics - Despite past rancor, an exhibition of Vietnamese
paintings has an air of tranquillity.
February 18, 2001
By Richard Chang, 18/2/01
The Orange County Register
It's been less than two years since protesters gathered outside the Bowers
Museum of Cultural Art, torching communist Vietnamese flags and chanting
anti-communist phrases.
The demonstrations were against the exhibition "Winding River," a collection of
contemporary paintings from Vietnam. Those angry cries and actions came on the
heels of similar protests in front of Little Saigon's Hitek Video Store, where a
communist flag in the store's window unleashed an unexpected furor among Orange
County's Vietnamese community.
But time has passed, and the anger - while not completely gone - has subsided.
Reconciliation has occurred between former enemies, with 25th anniversary
celebrations of the end of the Vietnam War and President Clinton visiting
Vietnam just before leaving office.
A new exhibit at DJR International Art, a Newport Beach gallery, showcases six
artists from various parts of Vietnam - north, central and south. The works are
by artists well-known on the international scene, as well as a couple of
lesser-knowns.
"We wanted to expose Newport to something they hadn't seen before," said DeAnna
Reposa, owner of DJR International Art, tucked away off East Coast Highway and
overlooking Newport Bay.
A former financial analyst, Reposa left the endless quest for dollars for a
relatively newfound passion - art. She was living in New York when she saw a
painting by Vietnamese Impressionist Pham Luan on a friend's wall. The beauty of
the painting struck her, and she's been hooked ever since.
The DJR show features 18 paintings and two ink-on-newsprint drawings from six
artists currently living in Vietnam: Pham Luan, Phan Cam Thuong, Do Quang Em,
Nguyen Thanh Binh, Dang Xuan Hoa and Nguyen Van Cuong.
The works vary in style, media and subject, but are marked by an absence of
politics, for the most part. The two ink works by 28-year-old Nguyen Van Cuong -
off to the side, below eye level and not a significant part of the show - are
the only exceptions.
This collection is not likely to draw vociferous protests for a number of
reasons: It's in a private gallery; it's in Newport Beach, far from the core of
the Vietnamese community; and it averts the overtly political.
Also, the leaders of previous demonstrations have lost the community's
confidence, and activists are pursuing different, quieter methods, according to
Son Kim Vo, coordinator of the Intercultural Development Center at California
State University, Fullerton.
"The scars from the war are still there," she said. "Maybe they can forgive but
they cannot forget."
WORKS OF PEACE
Overall, the paintings at DJR are eloquent picture-poems of contemporary
Vietnamese life, and they're amazingly tranquil.
Phan Cam Thuong uses natural mineral color on silk and paper to convey figures
at rest with eyes closed. "Sleeping on a Lotus" is a serene exploration of
geometry, the meditative state and different shades of purple.
"Lute Song," made of ink and natural mineral color on paper, incorporates yin
and yang with its depiction of male and female, sketch and color, line and
shape.
Do Quang Em, a Saigon realist who is gaining attention on the international art
scene, has three works in this show: "Future of My Life," "Still Life with Red
Cup" and "Still Life with Red Bowl II."
In "Still Life with Red Bowl II," Do transforms the still life into a prayer,
with sparse and effective use of light and shadow and chopsticks carefully
balanced on a red bowl just before mealtime.
The 58-year-old artist, whose son lives in Alhambra, leaves direct references to
history, war and government out of his work.
"I think every day I can express ... more love and affection in my painting and
this is affected by the changes in society, not politics," Do said in a 1996
interview with Asian Art News. "I don't think political circumstances can
oppress the true artist and it cannot force him to do things against his will."
The focus of Nguyen Thanh Binh's work is women and the female form.
He paints women lost in thought, schoolgirls, dancers and mothers caring for
babies, with reverence for form and space.
"Three Friends" is a fascinating and spare portrait of three girls in simple
white dresses, two with backs to the viewer and one facing the viewer. Only one
eye is evident on the face we can see, adding a sense of mystery to the work.
"After the Bath" is an affectionate look at a young mother cuddling her newly
washed child. A red hair band is echoed by three reddish-orange pieces of fruit
on a table in the background.
"First Step" looks like a Vietnamese version of Edgar Degas, with young dancers
in the studio preparing for a lesson.
Self-taught painter Pham Luan captures the world of old Hanoi, from landscape to
marketplace to old, cobblestone street. In a time when Vietnam's capital is
being overtaken by cars, motorcycles and cell phones, Pham has been commissioned
by the government to capture the Hanoi of memory and history, before it
disappears.
