[freeangel]

I seem to understand that this is a result of many poor choices that were made and left for the taxpayers to clean up. From cradle to grave, I guess.

[ThanhPhero]

In Việt Nam the elderly are respected repositories of wisdom and are treated very well save those without families who are reduced to begging or to the semi respectableized profession of selling lottery tickets. One's children are one's social security. In large families the oldest girl is raised to not marry but stay in the parent's home to take care of the parents in their old age or to marry with the new husband becoming the heir and moving in with his wife's family.

I love it there. When I go (going again in September)the Old Fart boards the airplane at this end and Honored Grandfather gets off the plane in Sài Gòn. If I find myself alone here and cannot work, my vicarious family all tells me to come to Việt Nam. They will treat me as if I am the natural Grandfather. My protégé says she and her husband are prosperous enough now that they will send me the tickets if I reach the point that I cannot afford them. They will add a room to their house for me. This is the lass who I took on to keep her in school when she was a 14 year old sharecropper's(rough analogy) daughter whose family of 6 was living on about $800 a year.