Some contemporary Vietnamese artists have resisted outside influences, insisting
upon a native aesthetic. But not Pham; the impact of French Impressionism is
obvious in his work. In fact, his favorite artist is Claude Monet, whose work he
has studied all his life. Even so, the 46-year-old painter didn't get the
opportunity to see an actual Monet painting until a visit to the United States
last year.
In "Autumn in Hanoi," "Fruit Market" and "Hang Dao Street," Pham uses bold,
thick strokes to signify people, flowers and buildings. His paintings evoke a
peaceful calm, even when shoppers populate them.
The one painting that differs from Pham's other work is "Reflections," an
oil-on-canvas of houses overlooking a placid lake. The brushstrokes here are
finer, and blue and gray tones are more dominant.
Pham has been known to paint the same setting repeatedly, with changes in season
and time of day causing one work to look significantly different from another.
Yet, they all retain his Impressionist, preservationist approach.
A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE
Dang Xuan Hoa, a native of Nam Dinh, is the artist whose work contrasts most
starkly with the rest. While the other artists revere nature, his work defies
it.
Dang plays with geometry and gravity, giving three-dimensional objects a
two-dimensional look, and transforming two dimensions into one.
In "Man's Objects with Black and White Cat," Dang incorporates normally hidden
elements into his picture, turning perspective on its head. Thus, a kettle, lamp
and cups have tops and bottoms drawn into them; a fruit bowl looks inverted; and
two cats look like they're simultaneously lying on a rug and hanging on the
wall.
Cats are a favorite subject of Dang's: "Smiling Cat" and "Black Cat" are two
gouache-on-paper works that collide shape and line, creating a distinctive - if
not always harmonious - effect.
While war and communism seem to be the first things that pop into Westerners'
heads when Vietnam is mentioned, those subjects are virtually the last things on
display in this exhibit.
"Essentially the Vietnamese believe in getting on with life," said Judith Hughes
Day, a New York-based independent art dealer who assisted with this show.
"They take things pretty much as they come, both northerners and southerners.
The work tends to be very positive, and most people find that very refreshing."
It's a lesson that's been learned through decades of hardship.
"Many (of the artists) have fought for both sides, have been in prison, have
been in re-education camps," Day said. "As Vietnam gets over a lot of its pain,
I think we need to too."
* Restaurateur started from scratch, cooked up American success story
The Oklahoman Online, 18/2/01
Le: Raises funds for his family When Loc Van Le stepped aboard a merchant ship
on the Vietnam coast, he turned around and torched the boat he escaped in.
That was in April 1975. In the far distance, Le's employer, the American
military, burned warehouses, docks, helicopters, barracks -- anything the
communists might use.
What was good enough for his employer was good enough for him, Le said.
Escaping with him were about 30 Vietnamese. Most were members of his family.
None knew whether they would ever see their homeland again.
"To the communists, I was a war criminal," he says. "Today, they welcome me."
A quarter century has passed. Le has earned back everything he lost, and then
some. He and his family own and operate 13 Jimmy's Egg restaurants in Oklahoma
City, Tulsa and Tampa, Fla.
Recently, he talked about his life in Oklahoma, his ever- expanding chain of
restaurants, his extended family and the man few of his customers know.
Here's an edited transcript:
What brought you to Oklahoma?
We spent a month at sea, then landed in California. From Camp Pendleton, we got
a sponsor through Our Lady's Cathedral in Oklahoma City. But my family was too
big to come, so we split up.
My parents and my brother went to Hawaii. Others went to Texas and Nebraska. We
came here, and now this is our home.
Your family had money in Vietnam?
A lot of Vietnamese create a lot of their past, and I want to be known as an
American. But our family was very, very wealthy there.
There is a kind of a business gene in our family, because my father was an
entrepreneur. He had real estate and buildings. He was chief of customs in
Region 1, which is Da Nang.
We were not able to bring our wealth with us, because it was all hard assets. My
mother brought a few diamonds. The rest is all gone.
You say you have visited Vietnam twice and will soon go again. Why do you go
back?
Now I am an American tourist, so the communists do not bother me. And of course
I brought money. The first time I visited, in 1997, was to visit my family and
friends. It hurt me to see the poverty.
In 1999, the second time, I brought my father, who was 92, to visit the homeland
before he gets too old to travel. It was more of a mission for a father and son.
The third time is to help. I created the Le Family Trust Fund. Family and
friends contribute -- I say whoever can help, please do. I put out my hand and
say, "Give me $100 or $1,000, whatever you can."
What does the trust fund do?
We see the country is better now, but there is still poverty. I don't see the
poor people getting any better.
I don't want to make comments like a politician -- who does right or who does
wrong -- no blame. But if you think about it, it's better when they have reform,
and have a free market for the merchants.
All the money I raise is to help the needy, especially the kids and the leper
programs. They still have leprosy in Vietnam.
Being able to help the poor in Vietnam is made possible by your success as a
restaurant owner in Oklahoma. Did you own restaurants in Vietnam?
Not at all, although I had a factory to make pork (field rations) for the U.S.
military. After I got to Oklahoma, I worked for Santa Fe Railroad as an
inspector. My wife and I liked a Jimmy's Egg restaurant so much, we saved money
and borrowed some money and bought the store.
That was in 1980 at NW 16 and May. We have 13 stores, and we're opening another
in April in Yukon.
It seems like you have a golden touch.
I've been through a lot of challenges, and I didn't always make it. I opened
Jimmy's Chicken, and people talked about eating healthy food there, but they
don't go for that.
I opened another restaurant on NW 23 with a big fancy menu. I hired a big chef
from New York, and it fell to the bottom.
I am not an expert on dinners too much, so I have to depend on my chef.
I had no control at that location.
Is that your biggest challenge -- control?
It's keeping good quality, so we can stay on top of the competition.
We are a small company, we are all like family, and we have to compete with the
big corporations with all the money. We open a store, and they follow us and
open their store.
I am disappointed right now because I cannot do what I want. I have too many
stores.
But I am fortunate with my family. I have good people who work for me, some of
them for 16 years. I have no problem with employee turnover, like a lot of
companies, because I treat them like a family, I am involved with their
problems, I help them.
No doubt your success attracts buyers. What do you tell them?
I have a lot of offers to buy a franchise. Some big companies try to buy me out,
to expand the concept, but I don't like that idea because I know for sure a lot
of stuff I do, they will not keep.
That's because a lot of stuff I do is not efficient. ... We do everything from
scratch, we don't have a (commissary) center in one place to distribute food. We
have a personal touch.
That's the key to the success of my restaurants.
What are some other keys to success?
I never open on Monday. On Sunday, everything's closed, so we can't buy it if we
need it.
Most of the time, when I open a new store, three-quarters of the employees are
from my other stores. I bring them in. That way we don't make a major mistake
with the rookies.
My people stay with me, so everything is the same.
I feel very good that in the last couple of years, I bring all my Jimmy's Eggs
up to standards, and that's a big project for me. Now it will be three or four
more years before I have to do it again.
You know what works, but are you trying anything new?
At home, we've talked about my cinnamon rolls for a long time.
In the Yukon store, I will put in cinnamon rolls, homemade, everyday fresh. We
will give cinnamon rolls to the early bird, and if it works, we can try it in
other stores where we have room to bake them.
With the help of my talented wife, who is from the Cordon Bleu cooking school,
my new cinnamon rolls will be lighter than the old ones, with the new healthy
concept, a new healthy spirit, so you don't feel guilty about eating them.
Do you ever think about owning a restaurant that is not breakfast-oriented?
My dream is to open a French deli, a small one, with all the people I know
dropping by.
It would have a French fountain, and I would make food for a special lunch, no
set menu, but different every day.
It would be American food, since I know nothing about French food. With my wife
helping, we could do it as a hobby.
Why have I not done it? I am scared, because I am still committed to work for
Jimmy's Egg. I don't think I have enough time for both.
Does that mean you are not happy with your chosen career?
I am satisfied because I am good at what I choose to do. I do not always
succeed, but I am not a guy to be whining about it, because I make happiness in
any condition God gives to me.
I enjoyed life when I didn't have any money, when I was first coming into this
country. I enjoyed a 50-cent taco, if that is all I had, because I am a fighter.
I am a survivor. I make the best out of what I got, instead of just dreaming.
Do you enjoy wealth?
It's not the money that makes me happy, but when I convert nothing into a
successful restaurant.
That makes me proud about it. I make something happen. That's my proudest
moment. I tell my wife, 'We do that.'
* Buddy seeks memorial for 15-year-old Marine killed in Vietnam
MOUNT LAUREL, N.J. (AP, 18/2/01) - When Marine recruit Dan Bullock couldn't keep
up with the others on boot camp training runs, Franklin McArthur slid his arm
through Bullock's and pulled him on.
When other Marines at Parris Island threatened to beat him up for lagging behind
and getting the whole platoon in trouble, McArthur defended him. The two quickly
became friends.
''Because both of us were from Brooklyn, I kind of took up for him,'' said
McArthur, now 50 and living in Mount Laurel.
After training, the pair were split up. McArthur was sent to Cuba, then the
Panama Canal Zone. Bullock shipped out to Vietnam.
On June 7, 1969 - less than three weeks after Pfc. Bullock arrived in Quang Nam
Province near Da Nang - he was killed by a hand grenade during an attack on an
ammunition dump he was guarding.
It was only after his death that military officials discovered Bullock had
altered his birth certificate so he could enlist. He was 14 then and 15 when he
died - and is believed to be the youngest serviceman killed in action in
Vietnam.
Maj. Patrick Gibbons, head of Marine Corps media relations at the Pentagon, said
that while the Marine Corps can't prove conclusively that Bullock was the
youngest casualty, there is no reason to doubt it.
Bullock's story is well known in Marine Corps circles. A VFW post in Honolulu is
named after him. But McArthur says his buddy deserves wider recognition and has
dedicated much of his spare time in recent years to projects that honor his
memory.
''He was a hero,'' said McArthur, now a state corrections officer. ''When some
were going to Canada to avoid the war, he forged his papers to sign up.
''He took his secret to the grave. I knew him. I saw the gleam in his eyes. If
he could come back, he'd do it again. That's the kind of guy he was.''
Through McArthur's efforts, the Brooklyn corner of Lee and Flushing avenues will
be renamed Pfc. Dan Bullock Way in the spring.
McArthur's ultimate dream is to get a life-size bronze statue erected on Parris
Island.
Steve Piscitelli, of Orlando, Fla., a Marine who fought beside Bullock and was
with him when he was killed, is a sculptor and wants to create the monument.
Piscitelli, plagued by nightmares and flashbacks after the war, was undergoing
therapy at a veterans unit in Florida in the early 1980s when he happened on an
ad placed by McArthur in a veterans newsletter asking if anyone knew Bullock.
Piscitelli, a native of Paterson, called McArthur, and the two joined forces.
Piscitelli has sculpted a 23-inch-high wax prototype that shows a stern-faced
Bullock holding an M-16 rifle in his right hand and about to toss a grenade with
his left. Piscitelli and McArthur are hoping that a Marine Corps memorial
committee will approve the monument.
But Gibbons said the proposal puts the military in a difficult spot.
''We share the concerns about honoring this young man who gave his life for his
country, but of course in the interests of not encouraging anyone to mislead a
recruiter about their age, we don't want to get caught glamorizing the fact that
someone fraudulently enlisted in the Marine Corps,'' he said.
''While we share the sense of loss his family and friends feel, clearly we want
to minimize the possibility that anyone else would follow that route,'' he
added.
Capt. Pete Mitchell, a Marine spokesman, said while ''fraudulent enlistment'' is
grounds for dismissal, it often was done for patriotic reasons.
''It's just one of those things that happened during that time. Young men had
great feelings of patriotism,'' he said. ''They wanted to do whatever they could
to get in there and serve.''
Mitchell said it would be more difficult for someone as young as Bullock to
enlist today because records are kept more efficiently.
''A simple check of a Social Security number would confirm the date of birth,''
he said.
After 20 years of searching for Bullock's family, McArthur finally found his
three sisters in September in Goldsboro, N.C., where Bullock lived before moving
to Brooklyn. He learned from them that Bullock had been buried there in an
unmarked grave.
McArthur designed a black granite headstone, and television talk show host Sally
Jessy Raphael, who learned of the story from her security chief, a former
Marine, paid for it. The headstone was placed on Bullock's grave in October.
Hundreds of veterans and family members attended the unveiling.
Just last week, McArthur learned of success on another front. The Marine Corps
records branch in Quantico, Va., said that since they have received a certified
copy of Bullock's birth certificate, they will change his birth date on all
military archives to reflect his true age.
Undaunted by the bureaucratic resistance to the monument plan or the difficulty
of raising money for it, McArthur is determined to accomplish his goal.
''We Marines, we stick together,'' he said, ''and I believe I'm going to get
this done.''
On the Net:
http://www.pfcdanbullockfoundation.org
------
(Again !) Books : Ho Chi Minh, beyond myth
Note : Just for online reading
By Stephen Lyne, Globe Correspondent, 2/18/2001
Ho Chi Minh By William J. Duiker
Hyperion, 695 pp., illustrated, $35
Ho Chi Minh. The name triggers conflicting emotions and images for Americans who
came of age in the '60s. Was he a Comintern agent working with Beijing and
Moscow to bring Vietnam into the international communist orbit? A Vietnamese
nationalist seeking independence and unity for his people? A potential Asian
Tito who could balance communism and nationalism in a nonaligned world?
Ho's many-faceted character and history flashed enough hints to support whatever
others wanted to see in him. The mystery of Ho left myths and ignorance that
today are largely merged into a carefully constructed image of a kindly Uncle Ho
with an ascetic face and a wispy beard, as he is (or is not) captured on the
Dorchester gas tanks.
No one is better qualified to pursue Ho than William Duiker, one of our foremost
students of Vietnam and the war there. In an earlier book, Duiker commented that
''the most striking fact about the Vietnam War is probably not why the United
States lost, but why the communists won.'' Focusing on this formulation has
enabled him to spend his time studying Vietnamese nationalism, communism, and
revolution under the radar of the popular debate about the causes and conduct of
the American war. Ho represents the culmination of Duiker's study and reflection
about what he concluded when he was a State Department officer in Saigon in the
1960s: ''Viet Cong guerrillas appeared to be better disciplined and more
motivated than the armed forces of our ally,'' and ''one explanation was the
role played by that master motivator, the veteran Vietnamese revolutionary Ho
Chi Minh.''
In the introduction to ''Ho Chi Minh,'' Duiker quotes Ho's response to a
question posed him in Hanoi in 1962 by Bernard Fall, the legendary chronicler of
the French war. Ho said, ''An old man likes to have a little air of mystery
about himself. I like to hold onto my little mysteries. I'm sure you will
understand that.''
In 1962 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, I attended a dinner at which Fall, fresh from
Hanoi, repeated in every conversation the main revelation he brought with him.
Contrary to the popular story that Ho did not physically live in Hanoi's
presidential palace but instead, reflecting his simpler tastes, preferred to
live in a hut behind the residence, Fall proclaimed that he had inspected the
grounds of the residence and there was no hut there. Fall was triumphant, having
debunked a budding Uncle Ho myth.
But Duiker reports several times that Ho refused to live in the palace,
preferring first a small gardener's house on the grounds and then a small simple
hut constructed for him there. Duiker even provides two photos of the gardener's
house.
Demystifying Ho is clearly a tricky business.
Duiker's first 400 pages chronicle Ho's life up to the outbreak of the First
Indochina War in 1946. He painstakingly reconstructs Ho's life, including Ho's
stay in Boston in 1912-13 as a cook's helper at the Parker House. Eighty-eight
pages of end notes, many of them brief substantive essays, testify to the
thoroughness with which Duiker has ransacked American, French, Chinese,
Vietnamese, and Soviet archives and memories.
Ho's fantastic life catches us up: his childhood association with legendary
Vietnamese nationalist Phan Boi Chau; travels around the world in French ships
with stays in Harlem, London, and elsewhere; application to join France's
Colonial School ''to become useful to France''; joining the French Socialist
Party; seduction by Lenin's ''Theses on the National and Colonial Questions'';
joining the Communist 3d International; departure for Moscow in 1924 to work for
the Comintern; subsequent career as a Comintern agent - ''pure Leninism,'' a
''true believer,'' ''an accomplished Stalinist.''
Still, after reading this meticulously documented account of Ho's coming to
Marxism, we encounter, out of nowhere, Duiker's pronouncement that ''There are
valid reasons for the argument that [Ho] was above all a patriot.'' The
pronouncement follows and precedes pages of evidence testifying to Ho's
allegiance to Marxist-Leninist ideas and the Comintern. This ambivalence
pervades the entire book. It is perhaps crystallized for Duiker when Ho turns
down the post of party secretary general in 1941. Duiker hypothesizes: ''Perhaps
he still viewed himself as an operator on the world stage as an agent of the
Comintern. ... Perhaps he already had begun to focus on a future time, when as
president he could hope to rise above the constraints of class struggle
represented by the Communist Party to represent all the people in an independent
and prosperous Vietnam.'' Since all Duiker's evidence points to the former
hypothesis while Duiker's own feelings point to the latter, it is to his credit
that he gives us the ammunition to shoot holes in his own beliefs.
But after the outbreak of the First Indochina War in 1946, Duiker's book
deteriorates.
First, Duiker spends too little time on Ho in order to recount the oft-told tale
of the French and American wars themselves. Context for Ho is necessary, but
Duiker tells us too much about the rest, and we are left to rapid page-turning.
Second, and presumably a cause of the first, is that Ho begins to elude Duiker.
We previously had a painstaking recital of Ho's life and views, richly
documented. Suddenly Ho recedes. Duiker's problem is illustrated by his report
on the party's Second National Congress in 1951, which Duiker believes marked a
''major defeat for Ho and his influence.'' Duiker is reduced to writing that Ho
''must have been,'' and ''probably represented.'' Duiker subsequently is writing
that Ho ''must have been,'' ''must have felt,'' and ''may have been appalled,''
a far cry from earlier firmly documented statements. It is clear that for the
period after the war broke out to Ho's death, Duiker does not have the sources
with knowledge and familiarity that he did for the first part of the book.
Still, he does lift the veil from the saintly Uncle Ho. Duiker cites the ''cool
realism of Ho,'' who, when informed of the Viet Minh murder of the leading
Vietnamese Trotskyite, commented: ''All those who do not follow the line that I
have set out will be smashed.'' At one point, Duiker discusses Ho's role in a
brutal 1954 land reform program in the North and cites instances of Ho's
intervention in specific cases. Duiker remains scrupulously honest in summing
up: ''But even if Ho did not wield the knife, he had nonetheless set the stage
for those who did. It is significant that even after he was informed about
excesses ... he made little effort to use his immense prestige to mitigate their
effects. While Ho demonstrated no personal predilection for the use of brutality
against his adversaries, he was willing (in the pattern of ideologues throughout
the ages) to condone such actions by his subordinates in the larger interests of
the cause.''
Examining one of the great debates among Americans, Duiker kills one myth. He
poses the issue: ''It has often been said that the United States lost a golden
opportunity to avoid a future conflict in Indochina when it failed to respond to
Ho Chi Minh's overtures at the end of World War II.'' Duiker briefly summarizes
the factors that give ''some plausibility'' to this argument. He then
regretfully lays the thesis to rest: ''Ho's oft-expressed admiration for the
United States was more a matter of calculation than conviction ... to gain
tactical advantage ... US recognition ... would not have been enough to wean the
Indochina Communist Party from its primary allegiance to Moscow or its
dedication to the doctrine of Marx and Lenin.''
Even for a determined and balanced chronicler like Duiker, Ho has kept his
''little mysteries.'' As far as determining whether Ho was primarily a
nationalist or a communist, Duiker blinks. In the end we still have no clear
image of Ho. In his last pages, Duiker overreaches, writing, ''Ho Chi Minh was
half Lenin and half Gandhi.'' Duiker concludes ''Ho, then, was ... an
`event-making man.' Whatever the final judgment on his legacy to his own people,
he has taken his place in the pantheon of revolutionary heroes who have
struggled mightily to give the pariahs of the world their true voice.''
Horsefeathers. In this large book, one finds little of Gandhi in Ho's life, only
in his state-constructed myth. The people to whom Ho gave ''true voice'' were
the communist cadre who in the North in 1954 and in the South in 1975 imposed
the repressive and retrograde system the pariahs in Vietnam have had to endure.
In a broader sense, does it matter? For Vietnamese today, Duiker reports, ''the
state cult of Ho is still in existence in Hanoi, where it serves primarily as a
prop for a regime desperately seeking to maintain a relevance in changing times.
... Future prospects for maintaining the Ho cult are ... dim ... many no longer
see him as a figure of central importance.'' And why should they? All Ho did was
to defeat two alien armies of barbarians from faraway lands who interrupted
Vietnamese life for a century and a half. But the heroes and heroines in
Vietnamese history, such as the Trung sisters, Le Loi, and Tran Hung Dao, fought
Vietnam's true and permanent enemy over four millennia, China.
For the United States, the Vietnam War is fast receding into memory. The bleak
black granite wall on the Mall in Washington ensures we will remember those who
died there at the call of their country. But with a US president who protested
that war having visited Vietnam, and with its strict orthodox communist system
strangling the country's political, economic, and spiritual life, the importance
of Vietnam continues to decline.
Ho, like Alice's Cheshire cat, is slowly disappearing as well, with only his
wispy beard and ascetic face remaining. Duiker's amazingly detailed chronicle of
the first part of Ho's life and his speculative look at the latter part arrives
when we, in the larger world, need it less and less.
Stephen Lyne, a 30-year State Department veteran who served in Indochina,
teaches American foreign policy and the Vietnam War at Boston University.